I just bought my Vaio and is driving me crazy!

Hi there, I'm also new to the forums /wave

I bought the Sony Vaio FW series about 3 days ago, the laptop looks incredible nice, is smooth, pretty fast in processing power and pretty much a dream (or sort of) However, it has been a pain in the butt to get the wireless/wired internet connections setup. Here are the scenarios I have no idea how the hell is happening.

Scenario #1: In college I can only access the wireless network, plugging the cable in doesn't even turn my network icon on, as if there was no cable plugged.

Scenario #2: At home, is the other way around. I can connect using the network cable (and still ain't easy) but I cannot access my wireless network. I have about 4 computers total at home, I can connect every single through wireless except this one. It connects to the network, but it doesn't give me any internet access.

This is so frustrating and confusing that I am considering in returning the laptop back to Bestbuy. Or go check with them for a possible solution. I mean, none of this makes any sense, is so unstable, sometimes doesn't even work. My question for you guys is, have any of you experienced this kind of issues before?

 

The fact that it the LAN works at home indicates there is nothing wrong with the NIC, and that your campus is either not authenticating your computer on the wired network, or that your simply plugging into a dead end.

And given that the wireless card functions at school, but not at home, and it connects just without internet access tells me you've probably entered the WEP or WPA key incorrectly. Open the Network Sharing Center, and click Manage Wireless Networks. From here, delete your home's network, and try to reconnect, double checking the correct key.

Best Buy will not return it without a restocking fee as there is nothing wrong with the hardware, if they can connect to their LAN and WLAN, it means something has been done improperly on your end, your network settings, or the school's settings.

EDIT: You claim using the wired LAN at home is "not easy"... how? With a typical DHCP serving router, plugging it in automatically connects you to the internet with just about any operating system out there assuming you have the network card turned on and networking services enabled.

 

I realize most of what you've said. Let me expand a little.

1. The WEP key is entered exactly,no typos.
2. The lan at home works but is not a plug in and go sort of thing. It takes a lot of time to get to work. Meaning, I have to restart the computer sometimes, restart the router/modem. The IP configuration sometimes changes to a static IP and I have to manually change it again to "Obtain automatically".

I've never had any problems with any computer before, been doing this for quite a while now. I checked my router settings to make sure I wasn't blocking the wireless access (you know, set to specific MAC address) and everything was fine. I can connect to the network wirelessly but I cannot access the internet.

 

1st-Restart your computer

2nd. Open up the start menu and then click run.

3rd type cmd in the run bar and hit enter

4th. type ipconfig

5th write down the numbers you have for your ip address mac and dns

6th. type exactly this- ipconfig /release

7th. type exactly this- ipconfig /renew

You should have similar or different numbers for your ip address. Make note of this

8th type exactly this- ping"type here your new ip address"

If it comes back immediately and received packets you should be fine with that side of it

I would then check your utilities. Your drivers might be corrupted. You always should be able to plug into your modem directly or router using a lan connection-thicker phone jack looking cord-into your laptop and get the internet. If that does not work you might have to reinstall software for your modem or router, ie, a CD that came with either. Again somehow it might now be installed correctly.

If you can get onto the internet using a lan connection, try downloading your drivers and reinstalling them. Also make 100% sure that the switch to turn on your wireless on the exterior of your computer is not damaged in anyway and that could be an issue as well.

They are telling you the truth that sometimes during set up you could have gotten something wrong or even turned around some way. Best thing to do is start over if this does not help you and try a different password for your wep key. I would also suggest trying a different name for the ssid as well so you make sure you are establishing a new connection.

ONe last thing I would try as well is making sure your router is set on WPA-AES. I believe it is labeled as well WPA2-AES which is better and computers seem to work better with this security setting than WEP or TKIP.

Hope that helps some

 

I will try those steps, thanks.

On the meantime, here's what I get what I try to connect to my network, as you can see, I do have access to it but somehow the router or w/e isnt't giving me access to the internet.

 

So I disabled the wireless protection and now I can connect easily... ***. I setup a WEP key and it won't connect me. The hell is going on

 

use the WPA2-AES setting instead that should work

 

should I use those settings in Windows while keeping the regular WEP settings tab in my router setup?

I have 3 options on my router only
- WPA Pre-Shared Key
- WEP
- WPA RADIUS

 

turn wireless of whem using wired connection, thats what i do..

not sure if i understood your problem but.. this might help

 

yeah it works like that but that's not how its supposed to work! I shouldn't need to plug the cable, turning wireless on then unplug the cable again just to use the wireless. What's the point of that

 

problem solved, after a few hours on the phone with support, great guys!

 

And the solution??? The custom here is that when you post a question and others give you assistance, you should come back and post what the solution was. That way other folks later may benefit from what you found.

Gary