As I mentioned in an earlier thread (11th August) my daughter's laptop and router are playing up.
All the lights on the router come on as they should and the laptop detects a faroff network but not always her router.
The strange thing is that when I get it to work it fails after I leave!!
I connect my laptop and pc to the net via a router (a different make to hers).
I want to test her router so the question is:

Can I plug her router into my phone socket and connect to the net via my laptop (I know her router password) safely?
I presume I will have to disconnect my router fom the phone line.
The router is a Netgear....do they breakdown?

you can only use 1 at a time and no it wont break if you disconnect it .

Can I plug her router into my phone socket and connect to the net via my laptop (I know her router password) safely?

Yes, you will need to change ISP login details in the router....

I would not do that as the router seems to be working,
you mention a far off network what works some times and not others.... try move the router closer to the daughters laptop, or vise versa ;). setup security (WEP /WPA) on the router and laptop then once configured / connected the laptop will question joining another (neighbours) network (maybe a far away one)

if its an old laptop with built in wireless (11Mbs) it could be worth getting a new USB wireless stick with higher speed / distance.

Thanks for the replies.
On the advice of a "friend" who said this would solve the problem my son in law has reset the router so it's back to the beginning.
I took my laptop round to daughter's......typed in 192.etc and got onto the router set up page. So the router seems to be OK.

I did the same with her laptop.....nothing.

Does this mean the problem is with her laptop?
It's a Dell Inspiron 1525? and is ONLY a few months old AND when I plugged the charger in I got a mesage saying that the battery is charging normally but is nearing the end of its life!!
THIS IS DRIVING ME MAD.

when you test with your laptop after router reset, are you using cable to connect to the router, or using wireless?
when you said "I did the same with her laptop...nothing" do you mean you cannot login to the router's setup page? did you check if her laptop has connected to the router? (what is the IP address assigned?)
it doesn't sound like a problem with the laptop. I will suggest you to use cable connection rather than wireless to rule out many possibilities first.

I was using wireless with my laptop.
Using wireless with her laptop I got a message saying that firefox couldn't comect to 192.168...
I will go thro' the set up procedure as per the instructions using an ethernet cable and see what happens.
How do I find the IP address assigned?

Could changing the wireless channel help?

This sounds like the same problem I had last year and it sorted it straight away.

To find the i.p address assigned. Open a command prompt. type
ipconfig <Enter>

If the I.P comes back as either 0.0.0.0 or starts 169 then it hasn't picked an I.P from the router.

If the laptop is sometimes connecting I would have a look on the Dell Forums for known problems and also download uptodate drivers.

When the laptop loses its connection try re-booting both the laptop and router (Disconnect from mains, wait 30 secs plug back in again).

Could changing the wireless channel help?

This sounds like the same problem I had last year and it sorted it straight away.
How do I do that?

I have just disconnected my router from my phone point, turned of my pc,
Plugged in my daughter's router to my phone,turned on my laptop, detected the netgear and set it up.
I am now typing this to the forum wirelessly so I now reckon it's her laptop which is at fault.
Yesterday I spent two hours trying to set up her router to her laptop and all I got was a message telling me that info on the ROUTER didn't coorespond to that on the laptop.
I can't see why I can do the set up on one laptop and not the other.

Also her fully charged battery is lasting ca 40 minutes and she gets a message that it is nearing the end of its life!!!!
Laptop (Dell) was bought on the 25th September 2008!!

BACK IT GOES

did you try your daughters laptop connecting to her router plugged into your phone line? which would possibly confirm it's the laptop not the router to isp connection.

Great minds think alike commuter.

I have brought my daughter's laptop and router home I have set it up and lo and behold everything works exactly as it should:huh:
So the router works, her laptop detects the router and I can connect to the net (as I am now) in my house.
The next stage is to transfer the laptop and router to her place and see if it works.
Am I right in thinking that if it doesn't it could be electrical interference from their sky plus (she had a similar problem with a box which sent a tv signal wirelessly from their set to another set upstairs)?
She thinks the problem may have started when they changed from sky to sky plus. The skyplus is connected to their phone line (I thought sky came thro a dish).
Any thoughts will be welcome.

Also shouldn't the battery have lasted longer than 6 months?

you can get wireless interfere but this can be solved by changing the wireless channel, when in your daughters house is it setup in the open, high up, near another electrical device? These can all interfere with the signal

Well I took the router and laptop back to my daughters and set them up.
The laptop didn't immediately detect the router and I had to click on the tv icons in the system tray and search for available networks.
The netgear didn't always appear on the list but then after 30 seconds or so itappeared.
I could then connect to it and then the net.
I am coming round to the conclusion that it's electrical interference.
The router is near a load of gadgets but moving it upstairs doesn't make any difference.


My son in law has just phoned to say he can't connect and the laptop isn't seeing the router.He was about 30 feet away away from it at the other end of the room.
I told him to move next to the router and it connected and he could move away and the connection remained on.

I will try changing channels, Tomorrow.