Wireless is conected, but no network access

Hi all,

This is my first post, and I am not the most technical person in the world so please bear with me! I have searched this forum for the problem I am having, but I cant seem to see the exact issue.

Two weeks ago I bought a DELL Inspiron 1545 - T4500, and I had no problems with it. It connected to my Wireless Internet, and my parents' one without a hitch. However, at the weekend, one minute it was connected to the wireless, and the next minute it lost the signal. I tried to re-connect it, but no luck. It sees the network, says that it is connected to it with full strength, however in the 'Currently connected to:' section at the top of the pop-up, it says 'Unidentified Network, No Internet Access'. And when I try to go onto the internet, it says 'Server not found'.

I have tried the diagnostic test, and it gives the error that 'The Default Gateway is not available'. I have tried turning off the modem and router, and unplugging everything, but it still isnt working. Interestingly, my old laptop (XP, about 4yrs old) IS working. Also, I have tried to link to my parents wireless and a friend's and neither are working on the new PC.

Here are some of the specs of the new laptop that isnt working, if you need anymore info, let me know. Please can someone help?

Thanks
Sarah

DELL Inspiron 1545 - T4500
OS: Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64bit)
Wireless: European Dell Wireless 1397 (802.11 b/g) WLAN Mini Card
Driver: Broadcom 5.30.21.0, dated 7/7/2009

That's a pretty common problem, just delete the wireless profile by going to network and sharing center and clicking on manage wireless networks. If you're using the Dell WLAN utility to manage your wireless connections, uninstall it and use windows to manage your wireless instead.. as it's nothing more than an unnecessary layer over a native windows function anyway. Once that's done you should be able to reconnect.. and hopefully microsoft will be forthcoming with a permanent fix to wireless connection problems that only happen when windows 7 is installed

Hi madtownidiot,

Thanks for your suggestion, but unfortunately it hasnt changed anything - I am still having the same problem. I wasn't using the DELL WLAN Utility, however I did see it loaded on the laptop. Should I uninstall it anyway, even if I wasnt using it?

Also, I tried to contect the laptop to the internet using the wire, and exactly the same thing happens - It says it is connected to my internet, but has 'Unidentified Network' at the top, with no ability to connect.

Any other suggestions anyone??

Sarah

I would be curious to find out, if you bring up the command prompt when connected, what is your IPv4 Address? If you're getting a 169.254.x.x address, it may indicate that your router either doesn't have DHCP enabled or has a problem and is unable to hand out addresses. If you know what IP Addressing scheme it uses, try setting a static IP to see if you're able to connect that way.

If not, it indicates one of two possiblities, either the NIC is bad or the modem/router is bad. In this case since both wired and wireless you get the same result, most likely the issue would be the modem/router.

Hi sesjp,

You can take refuge in the knowledge that I have the same PC and the same problem! For your reference, Safe Mode With Networking does work! That means, if you need to connect to the Internet and you cannot via normal mode, you'll be able to do so through Safe Mode With Networking. Simply tap F8 whilst your computer is booting up, and select the correct option from the Boot Menu.

Now, to address the problem, I've tried a variety of things. For me, booting into Safe Mode With Networking and connecting to the Internet for a while, then rebooting into normal mode usually sees the Internet connection fixed. In my 'Connect To' dialog it says I'm on the network (in your case, unidentified network) but it also says 'No Internet Access'. That, I must admit, is incredibly annoying.

You can fix the 'unidentified network' by going into the 'Network and Sharing Center' and then in the 'View your active networks' section, click on 'Unidentified Network' and select 'Home Network' (if that's what you'd like to set it as).

So now that that's sorted out, we can explore some other fixes. Usually, if I go into the Network and Sharing Center, and click on 'Change Adapter Settings' and then right-click on my network and click 'Disable', and then reboot my PC, I'll usually connect to the Internet straight up. It's a bit of guess and check at this stage, and at times I'll not be able to connect to the Internet in normal mode for two weeks. Other times, I'll connect every time with no problems for two weeks straight - and then it'll randomly drop out saying 'No Internet Access'.

This is a truly puzzling scenario, and I hope both you and I can find the answer we're looking for here. Hopefully, I've given you some things to try in an attempt to restore your Internet connection. Yes, do go ahead with the uninstallation of the Dell WLAN Utility, because I'm interested to see how performance is without it. Perhaps it could be the savior of both of us - I know I've uninstalled it.

Good luck, my friend.

Thanks,
Harvey Meale

sesjp said:

Hi madtownidiot,

Thanks for your suggestion, but unfortunately it hasnt changed anything - I am still having the same problem. I wasn't using the DELL WLAN Utility, however I did see it loaded on the laptop. Should I uninstall it anyway, even if I wasnt using it?

Also, I tried to contect the laptop to the internet using the wire, and exactly the same thing happens - It says it is connected to my internet, but has 'Unidentified Network' at the top, with no ability to connect.

Any other suggestions anyone??

Sarah

Click to expand...

You should check to make sure there isn't a rogue default gateway showing up and that your IPv4 network connection is using the correct default gateway. The link below shows you how to do this.

