Hi all; hope some of you computer buffs can help with this one. The wireless connection on my (crappy, company owned) Toshiba laptop works all round the world in hotels, airports etc but won't pick up and hold onto my home Plusnet router. The Plusnet connection comes up on the list of possible connections, the laptop connects for about 5 seconds, drops it, reconnects, drops it, reconnects etc etc etc etc etc. My son's PC works fine though he is using a USB connected Belkin adaptor. Any ideas??? Don't go too technical as I'm no expert. Cheers for any ideas

By the way, it works fine if I connect the Ethernet cable but that's not alot of help if I'm downstairs when the router is upstairs connected to the PC.

Whats make and model is the plusnet router.

Which operating system are you using?

Sometimes you just get things that do that. You could try altering channels on the router, or see if there's newer drivers for the Tosh, but I've had some combinations that just don't work.

has it ever connected? what's the security set to on the router (WEP, WPA, WPA2 etc)? did you deffo type the key/password in right? what happens if you set security to none?

Yup either security on the router (pass key or MAC filtering) is my guess too.

On off connections tend to be down to the laptop not agreeing with the security settings e.g. WEP WPA etc In my experience

Try changing the router to open security for a bit and see how that goes.

Something that is worth checking is that your router isn't running on channel 13. I've found a proliferation of laptops these days seem to just plain not agree with that even though it's valid in the EU as a channel for the service.

Something that is worth checking is that your router isn't running on channel 13. I've found a proliferation of laptops these days seem to just plain not agree with that even though it's valid in the EU as a channel for the service.

This... although i love channel 13 as it gives me a bit of free-air between everyone else..

It does sound like a mismatch of security though.. the router is prob set to WPA/WPA2 - try setting it to just WPA.

You could try changing the password on the router.

I've found that solved connection problems in the past. No Rhyme or reason to it but it did work on more than one occasion.

Thanks to all for your suggestions. Turns out the wrong wireless key was stored on the laptop from my previous attempts to connect. When the router arrived it was accompanied by a sticker which supposedly shows the correct password, wireless key etc but I just noticed there's a different key printed on the bottom of the router and hey presto it works ! Frustrating to be misled by Plusnet in the first place though.