Wireless: media disconnected

D

DigitalMP

Gawd
Joined
Jun 27, 2004
Messages
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Brand new Lenovo notebook, onboard WiFi.

My friend won it in a sales contest at work and gave it right to me. I uninstalled all the crap, installed all of the necessities. AVG, Zone Alarm, Defender, Ad Aware, Spybot, HJT...

FYI, I'm always apprehensive about Zone Alarm, but it's easy for users to manage, as well as for me to configure. (I use Kerio for myself)

After my work was finished, I ran some cleanup with HJT and CCleaner, and the wireless worked ok at my house (secured, but I entered the key). I dropped it off at his house, and didn't think to test it on his unsecured wireless network. However, his other laptop was connecting to it just fine.

So, in short, the laptop works fine on my wireless network, but not on his, though his other laptop connects fine.

ipconfig shows "media disconnected". I've shut down Zone Alarm and disabled the ethernet connection. I'm not sure what else to do.

Any suggestions?
 
Theres a switch to turn on/off the wireless card. Make sure its on.

Make sure its "enabled" in network connections.

It'll say "media disconnected" until you associate with an access point. Use teh included utility to find his SSID and "connect" to it.
 
what is the "included utility" you're referring to? the windows connection tool?

i see his router in the available networks list, and i try to connect, but it won't.

if that's what you mean by "associating it with an access point", i can't do that because the state is "media disconnected", so performing that task to change the state isn't quite possible, unless i'm misunderstanding you.
 
Windows lists a wireless connection as Media Disconnected UNTIL you associate with an access point. In the world of wireless, associating with an acces point is just like plugging a CAT5 cable in.

Do you get an error when you click on the wireless network and click connect? Or does it simply not do anything? If you can outline step by step what you are doing, and what the results are it would help us troubleshoot the problem.
 
I click on the network/router, click connect, and it times out after a minute and says "could not connect".
 
what is the "included utility" you're referring to?
Click to expand...

Lenovo includes a utility to configure the wireless device on their notebooks. Windows connection utility doesn't work unless you remove the utility.

I find the Lenovo utility to be garbage, but far better than the Windows utility (which I could only get to work with anything that has any kind of security - by setting up an automatic connection, otherwise when you click "Connect" it never prompts you for the WEP/WAP key and says that it can't connect)

I trust you found the switch to turn the wireless device ON?

I believe the utility is called "ThinkVantage Access Connections"? My apologies that I don't know exactly what it is. I've only worked with one Lenovo and that was a few weeks back.

I distinctly remember being screwed by the wireless device switch, and making the mistake of using the windows utility.
 
bobdole369 said:
I trust you found the switch to turn the wireless device ON?
Click to expand...

I don't know about what model he has. I have a T-42 and there is no switch...it is controlled via software. On mine, if wireless is turned off, there should be a giant red X over the "wireless bars" in the system tray
 
Fark_Maniac said:
I don't know about what model he has. I have a T-42 and there is no switch...it is controlled via software. On mine, if wireless is turned off, there should be a giant red X over the "wireless bars" in the system tray
Click to expand...


LOL good to know - the next time I work on a Lenovo I'll either be screwed by there being a switch, and not knowing about it, or there IS no switch.....

/me writes "Lenovo" on a sheet of paper and sets it on fire.
 
Alright, so I've open the Access Connections utility, and configured a profile, enterign my network name/SSID in the SSID field.

However, it couldn't find my router. In fact, opening the Windows utility doesn't even show my router in the available networks.

In the AC utility, where I enter my SSID, there's a "Find Network" button, but it's disabled. I feel as though this might be due to the "media disconnected" status.

I'm going to check over on the Lenovo forums. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks again everyone.
 
Just so you cats know, the issue was with configuring the ThinkVantage Access Connections application.

Rather than chase my tail and fight with that annoying utility, I opted to uninstall it and Windows saw my router without fail.
 
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