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    Problem wih unsecured wireless

    Discussion in 'Networking and Wireless' started by akadoublej, May 15, 2010.

  1. akadoublej

    akadoublej Notebook Evangelist

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    A friend has an HP G60-4420M running Vista Home Premium 64 bit which as of yesterday has service pack 2 and all of the latest windows updates.

    Secure wireless connections work fine but he is having a problem with unsecured wireless networks.

    The computer will indicate it is connected to an unsecured wireless network and shows the signal strength but when a browser is opened he can't get to any web pages. IE brings up a Diagnose Connection button which if clicked leads to another dialog box with a repair button which if clicked doesn't solve the problem.

    I am not positive but I think in the network control panel the wireless connection will have a Not Connected status when this problem occurs.

    Any ideas?
     
    akadoublej, May 15, 2010
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  2. qhn

    qhn Notebook User

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    Driver update is the 1st thing I look at, then review the wireless manager to see if there is any conflicts in 2 or more wifi manager tools - if you have them

    cheers ...
     
    qhn, May 15, 2010
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  3. kosti

    kosti Notebook Virtuoso

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    Perhaps the unsecured connection is not configured correctly. Have you tried another unsecured network. It could be pulling an IP address, but perhaps the GW and DNS servers are incorrectly configured. It can be a number of things, but I would think they might be related to the network, not the laptop.
     
    kosti, May 15, 2010
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  4. blue68f100

    blue68f100 Notebook Virtuoso

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    It's possiable the unsecured AP is using MAC filtering, to control access. Not much security and easy to get by.
     
    blue68f100, May 15, 2010
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  5. Biosci3c

    Biosci3c Notebook Consultant NBR Reviewer

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    You don't want to do that unless the access point/router is yours. I believe that would constitute bypassing access controls and thus be illegal.
     
    Biosci3c, May 16, 2010
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  6. newsposter

    newsposter Notebook Virtuoso

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    It is also possible to configure an 'unsecured' wireless AP to ignore DHCP requests. You have to have your IP settings pre-set to use an AP setup in this way. Connectionless setups that don't really use tcp/ip at all are also possible.

    There is lots of obfuscation possible with 802.11 even if an AP appears to be 'unsecured'. MAC filtering, not using DHCP at all, going non-TCP connectionless, etc, etc are all possibilities.

    The other point being that if the OP was allowed to connect to and use the 'unsecured' APs, they would be in possession of the parameters needed to do so instead of having to hunt around for the whys and wherefores of how to connect.
     
    newsposter, May 16, 2010
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