laptop unable to connect wirelessly

[Homerboy]

My neighbor got a new laptop through his work, but he (and now I) am having a hell of a time getting it to connect wirelessly to either of our home network,s

The laptop in question is a Dell Inspiron running WIn7 64bit.

It can see our networks but when you try to connect to either it simply says "Windows was unable to connect to this network" No prompt for password or anything.

I'm kind of at a loss here.

 

[JackMDS]

Maybe this can Help.

Check the Device Manager for valid Wireless card entry.
http://www.ezlan.net/Win7/net_dm.jpg

If there is No valid entry, delete any Bogus Entry, and re-install the Wireless card's Drivers.
Check the Network connections to make sure that you have a Wireless Network Connection Icon/Entry, and that the Properties of the Icon (right click on the Icon) are correctly configured with TCP/IPv4 protocol in the Network Connections Properties.

http://www.ezlan.net/Win7/net_connection_tcp.jpg

Make sure that if there is a vendor's Wireless Utility the utility is Not Running together with the Windows native Wireless utility.

Make sure that No Firewall is preventing/blocking the Wireless components to get to the Network.

If everything above is OK and it is not connecting to the Wireless router. Log from any computer that is, or can be connected to Wireless Router with a Wire, disable the Wireless Security, make sure that the Wireless broadcast is On, and try to connect with No Wireless security.

When working turn On the Wireless security.

Note* People sometimes make mistakes in writing and retyping the security passphrase.
Alternative way is to copy it from the Router's menu, and then paste when asked by the Wireless card.
-------------
The following pages were Not written specifically for Win 7. However, they depict the principles of the Wireless working in computers running Windows OS', and can serve as a fast education to understand the basic of the Wireless computers working.

My Wireless does not work - http://www.ezlan.net/wireless.html

Wireless Basic Configuration - http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Config.html

Wireless Security - http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Security.html

 

[Homerboy]

lol you're thorough that's for sure.
I actually got it running not long after posting this this morning (apparently 1 more cup of coffee is what it...er... I needed.

Just uninstalled reinstalled the driver and *poof*

Thanks nonetheless.