Wireless USB Adapters Don't Work

[wirm]

Hi folks,
My 2 year-old TrendNet wireless G adapter has been flaking on me for the past few weeks. I built a new computer a month ago with Windows 7 64-bit, and I guess maybe the Trendnet adapter just wasn't made to work with it.

So I bought a Premier Tech PT-h5DN wireless N 300 Mbps dongle and tried to use that. It installed just fine, but won't detect any networks. So I installed it on 2 other computers (both using Windows XP) and it worked great. The signal strength is excellent (I pick up more than a dozen networks in my area).

What's wrong with my Win 7 64 bit computer that it won't work with the device? The dongle says it supports Win 7 64-bit.

Any clues?

 

[JackMDS]

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

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Many Wireless cards' drivers also install the vendor's Wireless utility.

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

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Make sure that No Firewall is preventing/blocking the Wireless components to get to the Network.
Some 3rd party Software Firewalls keep blocking aspects of Local Traffic even it they are turned Off (disabled).If possible configure the Firewall correctly, otherwise totally uninstall it, and get rid of its residual processes to allow clean flow of local network traffic.

If the 3rd party software is uninstalled or disables, make sure that Windows native Firewall is On .
3rd party Network mangers like Bonjour, and NetMagic can block local traffic too.

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Working TCP/IP stack should look this way.
Right click on the Wire card Network Connection, choose Status, Details, and see if it got an IP and the rest of the settings.

http://www.ezlan.net/Win7/status-nic.jpg

Description is the card manufacturing data.
Physical address is the card's MAC number.
The xx should be a number from 0 to 255 (all xx same number).
yy should be from 0 to 255
zz should be from 0 to 255 (all zz the same number.

The lease date should be valid to the current time.

*Note 1. IP that starts with 169.xxx.xxx.xxx is not valid functional IP.

*Note 2. There might be an IPv6 entries too. However, they are not functional for Internet traffic or LAN. They are needed for Win 7 special HomeGroup configuration.

 

[wirm]

Ok, it's going to take me a while to work through that list. If anything works, cheers!

 

[wirm]

Ok, I've once again failed.

The first picture is very similar to mine. I have a valid wireless card entry
For the second picture, I managed to get to that screen, and it looks the same.
For the 3rd picture, I get the screen on the right, but the Network Connection Details is blank. The right side picture shows Not Connected, which isn't surprising.

So to sum it up, the RealTek Wireless Utility seems to be running okay. But it shows no networks in the vicinity, which is bogus.

Any further help is appreciated. Thanks

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

please go to the cmd prompt and enter the following

ipconfig /all

copy and paste it here

 

[wirm]

Sorry, just got to my computer. It's difficult because I can only connect to the internet with a dying wireless USB adapter and have to switch it out in order to try the new (non-functioning) one. Here is what I see:

http://www.imagebam.com/image/a5058e117787792
I've removed the MAC address of the onboard gigabit LAN. I don't see the wireless adapter anywhere. Maybe that's the problem? Windows 7 doesn't recognize it?

I've used the drivers recommended by Tech Support, but still the same problem. No wireless networks are found (which makes sense if the computer doesn't detect the adapter at all).

Still, the adapter shows up in the Device Manager.