MetaChat - Advice for a dinosaur laptop?

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17 February 2008

Advice for a dinosaur laptop? My son found this ancient Dell Inspiron 3500 in the trash where he works. He's found dvd players, ipods...all kinds of stuff. →[More:]

So, I know nothing about laptops. It had a network card in it that didn't seem to work. I googled around and found that the card (a Linksys Wireless-G Notebook Adapter) didn't work with the operating system in this laptop, which is 2000NT. So I bought a Wireless-B, which does seem to work but I'm not sure (never having had a laptop myself) so I was hoping someone could help us figure out what to do here.

We have Verizon fios, which means we have a wireless router. I have the laptop sitting next to the router, and the Linksys screen shows that we are connected to the internet. So I click on the Internet Explorer icon to open it, and every time I do a Dial-up Connection menu opens and asks for a password. I have no idea why it opens (isn't that just associated with dial-up modems?) and I have no idea how to disable thing, or why it pops up, but the browser won't show any websites because of it. What to do? I'm confuzzled.

post by: iconomy at: 19:48 | 9 comments

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by iconomy 17 February | 19:49

What you've done has only got you as far as creating a physical link with the router (ie the equivalent of plugging in a cable), but haven't configured the computer to use the link.

Right click Network Neighbourhood on the desktop and select Properties, and disable the Dial Up connection and add (or enable if it's already there) a LAN connection for the wireless card. Make sure TCP/IP is ticked/installed in the connection's properties. That should be it.

(I don't have a Windows PCD in front of me, so sorry if this is too vague to follow)

posted by cillit bang 17 February | 20:13

I don't know if you have done this, but you might have to go back to the "connecting to the internet" icon or find it in the control panel, and change the settings.

(I am typing this on an inspiron 2650 that I have kept alive for a number of years.)

That's all I got, ico. Good luck!

posted by danf 17 February | 20:59

Thanks, guys...I'll try your advice and hopefully be posting from the dinosaur soon ;)

posted by iconomy 17 February | 22:23

ARGH. I tried what you said, cb, and the dial-up connection box still pops up when I click on IE, and then when I close it I get a message that I can only work offline. I'm starting to understand why this laptop was in the trash.

posted by iconomy 17 February | 22:52

Yay...online at last! I've only been trying for about 2 weeks....geez.

I kiss you both!

posted by iconomy 17 February | 23:27

I'm having a nice little conversation with myself here.

So, my son works at a ice skating rink on the weekends. He says that the hoity toities (the figure skaters) throw away their tech gadgets as soon as they get something better, which apparently is often. I don't get why they do it at the rink. I'm guessing they bring their old stuff there to see if any of the other hoity toities wants it and of course no one ever does, so it ends up in the trash. We have eighteen gazillion ipods now.

Maybe we'll all have our own laptops soon, who knows.

posted by iconomy 18 February | 10:44

Well at least you might get a good "parts" trove.

(if you find any 80G iPods, shoot one my way, OK?)

posted by danf 18 February | 10:53

Note to self: Go dumpster diving at local ice rink.

posted by god hates math 18 February | 16:41

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