Airport and German PC: "You are not connected to the Internet"

[W. Eric Martin]

We have a new exchange student here with a German PC. When we give her our password for the wireless connection (we have an Airport), she gets a strong signal but also an error message saying that although she's on the wireless, she is not connected to the Internet. The message suggests we unplug the modem, wait a few minutes, and plug it back in.

We tried this with no luck. We connected her PC directly to the modem using the ethernet cable and she can get on the internet that way. So the problem is clearly something to do with the Airport.

We're kind of newbies here. Do you have any suggestions so we can get this poor student online?

Thanks,

WEM

 

[chscag]

If she can connect via ethernet then it's probably security which is preventing her from getting on line. What type of security is your router broadcasting and is it transmitting the SSID?

It's usually much easier to access a wireless connection from Windows than Mac OS X. Have her make sure she has everything setup correctly from Windows. Generally, just a right click on the connection icon in the system tray and click the statement to "show all connections" will bring up a list of all available connections within range.

If your wireless connection is listed (must broadcast SSID) have her highlight the connection and click on connect. If a password is required, Windows will prompt for it and if the correct password is given, a connection will be made. After the initial connection, Windows will connect automatically each time unless you tell it not to.

Regards.

 

[W. Eric Martin]

Thanks for the comment! Our student can actually connect to our wireless using our password -- she gets a full strength signal. The problem is that even though she gets a wireless signal, she can't actually get on the Internet. And on her PC where it tells you the characteristics of the modem, it says "Nur lokal" ("only local"). Any idea what this means? Our student was able to get on a wireless connection in New York last week, and my family has no problem getting online here in our house, so it's strange.

Thanks again~

 

[chscag]

I'm afraid I can't provide any insight as to what "only local" might mean with regard to characteristics of the modem. She shouldn't be using a modem to access the internet via wireless anyway. A modem would only be used to provide a dial up connection.

If she was able to use wireless in NY, and you're able to use wireless at your home (I'm assuming that's where she's trying to connect from) then there has to be something missing. What type of security are you using and what kind of Airport device do you have?

Before answering... as a test, turn off all security and broadcast in the clear. See if she can connect that way. Post back.

Regards.

 

[W. Eric Martin]

Our student was connected directly to the modem only to see whether she could get online that way, and she could. When she uses the wireless on her computer, she then gets the "only local" message.

After more searching online, I discovered other users of Windows Vista that have this identical problem: Another person can use a wireless connection, while the Vista user receives an "only local" message. (As a Mac user, I feel vindicated in thinking that the problem was due to Windows. Fist pump!)

While I found many suggestions for how to solve this problem, her computer system is in German, she doesn't understand all the English computer terms, and I've never used Windows and speak only a tiny bit of German. She's forwarded info on the problem to the person from whom she purchased the computer in Germany, so ideally she'll receive advice from him soon.

Thanks for the suggestions!