Hi,
I'm afraid I'm having a horribly annoying problem with my laptop’s Wi-Fi connection and I would be exceedingly grateful if anyone could help me out.
Device Info:
It's a Dell laptop Inspiron N5110 running Windows 7 that I've had for four or five years now without any modifications.
I’m trying to connect to Sky Hub Model SR102, although I believe, as I shall go on to explain, that the fault is primarily in my laptop. Internet also provided by Sky.
Oh, and my Wi-Fi adapter driver is Intel(R) Centrino(R) wireless-N 130.
There are normally two other devices connected to the network here. My mother’s laptop and smartphone, but after failing to connect properly on my current laptop I dug out my old, buggy laptop from storage and that connects to the router perfectly.
Background Info and Issue:
I've just come home from university for the Christmas holidays. Before I left my laptop's internet was working perfectly, but when I got back and tried to connect to the wireless sky hub here - which I’ve connected to several times flawlessly in the past - something went wrong.
It's not that my laptop refuses to connect to the hub at all.
It comes up in the Wireless Network Connection box as being connected to the hub, and in the Network and Sharing Centre it claims that it has a perfect signal, a speed of 72 Mbps, and that the IPv4 has internet.
Occasionally it comes up with the little yellow triangle warning symbol on the wireless connection icon - and when I check it states that the connection to the router is broken - but that symbol tends to vanish pretty quickly by itself.
However, even when it says it’s connected to the internet I can't open any web pages via any web browser. When I try, they either load for ever and ever or, if I try to follow a link, don’t change the page at all but merely change the address in the address bar. When they do, very occasionally, and after several minutes of loading, open a page, it’s in a distorted format and with a 'cannot connect to server' message in the middle. (I’ve been testing it with youtube, as the last thing in my history, so that may just be linked to its homepage banner video).
While the warning symbol comes up, and it says its connection is broken, the internet doesn't work in any way, and loads the normal 'no connection' pages.
Yet other computers are working fine on this network, and my laptop works OK if I use an Ethernet cable, so I'm guessing it’s a fault in my computer - though of what kind I have no idea. I have not, however, been able to connect it to any other inter source since leaving university, so I suppose it could be a matter of both of them (I’m not especially knowledgeable about computers I’m afraid). My journey back didn't involve the laptop getting smacked about or dropped.
My computer has no manual wireless networking switch, but according to the Windows Mobility Centre Wireless is on. Also, I’ve tried a clean boot and that hasn’t fixed the problem.
A couple of extra pieces of information, if it matters. Whenever I try to get a connection map up my laptop says it can't because elements aren't responding, and every time I try to troubleshoot the internet issue when it does get a rare low warning triangle, not only does it come up with a broken connection warning, it also tells me there was another problem . "The default gateway is not accessible". But it always states that the problem has been solves. It does this every single time I try to diagnose the wireless connection too without there being the warning symbol, but it does not come up with the broken connection problem.
If anyone could help me fix this issue, or even help me find out what the actual problem that's causing it is, I would be utterly overjoyed.
The hub is in an extremely awkward place to connect to with cables, and I can't borrow my mother's laptop for ever.
Thank you eternally in advance.
