Networking Question

[TromboneAl]

Reformatted and reinstalled Windows on DW's laptop to clean up system and improve performance.

The computer sees the wireless network (never asked for password, though I'm sure I had security set up -- I'll deal with that later), and connects fine.

However, the shared folders on my computer are not visible in her network places, and "View Workgroup computers" only shows her own computer. Her computer also cannot connect to the Internet.

So far all troubleshooting wizards have been useless.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

[CybrMike]

If you cannot connect to the internet its probably not connecting to the wireless network properly. Fix your "didn't ask for password" issue and all other issues will be resolved.

[SoonToRetire]

Originally Posted by TromboneAl

Reformatted and reinstalled Windows on DW's laptop to clean up system and improve performance.

The computer sees the wireless network (never asked for password, though I'm sure I had security set up -- I'll deal with that later), and connects fine.

However, the shared folders on my computer are not visible in her network places, and "View Workgroup computers" only shows her own computer. Her computer also cannot connect to the Internet.

So far all troubleshooting wizards have been useless.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

Make sure the workgroup names are the same, could be that when you reinstalled you lost the name. The default is MSHOME, but you might have a different name on your computer. If all else fails, check your firewall. I had the hardest time, and found out I had two firewalls on, the windows firewall, and a PC-CILLIN virus plus firewall protection. I turned off the PC-CILLIN firewall and left my windows firewall on, and it worked fine. Since I have a router, that's also a physical firewall.

[TromboneAl]

Thanks CybrMike. You were correct. In redoing everything, I noticed that there was a place for the WEP password. However, first time through I hadn't seen that, and instead of telling me "Hey, you didn't supply a password, so you aren't connected" it just acted as if everything was OK.

I'm up and running now, but I need a drink.

[RunningBum]

Could the laptop be picking up a neighbor's wireless signal instead of yours?

Never mind, I see it's been fixed while I was typing my response.

[TromboneAl]

I was hoping that a nice clean system would (1) improve performance, and (2) allow Standby to work. After 6-8 hours of fighting the system, installing first the XP that came with the machine, then upgrading to the latest XP, neither of those things were achieved.

Too bad.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

What make/model is this and whats the performance issue observed?

[TromboneAl]

It's a Dell Inspiron 2500. No specific performance issues, but it's pretty slow sometimes.

I determined that the problem with recovering from standby is caused by the PCMCIA Netgear WG511 network card. So if after coming back from standby, I remove and reinsert that card, things work OK.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Oh well yeah, theres your problem right there. Thats an old timer.

Some extra memory might pep things up a bit but just about anything off the dell outlet would run rings around it.

Check for newer drivers for the wg511. The standby issues might have been resolved by something more recent.