Ready to smash my computer :/

[greepish]

Okay, so I've wasted about 4 hours on tech support, I wonder if any of you tech savvy people can figure my problem. Basically, the computer in my house refuses to get wireless internet working consistently at all. After initially setting it up, it worked, then it failed after restarting computer, and now it just fails whenever I try to reconnect it. It's kinda old, a Gateway windows XP made in 2002. It works on someone else's laptop so the router is fine.

So yeah, if any of you know where to even start for trying to fix this, that'd be awesome. Hopefully, I won't have to buy a new computer, but I think it might be coming to that.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Your wireless card may be loose or detached completely. I had a similar issue with an old iBook years ago but, to make things more interesting, it'd also cause kernel panics too. Depending on how your computer was put together, fixing it could be completely trivial or horribly complicated.

Of course, my unfamiliarity with Windows besides using it to run a couple of games could leave me as rather wrong. For all I know, it could just be something in the registry in the wrong spot.

[greepish]

Well, basically we had and old router and just recently bought a new one. With that old one, the connection slowly died more and more each day on that computer, eventually going out for days at a time and finally going kaput. The new router doesn't fare any better. I suppose it could mean something slowly came loose *shrug* Unfortunately I really don't know anything about computers, so I can't just open 'er up and check out the problem. Maybe if I found it somehow using the computer and then looked up instructions on how to fix it if I know the exact problem.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Googling your specific model and something like "How to reach wireless card" or whatever should give you some step-by-step instructions for taking it apart if you want to have a go at it yourself. Though if it's a really complicated process, or involves taking apart things glued together (some computers use glue instead of screws), then I would leave that to someone with more experience. You might want to hold off on trying that though until you find some other alternatives to try since it can take a bit of a time, but it's still worth doing anyway at some point since it'll let you get dust out of the inside of your computer which can cause it to do things such as heat up faster.

Another idea would be to get Advanced System Care onto it. It's free (with an optional premium version of course) and it'll do things such as clean up the registry and defragment the hard drive. If your issue is related to something like that, it'll fix it. And if it doesn't fix your problem, it'll at least prevent something software-related from going wrong.

[greepish]

Alright I'll check that out advanced system care thing out. Definately had enough torubleshooting for today, though.

[hxy]

Is the wireless adapter still recognised by the pc? Check its status in Device Manager. If you see some unknown device where the adapter should be, then it could be something wrong with the drivers. Reinstalling drivers might help.
If it looks ok in Device Manager, can you detect any wireless networks? No network could mean the signal is too weak for your wireless adapter. Move pc closer to confirm if this is the case.

[XuaXua]

What's your router? Did you try flashing it with DD-WRT or tomato?

[ekolis]

Did you change the encryption settings on the router recently? I found that my router would actually REBOOT itself when I tried to connect my Droid to it after changing the encryption settings to WPA2/mixed! (Other devices like PC's, a Wii, and a 3DS could connect just fine...) I had to switch it to WPA/TKIP to get it to work. It's kind of a longshot, but perhaps there's some incompatibility between your PC's wireless card and the router which is preventing it from connecting with your current settings?

[varsovie]

It sounds like a firewall problem (it could block the dhp resolution if you have a dynamic IP).
Try deactivate your firewall, then restart the PC to test.

And what is your wireless card model?