Originally Posted by kiteless

Right.

I'd say I'm quite familiar with networking but this problem has me stumped.

I'm trying to get a desktop PC to connect to my wireless network (which presently has only one desktop PC on it). The router came free with the service from Orange (it's called a 'Livebox', manufactured possibly by some company called Inventel?). I'm using a wireless USB adapter, a Netgear one, I think it's the WG111. I bought it while I was living in America (I'm in the UK now). Basically, the USB adapter can see my network but cannot connect. I've turned the firewall off and the WEP off for the sake of troubleshooting. Using either the XP application or the Netgear application, I ask it to connect to my network, and then it either does nothing or pauses for a second and says just above the taskbar "wireless connection unavailable". In the command prompt, ipconfig reveals that the media state is disconnected. The adapter has a small blue LED that just flashes, which according to Netgear's manual, means its searching for a network. I thought it could be some kind of issue involving a clash between the XP and Netgear applications, but I've tried them both alone and nothing changes.

I assumed there must be an issue with the USB adapter so I went out and bought a Belkin USB adapter. Exact same issue - "wireless connection unavailable". So I'm sure there's nothing wrong with my adapter, which brings me to the PC I'm trying to connect - I can't imagine there is anything wrong with that as I literally reinstalled XP last night because the hard drive failed recently. I've checked the settings on the router firmware and everything looks fine.

Obviously this has something to do with the fact that my computer doesn't really see my USB adapter since it comes up in ipconfig as "media disconnected", but I'm stuck. Any ideas are highly appreciated.

Thanks