No networks detected while two available



My wife's Centrino laptop just had its hard drive replaced, and I was
setting it up so it could reconnect to my wireless ADSL. Weirdness
ensued.
First it connected straight away to my neighbour's wireless ADSL.
When I went to disconnect in View Available Wireless Networks (which
always
used to show mine and the neighbour's), I got:
"No wireless networks were found in range". The only way I could
disconnect
was to disable the wireless.
Then I temporarily disabled my encryption and Mac address filtering,
re-enabled the wireless and it connected right away to my router
(stronger
signal) but still with nothing showing in Available Wireless Networks.
As
soon as I re-enabled encryption the laptop would just connect to the
neighbour's again, no way to force it to try to connect to mine & bring
up
the password dialogue.

Incidentally, the laptop's MAC address had changed too - when I
re-enabled
address filtering in my router it wouldn't connect until I discovered
and
entered in the new Mac address of the laptop. Changing a HD shouldn't
have
changed this, should it? Does this indicate they've swapped it for an
entirely different unit?

So now the only security I have is the MAC address filtering which I'm
obviously not comfortable with. Any ideas why it should be happily
connecting but showing no available networks? I read a recommendation
to
disable SSID broadcast in the router as a security measure, and maybe
this
could cause the networks to not show up, but I doubt it because [a] my
router manufacturer D-Link told me this couldn't be disabled in my unit
(DSL
G604-T) and [b] what a coincidence that my neighbour would suddenly
disable
his at the same time that mine's gone, when he doesn't seem to know or
care
about security at all! Oh, and [c] the name of my router (or my
neighbour's) shows up in Settings>Network Connections>Wireless Network
Connection>Details when connected.

.



Relevant Pages

  • Re: wireless connection
    ... The router is an SMC Barricade 4 port wireless router with usb print ... > the laptop an internal one or card? ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.network_web)
  • Re: Renaming a wireless connection
    ... Replaced a router with a Belkin that has wired and wireless in its ... Desktop is wired to this router. ... Laptop found the wireless and connected with the name ... ||| I'm assuming we're talking the default SSID Name here? ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.network_web)
  • Re: Renaming a wireless connection
    ... || Replaced a router with a Belkin that has wired and wireless in its ... Desktop is wired to this router. ... | Laptop Computer Name? ... | I'm assuming we're talking the default SSID Name here? ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.network_web)
  • Re: Completely OT, but need help!
    ... laptop last September. ... the existing installed drivers. ... I have connected my laptop directly to the router via cable to send ... I regularly have wireless problems. ...
    (uk.legal)
  • Re: bouncing connection and a netgear router..
    ... The WGR614 wireless router does NOT have a built in DSL modem. ... benchmark test between the 2nd laptop and her wireless laptop. ...
    (alt.internet.wireless)