i am having trouble with an established network communicating to a new
wirless laptop. I have cable hi-speed service that goes into a cable
modem. Line from modem goes to linksys 4 port router, model befsr41.
one ethernet line from router goes to a desktop machine (windows 98)
and another ethernet line goes to lucent technologies Orinoco antenna,
model RG-1000. This antenna is communicationg to a wrieless Gateway
brand laptop (windows Me). This has been working for about 4 years. I
have a new HP nx5000 model laptop (xp professional) with built-in
802.11b card. I can't get the HP laptop to get to the Internet. It
sees the orinoco antenns and tells me that the signal strength is
excellent. HP had me go to a Panera Bread store where I was able to
get to the internet in about 15 seconds. I know I am missing something
but cannot figure out what it is. Any help?

Based on the information provided, you need to set up your hp laptop
to work on your home network. the network 192.168.3.x which your
laptop is configured for will not work on your home network. you need
to enable dhcp for your local network. you need to set the ip to
assign automatically and same for your dns settings.

to do this go to your network connections and double click on your
wireless one and click properties. if you can get to the screen that
lists the types of protocols installed, tcp/ip should be listed and
you need to click on that and click properties. at that point you
should select autoconfigure for both and everything should work fine.
you might have to do an ipconfig /renew command similar to the
ipconfig /all command that you did to find your information in the
first place, but then everything should work.

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Request for Answer Clarification by ptowhey63-ga on 19 May 2004 05:09 PDT

I tried this but I can't get to the screen for the tcp/ip.  The laptop
works when I use a cable to connect it to the router.  In fact, that
is what I am doing at this moment.  I have had no problem witht he
laptop this way, only when trying the wireless set-up.  Any other
ideas?

---

Clarification of Answer by funkywizard-ga on 19 May 2004 16:28 PDT

I'm sorry I wasn't clear in how to change the settings.
In addition to changing from static to dynamic ip settings, you would
probably also benefit from an alternate configuration option which
would allow your computer to automatically use the static ip at work
and the dynamic one at home.

the following excerpt from the ms windows site says how to set things
up the way you need:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/howto/homenet/autoconfig.asp

in the picture shown on that page (
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/howto/homenet/images/autoconfig2.jpg
) it shows the screen at the alternate configuaration tab. if you
follow their directions to get to that tab, you can then change over
to the general tab and set your computer to autoconfigure mode.

If anything is still not clear, or this doesn't work, please let me know.

Hello,

Networking problems can require lots of troubleshooting to diagnose. 
The first step I believe is to figure out if you're new laptop is
getting the correct IP address from your DHCP server.

1) Click Start > Run
2) Type 'cmd', press enter
3) Type 'ipconfig /all', press enter

Please post these IP details as well as the IP's of the other
computers on your network.

-Ted

Here is the info:

Desktop computer
DHCP Enabled            YES
ip 192.168.1.138
subnet mask 255.255.255.0
default gateway  192.168.1.1
dhcp server 192.168.1.1


GATEWAY brand laptop that works on network
ip 0.0.0.0
subnet 0.0.0.0
dhcp 255.255.255.255

HP laptop
DHCP enabled NO
ip 192.168.3.109
subnet 255.255.255.0
default 192.168.3.2
DNS servers  198.6.1.2
198.6.1.3

This laptop is from my office.  I recognize theis IP info as that used
for the office netork

I initially had the same problem as well.  However, I found that it
had to do with power settings on the wireless card.  If you are trying
to use the wireless while not plugged into the wall you need to change
the power settings to high.  They are set to low by default to save
battery power when using wireless.  Go to the properties of the
wireless connection, click on Configure for the hardware device, go to
the advanced tab, click on Power Management, uncheck the default box,
and change the setting to High.