problems connecting laptop wirelessly

We've just been given a laptop, it has a built in wireless card but we cannot get it to connect wirelessly to our netgear router and aol. It will connect fine using ethernet cable but when you go for it wirelessly it doesn't want to know. We just had a message saying it could not detect a wireless connection then suddenly we were on the internet, then just as quick we were off again and it was back to saying that there was no connection. We've spent hours on the phone with aol who have been good but after a while just seem to be stumped. How do we find out if the wireless card is knackered? could this be our problem?

This is getting tedious now as the bloke who gave it us was using it fine wirelessly up to the day he gave it us. he doesn't know what to suggest either. Help???:cry

 

What kind of adapter does it use? I don't know much at all but I am having problems with a Ralink 802.11g Mini Card Wireless Adapter it seems.

 

1. check firewall. if it is on, the moment it detects you trying to connect to a network different than the one it was previously on, it will likely go bonkers trying to 'protect' you. Temporarily disable and see if this resolves the issue.

2. do the following to clear the basic parts of your internet settings:

start - run - cmd

ipconfig /flushdns
netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

reboot pc.

3. Make sure that your wireless router/access point is not having a channel conflict with another wireless device in the house (usually 2.4ghz cordless phones, and sometimes certain types of street lights). You can *usually* fix this by going into the router/ap settings and setting the wireless channel to 11. that keeps the phone from hitting it 99% of the time as it cycles up the channels connecting between handset and base each call.

4. if steps 1 and 2 and 3 don't work, the next step is to assume a possible driver issue. connect wired and then download the latest driver package for the wireless device in the laptop.

Then, in device manager, uninstall the wireless device, then reboot the laptop. When it comes back up and asks you to install the driver for the 'new hardware', cancel the driver install, then go and install the driver package you downloaded before the reboot. You'll likely have to reboot the laptop one more time after that for the new drivers to take effect.