wifi half-connected

what does it mean when you are "connected" to a strong wifi signal, but there's a little yellow exclamation point and it won't let you DO anything?

this happens at ONE particular public library near my house a lot. never seen it happen at any other library, bookstore, cafe, or school. and it doesn't happen consistently -- one day i'm in there w blazing hot speed (whoda thunk the public library wud have the fastest network around?!) -- the next day i'm totally locked out.

techie guy taught me to do some fiddling with ipconfig/refresh or /renew or summat on my old PC. sometimes i cud kickstart it this way, but not always. and since i got a new PC, i didn't think i'd have to deal w this again.

w7 ran a bunch of network diagnostics and said i'm "good to go". i shud also note that not a SINGLE OTHER PERSON has ever complained of this! and for that reason the obstinate library clerk refuses to put me in contact w their tech consultant - some mysterious figure who set up the network but has no accountability.

i shud also not that i had NO PROBLEM at the place yesterday.

today i shirked away in defeat and set up shop elsewhere.

 

1) yes

2) AdAware, ZoneAlarm, ASC and SAS the ones running in the background i guess. none of which were running on the "good" day (since i was in process of DLing them), so you may have a point.

but they were all running, ALWAYS, on my old PC, and this limbo state only occured like every OTHER visit there. at first i thought it was a "too many users" type issue, but that is clearly not the case.

[the one time i DO know that it occurs is when you get a "log in to network here" or "click here to accept terms" splash, but don't notice it. used to happen to me a lot when i rushed to boot FF, but the splash screen was back over in IE, minimized somewhere. not the case atm, tho]

3) no clue. i update w/e i am asked to update, but i'm not all that clear where to find it all.

i have 3 entries under "DevMan>>Networking" 2 of which relate, i guess, to wifi (one being LAN). should i single these out and click "update drivers"?

"Chipset"...???? not even sure what that means. u talking abt flashing BIOS?

> ....netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

ok, does this take precedence over the others? if this "works", shall i leave all those AV apps in place? or should i uninstall them once and for all, and leave THIS as a later resort?

either way, it will have to wait till my next wifi session. i'm back HOME now (dialup), having wasted ANOTHER 4 hours at the library trying to get to my first GOOGLE search....

 

for the record, i am at the library in question again today, and was fully connected from the minute i booted! before i'd even found my "connect" button.

i would say "i don't get it", but that would be an understatement beyond words.

further details in the "w7 for idiots" thread.