dell laptop media dissconnected

[lil chris]

I am trying to help a friend.His dell inspiron laptop suddenly wont connect to the internet via cable or by wireless,it is running on vista home premium.I have checked control panel both adapters are showing as working ok & enabled.I have gone into a comamd prompt and tried ipconfig but it lists both adapters as media dissconnected.I have tried reinstalling both adapters,and reinstalling drivers to no avail.Ipconfig/renew doesnt work because itt says the media is dissconnected.I have tried to connect the laptop to my system with the ethernet cable off my pc( a known working cable) and I have tried to connect to my netgear wireless router as well but no joy.It as to be something to do with the message media dissconnected so apart from a reinstall is there anyway to fix it...help please...

[Big Fish]

Here's something you could try:

1. Go to the control panel & select "Administrative Tools".

2. In Administrative Tools, go to "Services".

3. On the Services screen, scroll down until you find "Wireless Zero Configuration".

4. Start this service.

5. Now go to "Network Connections" and right click your wireless adapter icon.

6. I can't remember exactly which tab it is, but find the one where you have the option to check or uncheck "Use Windows to configure my wireless connections" or something to that effect. Make sure it is checked.

[Rudra.J]

Hey!
I guess the ethernet apadter or the drivers are bad...! Try to install a newr version of the drivers if available...! Did you update Vista? This might cause problems too...! Vista has been a bad OS...! If you have updated Vista then you need to do a system restore, or you can try system restore anytime to check if it works with that done...! But it will delete new data, so make a backup before you do a system restore...! All the best...!

[lil chris]

thanks for the reples guys unfortunately still gettin g no where.Have tried reinstalling drivers but still doesnt change the staus media dissconnected.Have tried going to admin/services unfortunatley no services tab there was a tab re wired networking which I started but still no joy.I have just tried booting from vista cd/last known good config but still no joy.I have already tried system restore,that was my 1st port of call to be honest but it looks like system restore was turned off.

[Rudra.J]

Hey!
Well in such case i would suggest, take backup and clean install Vista from scratch...! Might work..!? All the best...!

[lil chris]

thanks for the reply.I have managed to connect through the wireless connection onto my wireless network after doing several things.I broke the diagnosis rules trying several things,reset the tcp,and winsock etc.What mistified me was both not working but on trying again to my wireless it connected.So I am assuming the lan adapter as failed on the motherboard or perhaps the socket has a loose connection.Once I connected ok to the internet I have uppgraded to later drivers etc and on doing a ipconfig it now shows the wireless settings but the lan still as media dissconnected.So guys please mark this as solved,thanks to everyone for help.

[paulatkinson]

I've seen this issue on Broadcom adapters. I would try changing the Speed & Duplex on the Network Adapter from Auto to 100 MB Half.