Comments on: Help!

By: hrugaar

hrugaar — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:31:00 +0000

This makes me even less inclined to get a mac. (No, I know your laptop ain’t a mac, glenda, but…)

So glad you got it sorted now. They are good helpful lads, aren’t they? 🙂

By: glenda larke

glenda larke — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:06:00 +0000

It is indeed, Jo. Some of my closest friends were made through the internet, but even more wonderful is how often complete strangers will come to one’s aid.

For the tech folk: the problem started with the server going down for a couple of hours, and the same thing happened just before it was fixed – the server was down.

By: Jo

Jo — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:02:00 +0000

I am so glad it finally worked OK. You certainly got lots of help from lots of people. Ain’t the internet wonderful?

By: glenda larke

glenda larke — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:36:00 +0000

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can't believe this. I decided I would try one more time to get it to automatically give me an IP address and DNS address - and it calmly did so, as if it had never given me a problem in its life.

I dunno why, and at this stage I don't care!

Thank you all you good people. YOu are GREAT.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:21:00 +0000

If your ISP is Streamyx/TM, on their help page (under "Cannot browse") it states the DNS settings should be:

# Primary DNS: 202.188.0.133
# Secondary DNS: 202.188.1.5

Can you confirm that's what you've got configured? If that's not the right provider, then please ignore. :-)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:16:00 +0000

Maybe if the macs are working fine, we need to look at their settings …

Can you compare their settings with your Windows ones?

http://it.muc.edu/documents/macnetwork.html looks like the best way.

It would be even better if you could take pictures of the screens – email them to me or Ru (you should be able to use PrintScreen and paste them into Paint, save them to a USB drive, put them on the Mac and then email them).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:04:00 +0000

Airport is the Apple Wi-Fi router.

If Windows XP is set up to use DHCP to allocate addresses but the router won't give it one, then Windows will allocate a 169.254.x.x address in desperation.

So - the Wi-Fi router isn't giving you a DHCP address - and we're getting somewhere!

If you were using Mac OS, Apple suggest disabling and re-enabling the network or restarting the router.

Some grossly insulting questions are now going to follow (you can tell I've done IT support) ...

1. Is WiFi turned on on the laptop?

If there's a light for the WiFi, what colour is it at the moment?

Oh, and what laptop have you got?

2. Did you have to put in a WEP or WPA key when originally connecting in over WiFi?

If yes, then try getting your laptop to rescan for networks or (should be in the Control Panel, under Networks) - this should prompt you for the network key again.

3. Try going into the command line and running "ipconfig /renew" - this will fire out DHCP requests.

Support is so tough without being able to walk up to the offending machine!

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:46:00 +0000

Glenda, is your laptop directly connected to your broadband (via its own ADSL or cable modem), or is it connected to a router/modem?

An IP address starting with 169 is strictly used for local networks, which are allocated by your router/modem (using a protocol called DHCP). Your ISP shouldn't have anything to do with that part, as it has no knowledge of what happens behind your router/modem (as far as it's concerned, the only IP endpoint that exists is the one offered by your router/modem).

Since you can use Skype, it would seem that IP connectivity is working fine (and thus your allocated IP address should also be okay). DNS is still the most likely culprit.

By: glenda larke

glenda larke — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 14:37:00 +0000

I dunno. I think from what I can see (thanks to what Khaldan, Phill and Jason have said), that my problem is that the ISP refused to give me an IP address (after allowing me to bestow me one beginning with 169., which cannot be used to access the internet. Is that possible? I have no idea what my original IP was.

Diagnostics tell me there is a problem with my IP, but don't tell what to change it to.

Ok, I am now off to check the IPS webpage. Can anyone tell me whatever possessed the IPS to call themselves AirPort? Were they insane? Try googling that...

thanks you guys,,,you are great.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 12:43:00 +0000

For what it's worth, the symptoms match a DNS problem, which Khaldan described how to diagnose (very nicely!).

(DNS is the service used to translate a domain name (e.g., google.com) into an IP address, which any computer connected to the Internet really needs to communicate.)

Google for "configure DNS XP" for lots of examples. This one isn't too bad.

Your ISP should provide a support page that tells you how to configure this. Usually, it is set to "Obtain DNS server address automatically", but sometimes an ISP requires it to be explicitly supplied.