Cant connect to internet PLEASE HELP!

I am new to networking. I have been trying to hook up my desktop onto a
wireless LAN and have been facing problems with that. Hope somebody can
help.

Following is whats happening:

I have a desktop and my roommate has one. He is already connected to
wireless LAN through wireless adapter. I dont have an adapter yet..so am
connecting through a cable (to my ethernet port). The cable comes from the
wireless router.

When I connect the ethernet cable, I can see the LAN connection. And its
enabled too. But its only sending. Its not receiving. I tried to repair
by pressing the repair button and the error I get is "Could not renew IP".
I wonder what that means. How do I fix this problem? Could somebody please
help?

Both PCs use windows XP. Have already tried changing ports, cable etc. Have also tried disbling MAC filter as was suggested by one of my friends. Please help!!


Thanks.

Does the wireless router have the DHCP server enabled?

How is your roommate's computer getting an Ip address? If it is getting it from the router with DHCP and your computer can't, then I guess there's something wrong with the connection between your computer and the router.

I get the following error when I do ipconfig/renew:

"Windows IP configuration: An error occured while renewing interface Local Area Connection: Unable to contact your DHCP server. Request timed out"

Does this say something?

Presumably you've got a router then. Double-check that the DHCP server on that is enabled. Then, check that there is a good connection between the router and the computer. If it can't find the DHCP server, it probably means that there is a bad connection between the two.

How do I check that DHCP is enabled on the router? Also my roomie is able to connect to the same router through a wired connection.

Is your computer being assigned an ip address?
I would sugget going onto your mates computer, opening a command prompt and typing ipconfig /all
Note the ip address, subnet mask, default gateway and primary and secondary dns servers.
Then open up network adapters, right click on your ethernet adapter and click properties. In the scroll box go to tcp/ip and select properties. Then click specify an ip address as opposed to obtain ip automatically. The for your ip address add a few numbers to your mates number (i'm assuming here that there arn't many computer on your network as if you get the same as someone else you could hit another problem) So if your mates number was 192.168.0.3 then choose 192.168.0.5. Only change the last digit.
Use the same subnet mask, default gateway and dns server numbers. Save these changes and give it a try. It might need a re-boot, might not. If you have a confilcting ip address, (it'll tell you after windows has booted) just change the last digit of the address.
Hope that helps.
Rizla

There are only 2 PCs on the network.

My roomie's PC gave the following when i did ipconfig:


This is ipconfig/all from my roommates PC:
Connection specific DNS suffix: KAP
IP address: 192.168.0.103
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway: 192.168.0.1

So I tried 192.168.0.104 as IP. It didnt work.

Do you want me to try others too like 101,102,106 etc??

No if that won't work none will.
Can you ping the router or your mates computer?
Start menu --> Run type "ping 192.168.0.1" w/o quotes to ping the router or ping 192.168.0.103 to try to ping your mates comp. You should get a reply

Nope. I am not able to ping the router..nor my roomie's PC.

Go back and change the ip infomation you entered in tcp/ip properties and set it back to obtain automatically. Then reboot and run ipconfig /all at a command prompt. Are you being assigned an ip address and is it the same class network as your roomie. ie the subnet mask is the same.
What router are you using? Is it possible that only certain ip address are allowed to connect to the router?
I presume you know that the cable works, ie tested on your mates computer.
You could, (if you have the windows xp cd) try removing and re-adding networking windows componants. (I'm at work and not using xp so i can remember what it's called). Go to add remove programs then add /remove the windows componants. This would reset all your networking configurations. I've found in the past that xp spits it's dummy out if it's networks are changes too many times.
Have a try at those. I'm at work and not supposed to be in a forum so i might not be able to get back until midnight ish (gmt).
Good luck

That's what the problem sounds like to me - you should be able to ping the router if you give your computer an IP address on the same subnet. Try a different cable, but also try a different port on the router.

So, have you got it working then? I'm curious to know what the problem was.