topic Re: Router and laptop in My Router

Router and laptop

SteveDee — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 12:05:09 GMT

Hi there!
My first post in the community, although I have been with Plusnet for many years.
My problem is that I cannot get my laptop to see the router through Wi-Fi. I can get it to work with an ethernet cable, but although I have tried a USB dongle, I cannot get the laptop to recognise the router. I just get a message saying 'you cannot access this network' - yes, I am entering the correct password and rebooting doesn't work!

All other equipment in the house works fine, TV, phones, tablets, consoles. So I am curious as to why my laptop doesn't see it. Any ideas? I actually took the laptop into a repair shop, where they said both the internal Wi-Fi card and the dongle were seeing their WiFi fine.

Any ideas on how I can tweak the router to work with the laptop, without it impacting on other kit in the house?

I appreciate any responses and advice! Thank you in advance

Re: Router and laptop

Baldrick1 — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 12:12:27 GMT

Moderator's note:
Thread moved from Broadband to My Router

Re: Router and laptop

MisterW — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 12:15:26 GMT

@SteveDee which Plusnet router do you have ?

Do you have the make/model of the Wifi card in the laptop ? and the USB one you've tried ?

Re: Router and laptop

SteveDee — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 12:33:04 GMT

It is the Hub Two, which I understand is the latest? My laptop is 7/8 years old and I am not sure if that is the issue? Or what I could do to aid connection, as it still otherwise works fine

Re: Router and laptop

jab1 — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 12:37:13 GMT

@SteveDee How long have you had the Hub2? is this the first time you have used the laptop for a long time?

Re: Router and laptop

SteveDee — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 12:43:27 GMT

Hi John, have had the hub 2 for around a year, but haven't used the laptop for longer than that. I have reset the network and it worked , but next time I switched on it was the same problem and don't want to have to do that every time, of course!

Is there anything I can be talked through in router settings or laptop that might work? As I say, it worked fine at the repair shop and also at daughter's house. Odd..

Re: Router and laptop

jab1 — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 12:45:41 GMT

Can you see the Hub2 in the list of available networks?

Re: Router and laptop

SteveDee — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 12:53:01 GMT

It is a Foktech usb WiFi dongle

The repair guy checked usb drivers were up to date and I have tried all the USBs to see if it worked

Re: Router and laptop

SteveDee — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 12:56:37 GMT

Yes it sees it and a 'hidden network' but the only way it will connect is if I first plug in the ethernet cable and then it will hold the signal once I remove that

Re: Router and laptop

MisterW — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 13:01:14 GMT

It is the Hub Two, which I understand is the latest? My laptop is 7/8 years old and I am not sure if that is the issue?

The Hub two has both 5ghz & 2.4ghz wifi bands but they have the same SSID (wifi network name) and cannot be split.

This confuses some old devices which may be 2.4ghz only, into believing they cannot connect. A trick that sometimes works is to temporarily disable the 5ghz band on the Hub ( Advanced wireless settings) , connecting the said device and then re-enabling the 5ghz band. Bear in mind that any other devices that are currently connected to the 5ghz band will be disconnected and will likely revert to the 2.4ghz band with reduced speed. Once the 5ghz band is re-emabled you probably need to get these devices to connect back to the 5ghz by manually disconnecing and reconnecting.

Re: Router and laptop

jab1 — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 13:01:44 GMT

That does not make sense. If you select that network, and enter the Password(key), is that when you get the 'you cannot access this network' message?

Re: Router and laptop

jab1 — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 13:02:58 GMT

@MisterW Never thought of that! 😀

Re: Router and laptop

SteveDee — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 13:04:28 GMT

Yes. I have gone into the HubTwo manager and it says both 2.4 and 5 GHz are on

Re: Router and laptop

SteveDee — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 13:05:37 GMT

I will try that and report back later, thank you!

Re: Router and laptop

Dan_the_Van — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 13:42:11 GMT

@MisterW

My thinking is if the laptop is seven years old then I would perhaps recommend try changing the Wireless Mode from 1 to 2 or 3 to see if that helps

@SteveDee To achieve this change

From the Home page navigate Advanced settings >Wireless >Wireless mode:

First try 2 and then 3

HTH

Re: Router and laptop

MisterW — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 13:43:55 GMT

My thinking is if the laptop is seven years old then I would perhaps recommend try changing the Wireless Mode from 1 to 2 or 3 to see if that helps

@Dan_the_Van that was going to be my next suggestion if the 5ghz disable had no effect

Re: Router and laptop

SteveDee — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 19:04:01 GMT

Thank you for this but struggling to find this on Windows 10.

Re: Router and laptop

MisterW — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 19:09:02 GMT

That would be because it's nothing to do with Windows! It's a setting in the router ...

Re: Router and laptop

SteveDee — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 19:33:24 GMT

Thank you. Will have a look tomorrow and report back

Re: Router and laptop

Dan_the_Van — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 19:38:20 GMT

It is found here

Here you can turn off 5GHz and/or experiment with the Wireless Mode setting

HTH