No Connection to Free Wireless Network.. Help Please

[wintersteele]

I just bought a new sony vaio laptop with an internal orinco wireless card. Last month, it picked up on one of the nodes on the New York City Wireless networks near my job, and I was able to surf the internet fine -------with no setup effort on my part whatsoever with exception to setting the SSID and other very basic instructions from the nycwireless webpage. So far the nycwireless.net lists that particular node as still available.

Now when I go out there and try to connect, I cannot. I run the internet connection wizard and still no go... no web pages, no ability to connect to AIM, or get email etc. My laptop reports a strong signal being recieved in the "network connections" part of the control panel.

I use this laptop at home on a simple wired network to my computer or directly to my cable modem thats all.

What might be going wrong?

[adsdos]

Wich OS are you using? Remember that M$ Windows 95/98/98SE/ME + 2 Lan devices' is not a good Stuff!.
If you're using one of this OS and you used the wired connection after the wireless one this may be the problem.

You can be able to configure the 2 devices and it may work correctly but someday (maybe by the weather) your windows tells you that it doesn't work anymore.

[wintersteele]

Thank you for your reply. I am using M$ Windows XP Pro.

[adsdos]

I think that in M$ Windows XP there's no problem with the 2 lan's devices. Maybe the node is not Public anymore, or you must change your wifi device's config.

[oshea85]

Maybe the HS you were accessing changed their IP scheme, or added WEP?

If they're doing DHCP, what happens when you do a release/renew?

[wintersteele]

I will try it monday. I am still new this all this networking stuff. I am pretty sure I have done a release/renew somewhere in the settings. I will have to find it again.


I am also going to try connecting elsewhere on the nycwireless net.

[tpkinsl]

I am having a similiar problem. I have a Sony Vaio laptop, with a Microsoft MN-520 card, running Win 2000 Pro. The wireless connection works fine on my home set up (with a Linksys Base), but does not ever detect other networks (hotels, Starbucks, aiport lounges...). The utility does not 'sniff' other networks, so I can't see them. I had a Linksys card and returned that, but am having the same problem, so I think it is the laptop or the OS.
MS support has been no help. I do have several LAN connections configured - I saw the prior post about that potentially being a probelm.
any help or suggestions?

[Riptide]

Tom,

Are you able to see the two small computer monitor icons on your taskbar? If they are showing w/ an X through them, indicating that no wireless signal is available, and you "know" you're in a hotspot zone, you may need to pull your network card out and re-insert it. I've got a linksys AP at my house, and have noticed when I try to use my laptop at another hotspot my card sometimes falls asleep and doesn't sniff. Usually removing and reinserting the card wakes it up.

Let me know if this helps.

Pearsall

[tpkinsl]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I do have the two icons with x thru them. I thought I tried yanking the card, but I tried so many things, I'm not sure anymore! I'll be on the road next week and will give it a try.
Any other suggestions are still welcomed.

[Riptide]

Tom,

One other thing you may want to do is download "netstumbler". This is a really neat software program that actively sniffs out 802.11 networks, and gives you very good dB signal readings. Go to netstumbler.com and follow the instructions. It's free. I've found that if you don't see anything showing on Netstumbler, then the access point is not broadcasting, or one doesn't exist at all.

I know this is a dumb question, but are you positive that an access point exists in the locations you're visiting? Additionally, in a couple of cases, I've been to hotels that were "hotspots", but the installation of the access point was so poor that the coverage didn't even exist on the other side of the lobby!!

One other thing (and you may have done this already), but sometimes you have to "force" the Microsoft Network Connection program to pick up the access point. Click your wireless connection icon, click properties, and then click the Wireless Connections tab. You'll probably see your home Linksys box on there. If you are in, say, Starbucks, you should see another ap show up in this window. Highlight it, and hit refresh. Sometimes this forces it to work. A pain in the backside, but hopefully the kinks will get worked out as this technology advances....

Pearsall

[tpkinsl]

Pearsall,
thanks for the suggestions:
- I'm pretty sure the hotel hotspot was active - I had the hotel i/t guy trying to help, and his laptop was working. I even went to sit next to their access point, with no luck.
- When I use the utility, the other networks don't show up as apps to choose. When I am home, linksys shows up, when I leave home it disappears (as I would expect). But, I never see another network - it is not 'sniffing' for anything other than my linksys. When I get home, it automatically finds it.
- I did download netstumbler. My guess is that it must take the signal from the card, so if the n/w card doesn't see a n/w, the app can't see it either. So, netstumbler will always see my home n/w, but nothing on the road.
- I had the same problem with a linksys card and ms card, so I'm guessing it is a h/w / microcode / OS interaction. I have posted to both the Sony and MS sites, no responses yet.
- WinterSteele - did you ever figure out your issue? You config is very close to mine.
sign me 'stumped in NJ'!

[acizurqpid]

Are there any free wireless network?

is there a website where i can search for them?

i'm in the L.A area