If The Laptop Were A Sailor...

[skippybangkok]

My mrs latop dont work.... so as the "IT" guy at home, I thought i would tinker with it..... we have a wireless DST-604 router / modem which works fine with the other computers...... but not the laptop....

when digging deeper, kinda stumbled on a fact that there are no "ports " ( Com and LPT ) under system .hardware to be found.. Strange, is this a software or hardware issue.

Strangely enough, the computer connects to the modem, but nothing happens...

thx for advice.

[billd766]

I have an Acer Travelmate about 16 months old and it has 4 usb slots, 1 telephone jack slot and a Lan slot.

It also has a wireless facility and Bluetooth but no floppy drive though there is a CD drive.

Unfortunately this is the way that things are going now. Most peripherals are connected through usb, bluetooth, wireless lan and hard wiring is becoming a thing of the past.

My first company laptop back in the last century (1988) was a Toshiba 1100 with 1 floppy drive a 2mb of hard drive. That got uprated to a Toshiba 1220 with 2 floppy drives and a whopping 4 Mbof hard drive.

Nowadays if you could find one it would be worth something as a museum piece.

[naka]

My mrs latop dont work.... so as the "IT" guy at home, I thought i would tinker with it..... we have a wireless DST-604 router / modem which works fine with the other computers...... but not the laptop....

when digging deeper, kinda stumbled on a fact that there are no "ports " ( Com and LPT ) under system .hardware to be found.. Strange, is this a software or hardware issue.

Strangely enough, the computer connects to the modem, but nothing happens...

thx for advice.

If it did have a COM and a LPT port I wonder what you would want to plug in ?

Naka.

[Tywais]

Enter the BIOS at startup and check if they are enabled. I am assuming you actually have com/lpt port connectors on the back?

[nikster]

when digging deeper, kinda stumbled on a fact that there are no "ports " ( Com and LPT ) under system .hardware to be found.. Strange, is this a software or hardware issue.

Strangely enough, the computer connects to the modem, but nothing happens...

Forget about the whole ports issue - that's normal on a modern computer. Ports are leftover artifacts from an earlier, simpler age, and if it weren't for some anachronisms in windows you would never use them. As it were, my bluetooth modem set one up... bottom line, ports are not your problem.

What do you mean by "the computer connects but nothing happens"?

Do you mean it connects to the WiFi but can't see the internet?

First thing to do is try the laptop on another WiFi network, in the cafe or any of the places with free WiFi to see if it works at all. Even if you don't pay for access, if you see the "enter your user name and password and/or credit card number" page you know the WiFi is OK.

Then, update the drivers with the latest you can find on the internet.

I just fixed an issue on a friend's machine which would see my network but not connect to it - I just updated his WiFi drivers with the latest versions from Intel and then everything worked fine.

Also try to connect the laptop via LAN cable and see if that works. We need more information to fix this...

[skippybangkok]

when digging deeper, kinda stumbled on a fact that there are no "ports " ( Com and LPT ) under system .hardware to be found.. Strange, is this a software or hardware issue.

Strangely enough, the computer connects to the modem, but nothing happens...

Forget about the whole ports issue - that's normal on a modern computer. Ports are leftover artifacts from an earlier, simpler age, and if it weren't for some anachronisms in windows you would never use them. As it were, my bluetooth modem set one up... bottom line, ports are not your problem.

What do you mean by "the computer connects but nothing happens"?

Do you mean it connects to the WiFi but can't see the internet?

First thing to do is try the laptop on another WiFi network, in the cafe or any of the places with free WiFi to see if it works at all. Even if you don't pay for access, if you see the "enter your user name and password and/or credit card number" page you know the WiFi is OK.

Then, update the drivers with the latest you can find on the internet.

I just fixed an issue on a friend's machine which would see my network but not connect to it - I just updated his WiFi drivers with the latest versions from Intel and then everything worked fine.

Also try to connect the laptop via LAN cable and see if that works. We need more information to fix this...

Thanks,

Will try it out today. To be honest, I never looked if it had a port / LPT before, so maybe it was never there to start off with. It was the only difference between my laptop and the Mrs. laptop.

The computer can connect to the modem , it says connected to "XY" ( my name on the Wifi), but when I try to open a page, nothing happens ( like when you open a page with the modem not connected. Strange thing is have 2 other computers at home and an Xbox, and they all can work with the internet no problem.

[Gumballl]

I presume you running Windows... therefore open a command (DOS) shell. Type in ipconfig. Post to this thread what your "DNS Suffix" and "Gateway" are.

Also try pinging the other systems on your network. If you need to know another system's IP address, simply run ipconfig on that particular workstation.

[skippybangkok]

OK Guys,

I am ready to be lined up and shot....... IT guy at work took a look at it, I think the Mrs. put the wrong Key into the security when connecting...... net result, the internet " connects ", but the web page dont work.

I was flabberghasted that I could not solve this problem..... so simple.

Rubber bullets preferred over lead ones...