The default gateway will be different depending on the router you are using, make sure to look up the correct default gateway before making this adjustment to your IPv4 properties.
Windows 7 Unidentified Network, Limited Access, No Internet Connection Problem Resolved

No Network Access No internet Access in Windows 7 Wireless

If you are experiencing problems with getting out to the internet, but your Networking and Sharing Center states you have Excellent signal and you are connected but it say "Limited Acess" this basically means you have no internet and their is no gateway. This happened to me after removing an application used to Manage a Wifi device such as At&T Communication Manager. Once I restarted it blocked the connection.

Here is what WON'T work:

- Rebooting router
- Rebooting Modem
- Hard Wire Connection
- Changing Security method
- IPconfig/renew/release
- IPconfig/FlushDNS
- Turning off Firewalls
- Static IP
- Changing wireless profilee settings

Here is what WILL work and worked for me, follow these steps:

Start
Accessories
Scroll to the "Command Prompt"
Highlight "Command Prompt"
Hold Shift and Right-click on "Command Prompt"
Choose "Run as Administrator"
You are now in the System32
Run this command: netsh winsock reset
It will prompt you to reboot your pc.
Reboot and try to reconnect to your preferred wireless.

Somone who tries this, please post with a Result

I have try netsh winsock reset on one of my laptop that has the problem. It works. Thanks

I have the same problem and same hardware as the original poster. I've tried doing the reset in the command prompt. It doesn't show "unidentified network" anymore. It shows the proper router name but it randomly shows the yellow error triangle on the wifi bars. With and without the errors the Internet is still not accessible. very weird.

Uninstalling the Dell utility also uninstalls the wifi device driver. That didn't do anything.

Overall no fix. I'm thinking the router isn't compatible with the laptop (even though it worked before).

Installed the Dell utility (without it it doesn't work) and tried to connect with another router and it worked. So the problem is the original router that's almost 10 years old.

sinshan23 said:

If you are experiencing problems with getting out to the internet, but your Networking and Sharing Center states you have Excellent signal and you are connected but it say "Limited Acess" this basically means you have no internet and their is no gateway. This happened to me after removing an application used to Manage a Wifi device such as AT&T Communication Manager. Once I restarted it blocked the connection.

Here is what WON'T work:

- Rebooting router
- Rebooting Modem
- Hard Wire Connection
- Changing Security method
- IPconfig/renew/release
- IPconfig/FlushDNS
- Turning off Firewalls
- Static IP
- Changing wireless profilee settings

Here is what WILL work and worked for me, follow these steps:

Start
Accessories
Scroll to the "Command Prompt"
Highlight "Command Prompt"
Hold Shift and Right-click on "Command Prompt"
Choose "Run as Administrator"
You are now in the System32
Run this command: netsh winsock reset
It will prompt you to reboot your pc.
Reboot and try to reconnect to your preferred wireless.

Somone who tries this, please post with a Result

Click to expand...

I found this thread through Google and thought I should add my anecdotes regarding AT&T Communication Manager. Hopefully this will help other people identify issues related to it.

I work for a small cable ISP and have encountered at least two other cases of Windows getting broken/botched after uninstalling AT&T Communication Manager.

Yesterday, I spoke with a new customer. His previous provider was AT&T, and the AT&T Communication Manager software had been installed on his computer. Though his connection was working fine, the AT&T Communication Manager was nagging him constantly, so he decided to uninstall it. After removing it, he could no longer get DHCP on the wireless connection and didn't have any way to test the direct-wired connection. He couldn't even get DHCP when connecting to an unsecured wireless network. We performed a System Restore to a point before the AT&T software had been uninstalled. Clearly, System Restore failed to fully restore the AT&T software because we got an error message on boot indicating that Windows couldn't find something in Program Files and the path\filename referenced AT&T Communication Manager. So it restored the startup entry in the registry, but it didn't restore everything to %programfiles%.

Side-note: If System Restore can't properly keep track of %programfiles% contents, then what good is System Restore? Every time I've *ever* needed System Restore to work in a situation like this, it consistently fails. I'm not exaggerating.

The previous case was a customer with a Toshiba laptop that couldn't get online after removing the AT&T software. The AT&T software had originally bundled some kind of McAfee security software and there were indicators that it wasn't fully removed. If I recall correctly, DHCP still worked but all protocols (HTTP, FTP, POP, IMAP, SMTP, etc) were blocked...except ICMP ping. I could ping out just fine. The customer blamed us because she said it had worked with her previous provider (many months earlier). She got some free computer work out of it. Of course, System Restore didn't work. I had to back up the customer's files (just a few pictures) and perform a factory restore. The factory restore took an entire day because Toshiba's restore process is full of FAIL. Even after the restore was complete, the hard drive turned out to have a bad sector which would cause Windows to freeze shortly after reaching the desktop on each boot.

1) This is a problem with bloatware, botching systems by not removing itself properly.

2) It's also a problem with Microsoft Windows, allowing itself to be botched in ways that aren't easily-reversible with System Restore.

[edit]
Oh, and thanks for the winsock reset info. It worked this time. The previous time this happened, the system botched itself too badly after failing System Restore.

Thank you sinshan23 you helped my internet

Reset Winsock worked!

Thank you Sinshan23!