New laptop and home wifi fail- help please?

Over to the font of all knowledge that is STW.

I have a wifi broadband doofer (see the level of tech. expertise?) and my old laptop works fine with it. My new laptop (a macbook pro) and my new ipod touch both pick up the signal and join the network with no problem, showing maximum signal. However, neither will then connect to the internet.

Is this a ISP problem, hardware or setup issue? Anyone any ideas. The old laptop is also a Mac. The new laptop and ipod both work fine on public wifi networks.

Cheers all!

Not much help, but I had days of problems with mine – then it just worked.

This defies technological sense, but happened nontheless.

Cant be ISP if other devices can access the internet.
What router is it?
What encryption is it using? WEP, WPA or WPA2?
Perhaps you need to add the devices to the router’s permissions?

Probably something to do with the settings on your router (doofer).

Try navigating to http://192.168.1.1 and check your settings (router may be locked down to only allow certain machines for example).

What you need to to is exhaust all the logical options before switching everything off, going for a beer and then once you try it after said beer it will mysteriously work. Thats how it happened with mine.

Before following Zulus sage advice, switch it off at the wall then switch it back on again. SOP for anything that’s powered. Even nuclear submarines.
Actually, that last statement could be bogus.

Right, router off and on again hasn’t done it, I can access the Belkin router control page 192.168.2.1 on the old computer, is there anything on there I should be changing? Can’t see ‘permissions’ as suggested by BigYinn. Security is WPA-PSK (no server) whatever that means.

Is this a job for a local computer shop geezer?

Nope.
In the security/key page (where it mentions the WPA, there should be a password key stated in there. Whatever that it, you use as the wi-fi password and have to input it on the laptop end when you start the wi-fi connection, to allow it to connect securely.

Also, in the router’s setup pages, check if it does client filtering / MAC address filters.
If it does, you need to find out your laptop’s MAC address & put it in the router’s list so it allows that to connect.

Can you confirm that the new laptop and iPod can connect to your network (as stated in your first post)? Try accessing the router control page from the new laptop.

If you can, then the router is letting your new machines join your network but there is something else in place (probably in the router settings) preventing them from reaching the internet. Have you set up anything in the past to control what sites can be accessed, or time bands when access is allowed?

On some routers you have to press a button on the box when you connect a new machine….

I had similar issues when I first moved over to a MAC. I was ready to launch it. It wouldn’t connect where the out going pc would. I’d set all the permissions on the router, given the MAC the correct name and password. What worked for me was a download called istumbler. It let’s you see how many people near you are contesting the same channel. Swapped to a channel as far from anyone else as possible and It’s been spot on ever since.

Does your internet connection work if you plug into the router?

Fixed it, thanks all. Found the instructions for the router, and holding the reset button for >20 seconds reverted it to factory settings and now everything seems to work. Yippee!

Well that good but have you now got any securtiy set on your wireless lan?

There won’t be any security settings set now though, you really should go into the config pages & set them up.