Laptop's lost IP & can't see network - HELP PLZ!

toshiba laptop with Belkin wi-fi pmcia card has worked fine for yonks, suddenly ISP upgraded broadband speed to 10ghz and adapter won't re-connect to router & can't connect to DHCP server (my routers cofigged for dhcp & other pc's work ok). This laptop's doing my nuts in. For 2 days I've been jigging, uninstalling, re-installing, disabling, enabling, rebooting, ipconfigging & nothing works. Any suggestions from you Geeks? (This is embarrasing - my kids think I can fix anything!) :confused

 

First turn off your modem - router and computer.
Then try rebooting the modem; then rebooting the router; then rebooting the computer. (With a minute or more delay at each reboot.)
If that doesn't clear up the problem, I'd contact my ISP. It is after all a problem brought on by a change they made.

 

Yeh, did all that; been doing all that on and off for 2 days. Other PC's on wired LAN work fine, pick up new IP via DHCP & everything, and the laptop works OK if I plug it into the LAN, it's just pants on the wireless card!

 

Does your Device Manager show any errors?
Did your wireless card come with an install disk?
When you say it is failing to connect to the router, do you mean that it sees the router and won't connect? / or it doesn't see the router at all?

 

No, device manager is clean. It half sees the router. I mean it connects and everything looks green for go, but then you can't access other computers on the lan or connect to the internet, and when I look at the little network logo in the task bar, there is only OUTGOING activity, RECEIVED activity is zero.:cry

 

In fact, I now think I'm trying to fix something that is all of Virgin's making. I just did a speed test and realised I've been upprd from 4Ghz to 10Ghz without me knowing or being informed. All the interruptions to the service has resulted in my PC's turning t**s up, then because they've crashed I've gone fiddling into them and probably made things worse. The only reason I can contact you now is 'cos this machine has Win ME on it and has System Restore. The laptop with all the problems is running Win2K and has no such facility, so when it shuts down in a not-working condition, it goes ahead and "saves your settings"! What use is that when the settings are screwed up? Next time it reboots it just wakes up knackered!

 

That last post is incomprehensible to me, so I will address the one before it.
It sounds as if the Internet and File Sharing option has been disabled on this computer.
Check your firewall and your Internet Options.

 

OK Joel, I'll try and take it slowly.
I've just got back online after taking the router out of my network and plugging this single PC directly into the cable modem. I did this because I suspected that the router may be faulty in some way, so by removing it and verifying that I now have a restored connection I think I have identified at least one problem. The obvious cure here is to go and buy a new router and try that in place of the old one.
I now believe that the original problem which manifested itself as my daughter's laptop not connecting to the network or internet through the wireless access point was due to the malfunction of the main router. The only thing I really worry about now is; why did my router appear to go faulty at exactly the same time as my ISP upgraded the service from a 4mb connection to a 10mb connection? It's as if the extra speed blew out my router's insides!

I can absolutely attest 100% that no changes at all were made to the laptop settings, but thanks for taking an interest. :major