Wi-fi connections

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DaveHerns

New Member
Just been on the phone for over an hour to Talk Talk's help centre trying to find out why my brother's lap top won't connect wirelessly to my mother's Talk Talk router . It works if you use an ethernet cable . Chap tells me we have a Wi-Fi connection but it still doesn't work

This laptop is working perfectly in my home on my Sky Wi-Fi and apparently it works on my sister's Virgin Wi-Fi .To confuse the issue her laptop seems to work on my mothers Talk Talk Wi-Fi.

Any ideas ? Kep them simple as I'm computer illiterate. I'm inclined to get my mother to go back to BT as an hour with T T's 3rd world call centre has worn me out
 
the talk talk router doesnt have "pairing" on it does it? (where you need to press a button to allow the router to expect a new wifi device to connect to it?) my parents old orange router had that, you needed to press a button which opened the router to new connections for a small amount of time. once it had then connected it allowed that laptop to use the system as it stored its MAC address.
 
You can get to your router through a browser to set it up but explaining without being there would be difficult
 
The laptop must configured for the same SSID (wireless network name) encryption type (WEP, WPA or WPA2) and encryption key as your mother's router, maybe the router uses something that isn't supported by the laptop.
 
I think it's going to be easier to change supplier and hope it works .TalkTalk don't have the best reputation
I can't face another hour on the phone to the call centre
 
Is there someone close by that can check it out for you? If I was in the vicinity I'd sort it for you. You are right about talk talk... But not many are actually good.

Virgin have the best connection speeds generally and are pretty cheap....

Rich
 
rockdemon said:
Is there someone close by that can check it out for you? If I was in the vicinity I'd sort it for you. You are right about talk talk... But not many are actually good.

Virgin have the best connection speeds generally and are pretty cheap....

Rich
Click to expand...


Well, I'm with TalkTalk. I started out with Tiscali, they were taken over by TalkTalk, then I effectively joined TalkTalk. (I know that sounds odd; ironically enough, I received 2 phone calls on different days by <Tiscali-incorporated-TalkTalk> asking why I had left them! I was a bit confused, but it transpires they apparently treat (or did in 2010 anyhow!) <Tiscali-incorporated-TalkTalk> as a separate entity to "ordinary" TalkTalk!)

I have had no problems (knock on wood), except that they didn't give me the password to put into the router (I use my old one, but they hadn't even put it into the proper TalkTalk one I would receive either!). I managed to get the support number, they gave me the password, they double checked I was able to connect, and even got a thank you for being reasonably quick in getting to the right portion of the router!

Had my knowledge been a bit less (not that I know much!), I think it would have been a different story. Certainly, would have worried the novice.

Anyhow, enough of my ranting. Just a stupid thought; has your brother's laptop Wi-Fi been set with a fixed/static IP address, instead of a dynamically allocated one from the router?

What router make/model is the TalkTalk router, may I ask?
 
On this subject, we recently bought a Panasonic i-dock/radio/CD player with wireless function. But only once have I been able to connect to the IP address/page they give you to make the set-up connection & it failed to set-up that time. Since then my wife's i-phone can't connect to it & I can't get it up on the desk or laptop either. Why would this be? Where is the IP address coming from? I'm assuming the unit doesn't actually transmit it.
We didn't know it was wireless equipped when we got it but since it is, it would be good to get it working. It seems a very handy thing to have as I'll be able to have music on the computer transmitted throughout the house.
 
DaveHerns said:
I think it's going to be easier to change supplier and hope it works .TalkTalk don't have the best reputation
I can't face another hour on the phone to the call centre
Click to expand...
Dave have you tried the TalkTalk forum http://www.talktalkmembers.com/forums/ i found it to be quite good and much easier than phoning a numpty!!
I ended up on TalkTalk as they were the only isp on my exchange with up to 24mb, my change over date from BT came and went and my internet still hadn't died ! Turned out my TalkTalk connection works fine through my BT home hub 2 and a year later i still haven't taken the TalkTalk router out the box. If its working don't meddle is my motto with wireless :|
 
The Rovering Member said:
On this subject, we recently bought a Panasonic i-dock/radio/CD player with wireless function. But only once have I been able to connect to the IP address/page they give you to make the set-up connection & it failed to set-up that time. Since then my wife's i-phone can't connect to it & I can't get it up on the desk or laptop either. Why would this be? Where is the IP address coming from? I'm assuming the unit doesn't actually transmit it.
Click to expand...
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to do here. I'm assuming that the radio is a wireless client and that you also have a wireless router somewhere, so the radio must connect to the router before the other client devices on the network can see it via the network. The IP address should be provided by the router and is normally a "private" address in the range 192.168.1.nnn All the devices on your network will have addresses in this range. If you are having trouble generally with your wireless connections, there may be other wireless devices in the area that don't use Wi-fi protocols, prime offenders being audio/video senders or wireless CCTV cameras. Try different channels. Don't assume that because there are 13 channels that they are all available for use. They overlap, so there should be five channels separation between adjacent networks. Convention in the industry is that 1,6 and 11 are used and your router, if it selects channels automatically, may pick one of these three, although one sometimes comes across 1,5,9 and 13, which works reasonably well. Other than that, if you can set up the radio manually, just make sure it's set up the same as all your other wireless devices.
Peter (Retired Wi-fi engineer)
 
Yes, the player (Panasonic SC-HC57DB) has wireless capability so you can connect it into your home network & use it without actually slotting the i-phone into it in order to play the music on it & any system in the network can play through it, such as our desktop. The IP address is indeed the type you quoted: 192.168.1.12. But as said, I've only been able to get that address once. It brings up a Panasonic-headed page to type in your network settings & password. All other attempts to connect to it have failed & I don't know why.
We have a BT Infinity broadband system with BT vision too, installed a bit over a year ago & have no other problems with it. Both our smartphones are connected (mine only yesterday with no hassle at all), as is our laptop & printer. It's just this new unit I'm having trouble with. The router has a WPS button but I think the hub manager shows it not being WPS equipped for some reason, so I need to set it up manually which in the reviews I've read of this player, have been fairly straight-forward.
I'm not really up with channel-changing & the like & assume it's all done automatically.
 
