wireless internet woes

TheSonicRetard

Alright, let me preface this by saying that I really, really suck when it comes to wireless internet.

That said, I drove to my home in Houston this weekend for a little relaxation and to visit the folks. Upon arriving, my dad informed me that he had purchased a laptop and that he couldn't get the wirless connection to work. Previously, I had bought them this really cheap compUSA brand wireless router so that when I went over to the house, I could use my laptop wirelessly, so I was a bit confused as to the problem.

I brought my laptop, and opened it up to see if I could connect - sure enough, my laptop won't connect. So, I unplugged everything from the router and the broadband modem and let it sit for a while.

I then took an ethernet cable and connected my laptop straight into the broadband modem to see if the internet was fucked up. I got an IP address, and was able to connect, so I know that's not the problem.

Then I tried plugging in the router. I connected the router to the modem, then connected my laptop to the router via ethernet cable, and again, it worked, I got a connection.

But wireless still doesn't work, and I have no clue where to even begin fixing it.

I have a dell laptop, and it came preinstalled with this weird third-party thingy that is used for managing wireless connections - it sits in the system tray like so:



It's really fucking annoying, because it pretty much sucks at giving me any feedback. If I double click it, I can bring up a manager program, and this is where things get a bit weird.

If I type in my router's ip address and go through setup and change nothing, then click "apply changes" (which, I believe, reboots the router), then immediately afterwards, my laptop will find the wireless connection and bring it up as a choice to connect to, like so:



However, when I try to connect, the manager gives me an extremely unhelpful "unable to connect" message:



And, this is where things get weird. After I get this message, if I click refresh, the connection disappears, like I don't even have a wireless router:



Just a bit of info in case it's relevant: when I go to configure my router by typing in it's ipaddress, one of the options I can configure is Authentication type. My choices are "open," "shared," and "auto."

I currently have it set at auto.

Thats all I got. Any advice, tips, hints, anything? I'm really stumped.

Grimm

Well first thing i would try when dealing with a wireless router would be to try changing the channel. If those are screen shots of your actual computer and not just something you found online, im thinking thats a little low of a signal if your sitting in the same room as the router. Since it seems your not around your parents house all that often, im guessing one of the neighbors bought something since your last visit thats causing interference. Try downloading Netstumbler and checking the air waves.