Laptop connects to router, but no internet - even with cable

[Janche]

Howdy,
A friend has just given me his laptop, an Acer aspire 5715z. I've spent the last three hours trawling forums and such looking for an answer but none of them quite match my situation, or suggest a remedy that has worked.

To the problem: I'm using my girlfriend's laptop, which is connecting wirelessly to our router with no problems, but the acer simply will not connect to the internet. It connects to the router, but not so much as a sniff of 'net. Even with a cable - which I find unusual and annoying!

I'm happy to put up any info that anyone might need to know, and with this in mind, thanks for your time!

 

[Emerald]

is MAC filtering enabled on the router?

does the laptop receive an IP form the router?

have you checked the proxy settings under Internet Options? It should be unchecked.

 

[Janche]

I don't know how to check the first two, but the third is as you recommend: unchecked.

 

[Emerald]

To check your IP go Start then Run in XP - (Windows key plus R in Vista and Windows 7), then type in the following, including all the spaces:- cmd /k ipconfig /all -- then press Enter and from the black form that shows up, you should see an address next to IPv4 -- usually something like 192.168.0.50. Also take a note of the address beside the word "gateway" -- usually something like 192.168.0.1. Type exit to close the black form.

Using the gateway address by typing it into the browser address bar you can access your router. Usually the Mac address filtering is in the Security section.

 

[kaspencer]

Although this is sometime after the orginal post, I could add a little information that may help: my neighbour had this issue, and having tried my own (Fujitsu-Siemens) laptop on his router without problem, I confirmed that it wasn't a router issue, nor a broadband connection issue. It was simply that the laptop wireless chip was refusing an IP address from the router's DHCP service. After a long time trying to discover why, I decided to do a system restore to take the machine back to a point before a host of updates has been received. This resolved the issue.
So if you are faced with this kind of problem, remember this old adage: "The art of programming is that of exchanging one bug for another and this applies to system updates as much as it does to any application software. The update basically broke the wireless device driver and taking it back to a previous version cured the problem.
Kenneth Spencer