Wireless connected to wifi router but not Internet

This is weird. I have an HP notebook, 2 years old with XP Home and wireless-b. My co-worker has a Dell, 6 months old with XP Home and wireless-g. Both of our computers are having the same problem. We can both connect to the same wifi hotspots and neither of us can connect to other wifi hotspots that we used to be able to connect to.

In the tiny town where we work the county library and courthouse are both free wifi hotspots. Before July we had no problems using either of those wireless systems. But in early July one of the town’s phone lines went out taking the county government Internet connection with it – there was no wired or wireless Internet for 3 long weeks. When the Internet connection came back up, the wireless notebooks in the library still work perfectly, but my partner and I can only connect to the routers - we cannot connect all the way through to the Internet. We have a strong signal to the routers, but no Internet.

We have checked and rechecked our settings and nothing has changed. We have checked our settings against the wireless notebooks in the library and they seem to be the same (I’m no network genius so I easily could have missed something). The library staff is not computer savvy at all, so they didn’t do anything. We both can connect to three other wifi hotspots in the town without any problems. I’m running Norton Antivirus 2006 and Zone Alarms, but my partner is not using either one of those. I’ve turned both of those systems off and still no Internet.

What am I missing? The town is so small that the network professionals have to come from 90 miles away to service the county.

 

Perhaps the library placed some kind of security on their wireless. Perhaps they would now like you to use a "key".

 

I checked that. They don't know what key is. And the router connection tells me it is an unsecured connection. Again I can link to the router with no problems. I can't penetrate to the Internet. Hmmm, key??? Could it be I don't need a key to get to the router but need a key to get past it?

 

When you say you can connect to the router, if you do an IPCONFIG /ALL do you get IP addresses? If not, you are not connected to the router.

 

I'm pretty sure I do. I'll check this morning.

 

I stopped by the court house this morning to get this report. Now I'm reporting from the Dairy Queen. IPCONFIG /ALL gives the following

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

C:\>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Notebook
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : co.live-oak.tx.us

Ethernet adapter Wireless Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : co.live-oak.tx.us
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 802.11b
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-30-4A-5A-8C-F3
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.115
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 12.162.136.13
12.175.220.3
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, August 23, 2006 10:44:04 AM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, August 24, 2006 10:44:04 AM

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet

NIC
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-A0-9D-42-0A-61

C:\>

Besides verifying the IP address, are there any clues in that little report?