Hi everyone, I'm having some trouble connecting to the LAN connection in my dorm room. I live on a college campus where they heavily guard their network and sometimes overdo it in terms of security. Anyway, I was trying to set up my Fujitsu S7010 (another laptop) with the LAN connection through my ethernet jack in my room. I unplugged my B2630 which was working fine with that jack. My S7010 couldn't connect but just started telling me, "Acquiring Network Address." It was sending authentication packets but the network was not responding. I thought I'd throw in the towel for the night and just go back to using my B2630. When I plugged in my B2630, I couldn't connect either. It told me the same thing, "Acquiring Network Address" and was not receiving any packets from the network. I know the network didn't boot my computer off since I tried my roommate's connection and it works perfectly, for my B2630 that is. The "tech support" group on campus is called ResComm, just a bunch of guys who like to see what's on your computer and spend excess amounts of time messing around with your computer to fix miniscule problems or just tell you stupid responses. Plus they only operate on odd hours of the day so it's almost impossible to find them. Just wondering, what do you think the problem is? This happened before once but at that time, the connection had reset itself in the morning when I had tried to get on. Now it hasn't done that. Would you suspect it of being the ethernet jack being blown out? I'm leary to that conclusion since my NetGEAR switch says that power's running through the ethernet jack. Any help is appreciated! Thanks very much! --Todd

Try making sure your laptop is set to automatically obtain an IP address by right clicking on Local Area Connection->Properties->Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties, then select the check box to obtain an IP address automatically. Save this setting and you should be good to go.

I tried that and it doesn't seem to work. I tried taking the information from ipconfig and setting it manually but neither works. I tried connecting my S7010 to my roommate's connection and now his is out too. It can't be coincidence. I'm not sure if I mentioned, but the campus network has a computer policy that requires all computers to go through a validation process that forces the user to install antivirus software, OS updates/patches, and then register's the MAC address with the network and lets the user surf the web. If the computer isn't validated, it redirects the user to the registration page whenever he/she starts using the browser. I expected that since my S7010 hasn't been registered, it would take me to the registration page. But it seems like the network "ignores" any connection in those ethernet jacks (validated or not) after I connected the S7010 to it. Almost like any computer without validation will "disable" the ethernet jack. Now I'm forced to go to a lounge for any internet at all. What I'm really looking for is a way around it, or some way to reset the jack from the client-side. I don't know of any network admins in my dorm so unfortunately I'll be stuck. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas to get around this?

instead of "a way around it", why not just get your computer into compliance with the policies..get it validated..and go from there????

But my computer's been validated. I can't even access the registration page. Any computer using that ethernet jack won't be able to do anything online. The DHCP doesn't even assign an IP address.

if you "go to a lounge for any internet at all" can you then access the registration page??? Ask administrators how...but I would get them to check why your drops are disabled, if they are, in your room also..

It could be a number of things all of which are out of your control. your buildings switch may have failed. See if other doom rooms have the issue. Your rooms wiring may have been cut accidentally. Any construction going on? the dhcp server ran out of assignable ip addresses. Something is wrong with the authenication software [sounds like Packet Fence] or for some reason your systems are banned. Example of Oxymoron: Person who is pro life and anti sex education. Education is key to prevention. Prevent conception you prevent abortion. Abstinence training clearly isn't working.