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General discussion

Laptop will not access wifii

Feb 14, 2012 11:50AM PST

at Mcdonalds, but will at Starbucks. How can i fix this problem. i see other laptops at McDonalds online, but mine wont. I repair and trouble shoot and nothing happens. I have a Gateway laptop. It is about 5 years old

Discussion is locked

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Any Error Messages?
Feb 15, 2012 3:35AM PST

Unfortunately, you've given us little information to shoot at.. Operating system? Updated the wireless drivers lately? Make and model of the computer? Does McDonald's require a password and Starbucks doesn't? The more information you give us, the better informed our answer will be.

Please note that older computer didn't support the WPA2 password security protocols and it's possible that McDonalds is requiring such where Starbucks doesn't? The older drivers on your computer may support WEP and possibly WPA but if WPA2 password encryption is required, it may not work..

Hope this helps.

Grif

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Gateway OS is Vista
Feb 15, 2012 2:28PM PST

Model #MT3707. McDonalds does not require a password. Starbucks requires a login password that I set up.
If my computer does not support it or if I need to upgrade my drivers to use WPA2 is that something I can do? I would like to change my laptop to windows 7, but dont know if it is possible.

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Hello Gpadilla7:)
Feb 18, 2012 7:00AM PST

Hi I'm Zack,

Recently I have passed my exam so I am now Cisco Certified:)! I believe I can help with this problem. I believe you should upgrade your wifi driver. The wifi driver is probably not working properly as it should. You should to the laptops manufacture website and look up your model of your laptop. Download the latest wifi driver and install it After that go to Mcdonald's or Starbucks and test out your wifi and see if it worksHappy. For windows 7 you should see if your laptop is capable of handling the OS and meets the minimum requirements for the Operating System.

WiFi Driver: http://support.gateway.com/us/en/product/default.aspx?tab=1&modelId=3094

I hope this helps! Your Friend,
Zack Happy

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Thank You Very Much!
Feb 20, 2012 2:11PM PST

I will try it and post back

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Zack, How can I find out if my computer is capable to change
Feb 21, 2012 1:11AM PST

OS to Windows?

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Re: changing to Windows
Feb 21, 2012 1:23AM PST

It already is Windows. Windows Vista. That's still fully supported. So there should be no need to switch to Windows 7 for this issue.

If you've got other reasons to change the OS (for example, you hate Vista and you love 7 and you don't mind it is USD 150 to upgrade) then I'd start downloading the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor from download.microsoft.com and see what it says.

Kees

Kees