Cannot see home wireless network but can see neighbor's

alethea11 said:

After taking advice from several different websites something finally worked and I was able to connect to my home network. Thanks for the advice everyone!

Do you remember what "advice from several different websites" you did which was or could have been responsible for fixing your problem? This would likely be very helpful to others in the future, even if their situation was not exactly the same as yours.

How about just listing the things you tried? Again, this would likely be helpful.

Just saying "something worked and I can now connect" is of course good news for you, but leaves the rest of us who've been following this thread a bit in the dark (for closure).

I also posted the same question to an hp help forum, and after following this advice it worked. Hope this helps!


Start with following.

Powercycle the network:
1. Shut down your notebook.
2. Unplug the power to your router.
3. Unplug the power to your modem.
4. Wait at least 45 seconds.
5. Plug in the modem, and wait for it to come back online.
6. Plug in the router, and wait for it to come back online.
7. Turn on your notebook, and test your connection.

Reset the TCP/IP settings on your PC:
1. Go to your start screen/menu and type CMD.
2. Right click on the command prompt icon and chose Run as administrator.
3. In the window that opens type "netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt" without quotes, and press enter.
4. Restart your PC and test.

It may also help to reset the winsock catalogue:
1. Go to your start screen/menu and type CMD.
2. Right click on the command prompt icon and chose Run as administrator.
3. In the window that opens type "netsh winsock reset" without quotes, and press enter.
4. Restart your PC and test.

Reinstall the network adapter drivers:
1. Download the drivers from here but do not run them yet.
2. Go to your start screen/menu and type Device Manager.
3. Expand Network adapters.
4. Right click on the wireless adapter and choose Uninstall.
5. Run the downloaded drivers from step 1.
6. Restart your PC and test.

If those three steps do not resolve the issue, try this document published by Microsoft for networking issues: Wired and wireless network problems. You can change the operating system with the dropdown in the upper-right corner of the document.

If you have other networks available you may want to try changing the channel of your wireless router to eliminate radio frequency interference (RFI). try changing it to 1 or 11 (default is usually 6). This will take the broadcast of the wireless signal as far away as possible from most other networks. To do this you will need to contact support from your router manufacturer. Don't forget you can also reset the router completely for a fresh start, which may be a good idea.

These are all very good recipes for "cleaning things out" (e.g. undoing the things you may have unwittingly impacted negatively during your ongoing attempts to follow others' suggestions) and essentially resetting your PC's software support for networking "back to conceptual uncustomized factory settings".

And it generally can never hurt to have the most up-to-date drivers for all hardware, including network adapters. So uninstalling/reinstalling your wireless NIC's drivers falls into this category, again "resetting to factory" with the latest driver as your new starting point.

Now that you've outlined the HP forum advice you got, I'd say it was an excellent collection of general purpose remedies and recommendations. Much like very often pulling the power plug out of the wall for almost any piece of electronic equipment that is suddenly acting inexplicably crazy, waiting a minute, and then plugging it back in (therby forcing it through its "cold power-on full reset cycle") very very often is all it takes to get things all straightened out and working properly.

So when your cable system tech support CSR (or automated phone system message) tells you to do this same thing when you have odd behavior from your DVR and phone in for support, it's also not nonsense. It truly is often the easiest solution for many "should not occur" symptoms and shouldn't be discounted just because it sounds so simple.

Anyway, that's a good recipe you've recapped. It's absolutely true that in terms of the right power-on sequence when multiple networking devices are connected, the modem should always be powered on first and allowed to stabilize (meaning its lights "settle down" into their steady state pattern), then the router gets powered on next and also allowed to "settle down"), and finally you can begin powering on your network machines like desktop and laptop machines. Powering everything off and then powering them back on slowly and in this proper sequence can indeed produce seemingly miraculous results.

And of course the fact that this whole course of action appears to have gotten your problems resolves speaks to the soundness of what was suggested. The successful results speak for themselves.

Excellent.