Odd Problem??

[martyn2691]

Hi

I have a rather strange situation where I am no longer able to connect to wireless internet.

I use the free internet from the shop downstairs, I had permission to use it as does the rest of the house.
The strange thing is that since my Wifi went down yesterday, I have noticed its also disabled on my smart phone too.

The notification says that there is limited or no connectivity and a normal repair only prompts that my PC cannot renew its IP address

So I tried to renew and re list the IP setting, flush the DNS, recatalogue etc and still no joy. I have re installed my PCi adapter twice and even used a different card, pulled them out and cleaned the PCi slot...basic housekeeping

An ipconfig command at the command line shows that the IP address isnt your standard 192.168. xx type ...(its something like 165.0.01)...the subnet is normal 255.255.xx

A look at the status window in attempt to manually input an IP address instead of the automatic function shows that there is no default gateway...just the odd IP address found when I did ipconfig.

Ive also tried a winsock repair..no joy..also I have checked the services.msc and made sure all the relative services are enabled and automatically set.

An attempt to connect to a different network ( my smart phones 3g hotspot and also my neighbors wifi) both were successful...so I dont see the problem to be with my PCi adapter......but then again I dont think its the shops router either, as both of my housemates can use the internet on their phones??..they are not tech savvy at all and would defiantly remember if they had recently changed anything or lost the service...usually its me who has to set up their computers or smartphones and they would be banging on my door if they lost the service also!

Im unsure if a wrong WPA 2 key would show up as a "limited or no connectivity" notification??..surely it would just say that the key was wrong?

im lost...any ideas

many thanks

Martyn

 

[eibgrad]

You can stop w/ all the hardware removal/reinstallations, driver reinstalls, etc., because your PC is performing 100% normally.

The "limited or no connectivity" message occurs when your PC is configured w/ DHCP (which is the default) and which automatically configures your TCP/IP parameters by contacting the DHCP server on your router. The problem is, the DHCP server is not responding. Under such circumstances, the TCP/IP spec requires the PC to randomly assign itself an IP address in the 169.254.x.x address space. The thought being, if you have several PCs on a network without a DHCP server, at least they will receive a working if only basic TCP/IP configuration and be able to communicate w/ each other. But they certainly won’t be able to access the Internet since they have no means to determine the default gateway (which is typically the IP address of your router).

So that’s why it’s “limited” to others who are in the same situation (you can minimally communicate w/ them), or perhaps “no connectivity” if you’re expecting to have Internet access.

So that’s the “how” of the problem. What it doesn’t explain is the “why”. Why is the DHCP server not responding?

Could be the router is using MAC filtering to limit access to only specific machines based on their MAC address. Or perhaps the DHCP server has exhausted all its leases (can happen if there’s a lot of users and long lease times). Or maybe the DHCP server is hung (sometimes there are bugs in the router code) and the router needs a reboot. Just to name a few.

 

[martyn2691]

HI,

many thanks for your reply,

I popped into the shop today to ask them if the router is ok...they say its fine as they are playing "spotify" ( although that doesnt mean much if they are using a library of music and not live streams)

I asked them to browse to a web page and it seemed ok...a peek at their router showed only 2 lights illuminated one being "wireless" and the other the power light.
I did look to see if there was a "broadband" light but couldnt see properly as there was items covering my view.

Their laptop defiantly isnt wired to ethernet.

I think you may have something about the leases...its a busy shop and they hand out their wpa code to many customers.....a previous look at the routers homepage in the past ( i cant remember the IP address to insert into the address bar) saw many people's devices in the history, Iphones, tablets, laptops and my computer.

Maybe its just fried?

Your also right about not having to pull the adapter out of my PC, the guy down stairs says he's lost connectivity too...

Its frustrating..i got bills to pay

many thanks

 

[martyn2691]

HI,

many thanks for your reply,

I popped into the shop today to ask them if the router is ok...they say its fine as they are playing "spotify" ( although that doesnt mean much if they are using a library of music and not live streams)

I asked them to browse to a web page and it seemed ok...a peek at their router showed only 2 lights illuminated one being "wireless" and the other the power light.
I did look to see if there was a "broadband" light but couldnt see properly as there was items covering my view.

Their laptop defiantly isnt wired to ethernet.

I think you may have something about the leases...its a busy shop and they hand out their wpa code to many customers.....a previous look at the routers homepage in the past ( i cant remember the IP address to insert into the address bar) saw many people's devices in the history, Iphones, tablets, laptops and my computer.

Maybe its just fried?

Your also right about not having to pull the adapter out of my PC, the guy down stairs says he's lost connectivity too...

Its frustrating..i got bills to pay

many thanks

 

[martyn2691]

HI,

many thanks for your reply,

I popped into the shop today to ask them if the router is ok...they say its fine as they are playing "spotify" ( although that doesnt mean much if they are using a library of music and not live streams)

I asked them to browse to a web page and it seemed ok...a peek at their router showed only 2 lights illuminated one being "wireless" and the other the power light.
I did look to see if there was a "broadband" light but couldnt see properly as there was items covering my view.

Their laptop defiantly isnt wired to ethernet.

I think you may have something about the leases...its a busy shop and they hand out their wpa code to many customers.....a previous look at the routers homepage in the past ( i cant remember the IP address to insert into the address bar) saw many people's devices in the history, Iphones, tablets, laptops and my computer.

Maybe its just fried?

Your also right about not having to pull the adapter out of my PC, the guy down stairs says he's lost connectivity too...

Its frustrating..i got bills to pay

many thanks