Acquiring Network Address Problem

[Torn]

Hello, I'm a bit of a laptop n00b, but anyway, I've been having trouble with my wireless connection with my laptop, it'll say Acquiring Network Address and never really connect. Ive tried repair, unplugging modem/router ect. nothing works, I think it may have something to do with renewing my IP address and it not actually renewing it? I'm not sure.

Anyway this kinda started with it not even detecting my router's WIFI connection, when my desktop,Wii, PSP(infrastructure) ect. did. After some time I think i unplugged modem and the router and after doing that it did detect the connection, but when connecting it just stayed at "acquiring network address" and would never connect, i tried alot of things and nothing worked so I'm stumped :/ This "acquiring network address" thing has happened once before actually but i forgot how i fixed it. Actually right now it stopped detecting any connections again, even though other things still do, so I need help Anyway the laptop is an Acer Aspire 5100 running XP if that helps at all. Sorry this is kinda messy but I'm kinda in rush so ill be back tomorrow. Thanks in advance.

[Killgannon]

are you using xp's wireless manager or a 3rd party one? (exact name of xp's manager escapes me atm) i've had this issue before as well... for me its always been that it wasnt detecting the network id correctly, like WEP or WPA or whatever and it was always while using linksys's manager

[Torn]

XP's wireless manager i believe, gotta go to sleep now though gotta wake up early tommorow so i wont be able to check back til tommorow.

[Cephius]

If your computer is getting stuck at "aquiring network address" and you have wireless with security enabled, chances are your connection settings on your laptop got erased and you need to reenter the key. Note also that there are sometimes two "keys" - a passkey, which is a word that is easy to remember that you set on the modem, and the other is a hexidecimal number that is the network key. If all else fails, enter the hexi number. For whatever reason, sometimes the router accepts the key but not the passkey. If this doesn't work, connect your laptop directly into the router and check the settings. Common default addresses for routers are "192.168.1.1" or "192.168.0.1" with default usernames and passwords of admin/admin or something similiar. Once you're in, check that the wireless is enabled, broadcasting, and check the security settings.

Hope this helps.

[Killgannon]

if his Wii can get on its detecting it and working... (Wii ONLY connects wirelessly theres no ethernet on a Wii, PSP is the same way i'm pretty sure)

try this

in your wireless manager remove all the networks you see in there, have it look for networks again, double click on yours, try entering your passkey correctly again...

[Arkanna]

I know this may seem like a simplistic solution, but it's happened to people I know, so it's worth mentioning.

Your laptop should have a key on the keyboard labeled "Fn", like "function". Check your row of F-keys, one of them may have a little antenna-looking icon on it. Holding in the Fn key and tapping the F-key with that icon on it will enable/disable your laptop's wireless antenna.

(And yes, it's possible for the wireless connection to be enabled in Network Connections while the physical antenna is disabled via the Fn Antenna key, so check it. You never know.)

[Vyvian]

are you using xp's wireless manager or a 3rd party one? (exact name of xp's manager escapes me atm)

XP's manager is called Wireless Zero Configuration. There is a little glitch that will make it say its continuously trying to "acquire an IP address" and you'll see the yellow dot go back and forth, but it had already connected, it just doesn't fix the icon.

[Torn]

Well I managed to fix it, and it was the stupidest thing that was the problem -_- somehow someone must have screwed around with the connection settings and changed the WPA key to the wrong one or something and, putting in the right key wouldnt work, but like 2 days later I tried it with caps lock on and it works so i feel like a complete idiot. Now I have another problem with it. The laptop only detects my router if the charging cable is hooked up to it, and when its not it doesnt detect it whatsoever, it doesnt make sense, anyone happen to know whats wrong?

[Vyvian]

I'm not sure where you'd go for that setting, but some notebooks disable a variety of functionality when running on batteries to save power.

[Cephius]

Control Panel -> NIC Configuration -> Check "Always active on battery"

[Sigi]

It's not under Network Card
It's in the Wireless Network Card's manager.

If it's a Dell, go to the Dell Quickset and change the option to disable the antenna powering down to save battery. Other systems just have you do it in the wi-fi nic's management program