I think I understand now, having read the manual on line. Your radio, when first switched on, acts as a wireless access point with the name "setup". You then invite your iphone to join this network so that the iphone can talk to the radio to configure it. 192.168.1.12 is the IP address within the radio of the setup page. Once you have set up the radio, it then functions as a wireless client and should connect to the home network and you can reconnect the iphone to the home network. The reason that you cannot get that IP address again is probably because the radio is no longer in setup mode. I would try returning the radio to its factory default settings and starting the process again from scratch using Method 2, or you may just be able to get back to that state by pressing setup on the remote control. I'm not too au fait with the Infinity router, but if you go into it in admin mode (open a browser on your laptop and type in to the address bar http://192.168.1.254) there is a menu somewhere that will allow you to see all the devices connected to it and the addresses allocated by the router. If you can do that you may find that the radio is already connected and if this is the case there may be some other reason, such as a firewall, that is preventing contact with it. Good luck!
 
I know the router is a D -Link . Beyond that I get confused . She's had problems with her phone in recent times and I think it's time for a change . It shouldn't be this difficult - I got his laptop to connect to my Sky Broadband in minutes
 
suffolkpete said:
I think I understand now, having read the manual on line. Your radio, when first switched on, acts as a wireless access point with the name "setup". You then invite your iphone to join this network so that the iphone can talk to the radio to configure it. 192.168.1.12 is the IP address within the radio of the setup page. Once you have set up the radio, it then functions as a wireless client and should connect to the home network and you can reconnect the iphone to the home network. The reason that you cannot get that IP address again is probably because the radio is no longer in setup mode. I would try returning the radio to its factory default settings and starting the process again from scratch using Method 2, or you may just be able to get back to that state by pressing setup on the remote control. I'm not too au fait with the Infinity router, but if you go into it in admin mode (open a browser on your laptop and type in to the address bar http://192.168.1.254) there is a menu somewhere that will allow you to see all the devices connected to it and the addresses allocated by the router. If you can do that you may find that the radio is already connected and if this is the case there may be some other reason, such as a firewall, that is preventing contact with it. Good luck!
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks Pete. I'll go through all that when I get a moment. You do just select the set-up mode AFAIK. The unit told me that the set-up had failed when I first got the IP up. In fact, that was the second time I tried it, as on the very first attempt the day before, I failed to get the IP connected at all. If the IP is being sent by the unit, then I'm wondering if there's a fault. It's still well within warranty & it came from John Lewis so I'm not worried about replacement if that's the case. In all other respects, it's fine though so I'll go through due process. I'll let you know what happens.
Thanks again.
 
"Setup Failed" is not a very helpful message. It may just mean that you've failed to connect to the BT router. I've no reason to think the unit is faulty since you've connected to it once, I would still try resetting it to the factory default settings if you're still having trouble. Is your iPhone connecting to the setup network ok? The idea of using a wireless device to set up another device is something I've never come across before, I wonder if there's a conflict between the two networks? That would certainly cause connection to be erratic. Maybe you're too close to the BT router or it needs to be set to a different channel. Or maybe you've just made an error in entering the setup details. Network names are case-sensitive and don't like extra spaces.
 
Yes, the iphone is in the network & has been for some time. As for the set-up network, I can't say except that it won't connect to the set-up IP which is the problem as you know. In some reviews I read the unit had to be within inches of the router to effect the connection, so I've had it within a few feet. I only managed to get the details in once so apart from assuming they were correct, I can't confirm that.
Would setting the router to another channel interfere with anything else & how would I change channels?
I haven't got round to trying the connection again as yet.
 
The Rovering Member said:
Yes, the iphone is in the network & has been for some time.
Would setting the router to another channel interfere with anything else & how would I change channels?
Click to expand...
I was referring to the setup network, transmitted by the Panasonic. The network menu on the iphone should show your BT network and the setup network and you should be able to choose the setup network and connect to it when the Panasonic is in setup mode. It is obviously operating at a very low power and you need to be close to it and a long way from the BT router so that the latter does not overwhelm it. You can change the channel by going into the admin menu of the router, as I explained in an earlier post, and changing the channel. Stick to 1, 6 or 11. All the other devices will pick up the new channel without you doing anything.
 
Ah, so could the IP problem be the router overwhelming the Panasonic through it's proximity. I'll have to try again when the wife gets home. She has the iPhone.

I must say, this is much more information that I found on the rest of the WorldWideWait. It's not what you know..............
 
Well, I tried again, this time away from the router & we have success. It turns out it was human error as I had previously failed to select the 'set-up' link on the iPhone, though as I say, did connect to the set-up page once. Probably too much haste through the (easy version :LOL: ) instructions.
It's all playing nicely now & you can play music remotely from the iPhone or from the desktop, through the computers speakers simultaneously if you like, which is very handy for parties & BBQ's.

Thanks for your help Pete, you sometimes forget that people on here know other stuff apart from old Rovers. :mrgreen:

BTW, I can recommend the unit if anyone is in the market for an iDock/radio/CD player. It's sleekly attractive & sounds good too.
 
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