Getting notebook to work with wifi advice needed

Ok, my friend has asked me for advice on wi-fi and I confess I have never used it nor really read much about it despite being pretty knowledgeable on computers in general.

She has a new Sony VAIO notebook with integrated Wi-fi 802.11/b/g support. She recently joined Verizon DSL which included a DLink wi-fi router, this model

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=316

which sounds compatible. Trouble is she says she can only connect thru the Ethernet LAN port. I'm "guessing" she somehow has to tell the notebook to use the wireless connection rather then the wired LAN ethernet port.

Any advice here on what to tell her to do so she can connect thru the wi-fi port?

There are a few variables here...

Is the wireless router set up to restrict connections by MAC address? Is encryption enabled? When she goes in to view wireless networks, is hers at the top of the list? Etc...

Dlink sucks hard, btw...had one before and it died. Working on replacing it with Cisco equipment now. Could never get encryption to work with the dlink...I suspect the processor wasn't powerful enough to handle it...works fine on the new access point with the Cisco router and switch.

Edit: I did leave out the obvious things of making sure the hardware switch was on and that wireless was enabled in device manager. Giving y'all more credit than that...

JM-99

There are all sorts of reasons why it doesn't work. Some notebooks have a little switch to turn on/off the WLAN card, and others you have to fiddle around a bit with the driver software. Usually looking in the System Tray in the taskbar will help you out. Try clicking around with the various WLAN-looking icons and you'll probably find a window or two that lets you scan for the wireless router, and then connect to it. The wireless could also have been disabled by default on the router. If you want to reconfigure the router, do "ipconfig" in the command prompt ("cmd" in Start -> Run...) and just open the Gateway IP address in your browser. Passwords should be either blank or in the manual somewhere.

Disable the wired Ethernet connection. I've had laptops that defaulted to the hard-wired port and refused to look psat it to the wireless port unless it was disabled.

Settings-->Network--> Right-click on Ethernet port and select Disable.

If she has a new Sony she should call them and ask them to walk her through the process of turning on the internal WiFi and connecting to the router.

My Dell with builtin WiFi is relatively simple but probably wouldn't be simple to someone without a little bit of experience tinkering in Windows and tinkering with WiFi in general.

PhotonWrangler said:

Disable the wired Ethernet connection. I've had laptops that defaulted to the hard-wired port and refused to look psat it to the wireless port unless it was disabled.

Settings-->Network--> Right-click on Ethernet port and select Disable.

Click to expand...

As PhotonWrangler stated above, you might want to check to see if the wi-fi is disabled.

Carrot had some good advice as well.

You'll need to get the stats from the dlink router (SSID, adhoc/infrastructure, where MAC filtering is enabled as JumpMaster stated, and WEP keys if enabled). Once you have that info, if it has been setup, then you just mirror it on the Sony. Make sure you've got the DHCP/Static IP and the rest of the card configured correctly too.

Sincerely,

Shaman

I use that router and it's been fine! However, I use a Powerbook with it on WiFi, as well as some other PCs/Macs on the ethernet. The router does need to be configured. If the ISP had a script to set it up, who knows. WiFi may not be enabled, so you may as well check all the settings. Any web browser will do (manual is on the D-link site).

Also, when making changes just try one thing at a time. It can be more difficult if you change several things at the same time. Do an ipconfig first and go from there.

BTW, all the notebooks that we deal with at work come with wireless enabled from the factory. My Sony Vaio was the same, as well as my Toshiba. Go ahead and check in device manager, but I doubt that's the problem unless the user disabled it previously.

But...if she's not very comfortable with computers, as bjn70 said, it may warrant a call to Sony and/or Dlink to their tech support so they can walk her through configuration, step by step.

Good luck!

JM-99