Trouble getting to "Acquiring Network Address"

I wonder if anyone else has had this problem. I just got a beautiful new notebook, Sharp's M4000 Widenote. I am somewhat familiar with connecting wirelessly. At home I connect through a router attached to our cable modem. I can connect at home, most of the time. My problem is that when I try to connect to the any unsecured network, (such as the free hot spot at my school, or our city hall), my computer attempts to connect, but it never goes through. Eventually, it stops trying and the "connect" button becomes clickable again.

I notice that when I do connect at home, "acquiring network address" is one of the steps displayed right before it successfully connects. That step is never displayed in the instances when I cannot connect to unsecured networks. What compunds this problem is that every once in a while, rarely, it will connect. Like right now, which allows me to write the forum asking for help.

This is all very frustrating because I've been saving for such a long time to buy this lovely computer that I thought would allow me to become a mobile warrior. Can someone help me?

Thank you so much<
Carol A

Try upgrading to the latest drivers:

Click here !

You may need to get with the schools network admin. I suspect that they are using some kind of filtering. Or your unit is set for G only. If thats the case it will find the network, but want make a connection.

thanks for replying, I thinkit could be the firewall.