Heres a chance to show me how easy it is to fix a PC problem (mac guy here) :-)

[Tim Morton]

Heres the story...
my daughters dell laptop will not connect to her wireless router any longer. She has comcast cable and a linksys wireless router. It seems that her IP address is set to 192- which I have found to be a windows default iP?

On my mac i would restart the computer and it would recapture the router...but on a PC this seems to require a degree in physics to solve such a simple problem... I had her power down all 3 units and then start the modem...then the router and then the laptop. NOTHING

She has another laptop in the apartment and that works fine...so I guess the question is how can i get her back online? She called dell and they wanted $50 to open a trouble call

go easy on my here....

[Mike DeHart]

could be many things, is the other laptop new to the network? Do you know if the router was set up limiting the amount of connections (sometimes done to prevent freeloaders).
Can you plug it into the router using a network cable and get an address? if it's an external network card are the lights blinking? Have you tried shutting the laptop down and removing the network card, rebooting, and reinstalling the network card?

another thing to try is clicking on the start button, run, and type "cmd" (might be "command" in older os's) in the box and hit ok. this should get you a dos prompt (now were talking fun....). Type "ipconfig/renew" and hit enter. Does it show an IP address?

a lot of questions, but might get us going to the solution. (love my 3yr old mac mini...)

[Jim Becker]

It actually works no different than your Mac...the router, if setup properly to supply an IP address via DHCP, will do so. With a Linksys router, that will normally be in the address range 193.168.1.x, which is the default "internal" IP address range for that hardware.

If your daughter's machine is not acquiring an address, which sounds to be the case, then there is something amiss with the network connection setup on her laptop. If there is a network icon showing in the "tray" (lower, right corner of the Windows desktop), right click on it and select "repair". The icon looks like two PC screens slightly offset from each other with "radiation" lines for a wireless connection. If there is no icon in the tray, click on Start and then go into the Control Panel and click on the icon for "Network Connections". Right click on the wireless network connection and again, select "repair". This automated process should fix any problem with the DHCP setup for the machine assuming the router is working properly. This process works with both a built-in wireless network interface and with one that goes in a PCMCIA slot or USB port.

[Tim Morton]

I think she has done the repair jim, and it said it could no longer proceed and to contact the network administrator. i guess the thought that was me??

On a hunch i had her connect to the router via an old fashioned ethernet cable and that works....if that means anything.

[Greg Cuetara]

The first thing I would do is hardwire the laptop into the router and make sure that you can connect to the net. If you can then it is a wireless card problem. If you go to control panels there should be one for the net and you can see what your options are. Make sure that the computer is recognizing the wireless card, you should be able to see it in the network control panel. If the computer is able to pick up the wireless signal but not connect then it is a router problem. You will probably have to take the working computer and log into the router and allow the new computer to access the network. Look in the router manual to tell you how to log in and how to add computers. My wireless network is closed so that only computers I allow can access the internet.

If you can't see the wireless network and the computer is not recognizing the wireless card then it is probably a hardware problem. If you can see the wireless network but can't log in then you will need to set up the router.

This is coming from a Mac guy who uses a lot of PC's. In the end mac's just do a lot of the grunt work for you whereas PC's you have to tell it where to look and what to do.

Good LUck and let us know you find out any more info.
Greg