'acquiring network address'?

[bluto]

I have wireless cable net that acts all kinds of f'd up on occasion. It will disconnect from my secured connection and then when i go to reconnect it will act like its reconnecting only to say "acquiring network address" then finally just drop the signal all together. WTF does "acquiring network address" mean and is there any way to solve the problem?

 

[Swiffert]

try turning off the encryption. then see what happens.

 

[dougm]

make sure you have the latest NIC drivers. and also upgrade your access point to the latest firmware, etc etc etc.

 

[superwick]

when that happens its most likely b/c you have a weak signal

 

[KMcCoy33]

acquiring network address means it is getting an IP address from your router. Normally a person (their modem) is assigned a single IP from their service provider. A router allows this single IP to be sort of split into parts I guess you could say, treating that provider IP as your street address and your router IP as an apartment number of sorts. So if you didn't have a router hooked up and only a network switch or hub, you wouldn't be able to get more than one computer to go out to the internet at the same time because you would only have one address.
On to trying to solve your problem. Usually, unless it is a business account, your service provider issues you (your modem) a dynamic IP (one that changes at different time intervals). Sometimes when this change happens, your router doesn't pick up that change at the same time. Then your computer loses its way out through the router. The easiest way to solve the problem if it is something that lasts for more than 30 seconds or so is to unplug the power to both your router and cable modem. Then plug your cable modem back in; wait for it to do its little thing (the lights will flash and then show that it is getting its connection). Then plug your router back in. Everything should work fine after that.

 

[KMcCoy33]

also, if it is giving you that message and never reconnects, you may have a problem with encryption or filtering, but you acted like it is reconnecting after some time. I have run into problems when using MAC filters on my router where the computer will sometimes not connect even though its MAC address is on my accepted list. I usually am able to solve this by turning MAC filters off and then turning them back on from the computer that wouldn't connect previously.

 

[gunnerhorn]

it's your computer ******* with you because you're from mesquite

 

[bluto]

lol gunner, oh so incorrect.

Mccoy and all,
Thanks for the help. I'm not very computer literate, and i let my roomie set up the network for our apt so i really dont have a clue about this stuff. The last time it f'd up on me, I did unplug the network adapter USB from my tower and replugged it. It popped right up and worked beautifully. Hopefully taht is the trick.

once again, thanks

 

[plimon]

There is also a known bug with the wireless connector on XP. You need Service Pack 2 to fix this.