So yesterday afternoon I got this message on my laptop, complete with the little yellow triangle hovering over my little internet icon at the bottom of my screen. The weird part is that my desktop computer and my mom's laptop (both of which are using wireless from the same router) can both successfully connect -- I'm using my mom's laptop to type this. I tried unplugging the router and plugging it back in and it didn't help... my laptop still won't connect.
Here's a few of the facts:
- From the bit of research I've done I see that this problem often coincides with a recent installation of Windows XP Service Pack 2, which I have not done.
- I'm using Windows 7, just FYI
- My big desktop computer already has an Ethernet cable connecting its built-in modem directly to the router. Someone on another site suggested using an Ethernet cable to connect my laptop directly to the router, but my laptop is a little bit of a junkpile and doesn't have anywhere to plug one in.
- When running Windows Network Diagnostic it tells me that there's a "problem with the wireless adapter or access point" which would be the router. I've tried resetting the router, but it didn't help.
I'm not sure how much it matters but I first noticed this problem when I was running a virus scan on my laptop. About halfway through the scan it had picked up 3 infected objects. I was using a different computer while I waited for the scan to finish and when I came back in my laptop had mysteriously shut itself down. I rebooted it and got the whole "Windows was not properly shut down" thing with the options to restart in Safe Mode and such. I just restarted it regularly and when I got back on that's when I noticed that I had no internet. I re-ran the virus scan and got rid of all of them. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with my lack of internet, but I figured it was worth mentioning.
While attempting to research solutions for the problem I've seen a lot of stuff about IP addresses and a bunch of acronyms I'm not familiar with. I really don't have a clue about all this networking stuff. Does anyone have any suggestions that could help me out??
Here's a few of the facts:
- From the bit of research I've done I see that this problem often coincides with a recent installation of Windows XP Service Pack 2, which I have not done.
- I'm using Windows 7, just FYI
- My big desktop computer already has an Ethernet cable connecting its built-in modem directly to the router. Someone on another site suggested using an Ethernet cable to connect my laptop directly to the router, but my laptop is a little bit of a junkpile and doesn't have anywhere to plug one in.
- When running Windows Network Diagnostic it tells me that there's a "problem with the wireless adapter or access point" which would be the router. I've tried resetting the router, but it didn't help.
I'm not sure how much it matters but I first noticed this problem when I was running a virus scan on my laptop. About halfway through the scan it had picked up 3 infected objects. I was using a different computer while I waited for the scan to finish and when I came back in my laptop had mysteriously shut itself down. I rebooted it and got the whole "Windows was not properly shut down" thing with the options to restart in Safe Mode and such. I just restarted it regularly and when I got back on that's when I noticed that I had no internet. I re-ran the virus scan and got rid of all of them. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with my lack of internet, but I figured it was worth mentioning.
While attempting to research solutions for the problem I've seen a lot of stuff about IP addresses and a bunch of acronyms I'm not familiar with. I really don't have a clue about all this networking stuff. Does anyone have any suggestions that could help me out??