How to connect laptop to lan

weaselman

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Oct 27, 2012
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Just plug one one end of the cable into the laptop, and the other end into the router, and the other end into the router or the Lan Hub. It should auto configure the laptop to work on the lan by giving the laptop an IP adress. example 192.168.1.5
 
By LAN, do you mean a personal network you set up, or is this a corporate LAN? If it is a corporate LAN, you'll need to follow whatever procedure(s) may be in place to add a new device to the network. In some places, it's a matter of making sure the wall jack is wired to a switch port, then using a cable from that jack to the LAN; little more than for a home network. In other places, there's the matter of security software being installed and verified, possible static IP address assignment, entry of your machine's MAC address into an ACL list, creation of a machine account in Active Directory, and/or other considerations.
If it is a personal LAN, for example using a router, typically all you need to do is connect a RJ45 Ethernet cable from the laptop to a port on the router. By default, the router will be a DHCP host and will assign an IP address to your laptop. It really should be that simple. If there are resources on that network (e.g. shares or printers on other PCs) that you want to add, you may need to join an existing Homegroup (or older style Workgroup). If a network printer is attached, you may need to make sure it isn't asleep (e.g. power cycle it) so your laptop can find it the first time.
 
If your laptop has been connecting wirelessly, possibly to another network in range, you should be able to at least temporarily turn off the laptop's radio using Fn+a function key; there should be a symbol on it that looks like a radio antenna, and a LED somewhere that will change color or go off depending on if the radio is off or on.