Fed Up: Computer won't connect to wireless network

Right. It's the usual. Having spent around 2 hours searching online forums for help on this, trying out various solutions, I can't get it to work.

Ok, I have a wireless network. All computers on the planet, including the 6 laptops and computers that have used it in the last few months can connect to it successfully. Except one.

I have a Netgear Wireless Router Model WGR614 v6. Network security is disabled.

I am happily submitting this post from my laptop which is quite happily connected to the wireless network.

The other computer uses Windows XP. It has a Netgear Wireless Adapter, WG111v2. I have successfully connected the adapter to another computer, so it isn't faulty. I have also installed the latest driver.

The little wireless connection icon on the task bar has a little yellow warning triangle. The computer is connected, but has little or no connectivity.

This is my ipconfig output:

Microsoft(R) Windows DOS
(C)Copyright Microsoft Corp 1990-2001.

C:\DOCUME~1\CHARLE~1>ipconfig/all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : D9Y0WJ2J
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) 82562V 10/100 Network Connection
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-16-76-D7-96-0D

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NETGEAR WG111v2 54Mbps Wireless USB2.0 Adapter #2
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0F-B5-CD-58-CA
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.31.162
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

C:\DOCUME~1\CHARLE~1>ipconfig/release

Windows IP Configuration

No operation can be performed on Local Area Connection while it has its media disconnected.

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection 2:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

C:\DOCUME~1\CHARLE~1>ipconfig/renew

Windows IP Configuration

No operation can be performed on Local Area Connection while it has its media disconnected.
An error occurred while renewing interface Wireless Network Connection 2 : The requested service provider could not be loaded or initialized.

C:\DOCUME~1\CHARLE~1>

I am aware that the 169.254.31.162 auto configuration address is a problem, but I have no idea how to fix this.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm pulling my hair out on this, and will be bald by the end of the week at this rate.

 

Before you format your system there are some troubleshooting basics we can do. first see if your card is installed properly. check device manager to see if all devices are installed. second we can flush the dns cache. go to command prompt and type "ipconfig /flushdns" without the quotes. check what channal your card is set to. if all that fails you can remove the tcp/ip stack by uninstalling tcp/ip and then reinstalling it after a reboot.

 

You have a few suggestions already.....but do not reinstall XP as a fix as yet. Your wireless is not acquiring an IP address from the router, that much we know. I would try going to Hardware Devices finding the Wireless card and deleting it. Then shut down the computer. When the computer is powered up the wireless card drivers will be installed fresh once again. Lets see how that goes.

 

Right, been away a while, but have spent some time going through all your suggestions and some others on this site.

It all works now. Hard to know exactly what made the difference, but I firstly uninstalled pretty much everything that I didn't need, and even stuff I did, including all antivirus and firewall software, and turned off auto startup of pretty much everything. I also hadn't run the winsockxp fix successfully and after I did the wired connection worked. I could then complete the whole malware cleanup procedure, and reinstall a bunch of stuff. Finally reinstalling the software for the wireless adapter and plugging it in got the wireless connection to work.
Now just got to keep it working, as it took about 2 days to sort it all out!

Thanks for your help.