* Getting the router password would obviously be a Good Thing. Please do that.
When I get the password, what settings could cause my router not to communicate with my laptop?
The
only thing I can think of that would give you that problem (assuming nothing is actually broken) would be if someone had limited the router's DHCP scope to exatly 1 client. That is, the router was set to hand out only
one IP address via DHCP. This would obviously be very unlikely, though.
1. I honestly don't know if the "cultural differences" between the Chinese and US devices could play a part, but my hunch would be no.
2. Plug the desktop machine in to each and every Ethernet port on the router, one at a time, rebooting the computer each time you change ports. If the desktop can connect properly to every LAN port, the router is almost certainly
not faulty.
3. Just FYI: "Limited or no connectivity" means that a network link/handshake
has been established between the router and laptop, but that TCP/IP settings aren't getting correctly configured for some reason. Some ways to weed out the suspects in that area:
* Turn off the router's DHCP server, configure
static IPs, reboot all devices, and see if you get connectivity that way.
* Verify the integrity of your TCP/IP stack:
- Click on the "Run..." option in your Start menu.
- In the "Open:" box of the resulting window, type "cmd" (omit the quotes) and hit Enter. This will bring up a DOS window.
- At the DOS prompt, type the following commands, hit Enter after each, and tell us the results for
each command:
ping 127.0.0.1
ping localhost
* At the DOS prompt, type the following command and hit Enter. You won't see any result from the command, but when it completes, a second prompt with a flashing cursor will be displayed; close the DOS box once that happens:
ipconfig /all >"%userprofile%"\desktop\ipconfig.txt
The above command will have created a text file on you desktop named
ipconfig.txt; double-click on the file to open it in Notepad, and then cut-n-paste the file's contents in your next post here. The contents of the file will give us some important details of your IP configuration.