Limited or No Connectivity

Hello,

This seems to be a common problem when I Google it, but I have been unable to resolve it.

I recently purchased a Trendnet N Wireless router and a Trendnet N USB adapter for my PC. I connect just fine through my Comcast cable modem if I use an ethernet cable and I can connect to the Wireless router when I enter the password through an IPhone, but when I attempt to connect through the wireless adapter's, it says "Limited or No Connectivity" an there is no signal.

I can see the wireless signal is very strong and it allows me to attempt to connect and accepts the password, but then it brings up the warning of limited or no connectivity.

Any idea what would cause this? I've looked through the first 9 pages of the forum, tried using the search, and read the FAQ's, but have been unable to find anything.

Also, can most Apple Laptops connect to wireless routers?

In my experience "limited or no connectivity" normally means Windows has not successfully negotiated encryption with the access point or wireless router. Another symptom will be that there'll be no IP address set to the wireless interface, you can check this by running "ipconfig /all" on the command line. If the IP address is blank or 0.0.0.0 then the interface has no IP.

Failed encryption negotiation is usually down to incorrect password or incorrect encryption type. If you are using Windows XP go to Control Panel -> Network Connections. Right click your wireless device and select Properties. Click the Wireless Networks tab and delete the connection profile for your network. Now click View Wireless Networks, click on your wireless network, say Connect and enter your password here, this will let Windows decide what encryption type to use.

If it still doesn't work, if your wireless password has non alpha-numeric characters in try typing it into notepad and making sure it appears correctly. I've seen incorrectly configured keyboards cause problem because of wrong characters appearing e.g. backslash appearing when you press the hash key.

If it still doesn't work do you have any third party wireless network management software on the PC either from Trendnet or other vendors? If so delete it and fall back to the Windows built-in wireless tools.

And Apple computers can connect to wireless networks the same as PCs AFAIK. One of my friends had an iMac with wireless.

These desktops that won't connect, what version of Windows (or Linux) are they running? If they are running Windows XP are they updated to Service Pack 2?

So I downloaded a newer version of the driver for the TRENDnet USB adapter, uninstalled the old driver, installed the new driver... It asked me to reboot, so I did. Now it won't allow windows to load. Whenever I start the computer it just loops. It will load the "Windows" loading screen and then it shuts off and restarts. It won't allow me to start in any of the safe modes or the option to start at the last configuration that worked.

Any ideas what would cause this?

I booted into repair mode using the windows CD at the recommendation of a friend and ran chkdsk /r and that repaired some kind of registry error. Windows booted up successfully and the adapter was able to finally link up with Windows and everything is working.

I don't know if it was the registry error that was causing it not to work originally or if it was updating the driver that fixed the problem, but I'm happy it is finally working. Thanks for the help!