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Hey, my dad is having trouble with his WiFi. Apparently modem works fine, the router works fine (he can use Wifi through his phone) but his computer can't connect to the router. I've included a screenshot of what he sent me.

Any idea what the problem might be? Thus far googling hasn't helped.

Control Panel - Network & Sharing Centre

Where it says "Connections" click on the link beside it (probably something like Local Area Connection; possibly the name of the wifi network). A little window should pop up; click Properties, and there will be list of things, click IPV4 or IPV6, and try choosing "Obtain DNS Server Automatically"

Thanks for the suggestion Chad, unfortunately it didn't work.

Can he connect to it with a wire? That would narrow down the possibilties.

Not real good with things > XP yet, but what would be really interesting would be the output from the "ipconfig /all" command.
Going by what I see there, it almost looks like he does not actually have a connection. That is, he may have a wifi card, and it may be turned on, but it doesn't look like he actually tried to join a network. Or that he has an Ethernet cable, but he has it plugged into the wrong port (or has the other end plugged into the wrong thing on the router). Or else he has network devices present, but disabled in Control Panel.

--Patrick

It was working fine before, it just suddenly wonked out. According to him, he didn't touch anything. And as I mentioned, the network seems fine as he can connect from his phone, but not the computer. Here's results from ipconfig /all

Huh. Dad sent me a picture showing available wireless networks, which suggests wireless network card is working fine, but our home network has a red X next to it. But the home network is definitely up, as my father tested it by connecting to it and checked the internet with his phone while in airplane mode. Weird.

Is his computer only capable of b/g networking, but the router suddenly got switched to only allow n?
This is why network troubleshooting is so much fun when you're not actually on-site, btw.

--Patrick

Nah, router is old and not n-capable.

Hmm, but the computer is (according to your pic above).
Is the computer set somehow n-only?

Still not understanding why the computer keeps refusing to join your router's SSID. Hope the logs have some info.

--Patrick

Oh, didn't notice that. I'll have to check into it tomorrow.

Have you tried unplugging it, waiting 30 secs, and then plugging it back in?

Also, if he hovers over the red X, or single clicks on it, does it give any sort of error message?

@drifter, if/when you find out what's up with this, you better not leave us hanging.

--Patrick

Sure thing.

If you temporarily turn off encryption, can he connect?

Dunno, he's not at home to test. I have to wait until tonight.

I trust this resolution should be sufficiently disappointing: in the interests of not caring anymore pragmatism, I'm just going to have my dad move the router and modem into the computer room. He can connect the computer directly to the router, and still access WiFi from his phone. A real fix is just going to have to wait until I can get over there.

Any solution which works is still a solution.
You learn that in troubleshooting school.

--Patrick