Ethernet LAN Detection

No. Nothing is simple.

That's correct. Plugging just a CAT5 cable, with nothing connected to the other end, will not produce any form of connection indication. The cable needs to be terminated by the LAN jacks on your AT&T FIOS router. The AT&T router needs to be turned on and operating. You should also see the lights on the ethernet jacks at both ends light up when the cable is plugged in.

Once you get lights on the connectors, dive into Windoze 7 and see if it recognizes the ethernet connection. Make life easy for yourself and temporarily disable the wireless interface on the computah. Make sure that the ethernet interface is enabled.

Start -> All Programs -> Accessories Right click on "Command Prompt" and select "Run as Administrator"

Get a list of interface numbers, run: WMIC NIC GET NAME, INDEX On my Win 7 machine, my ethernet interface = 7 and my wireless = 12. Yours will be different. No need to type the command in caps. Lower case will work.

To disable the ethernet interface, run: WMIC PATH WIN32_NETWORKADAPTER WHERE INDEX=7 CALL DISABLE

To enable the ethernet interface, run: WMIC PATH WIN32_NETWORKADAPTER WHERE INDEX=7 CALL ENABLE

You should be able to see the effects of enable/disable with: IPCONFIG /ALL | MORE

If everything appears to be working, try to ping your router. The IP address of the router will be: IPCONFIG /ALL | find /I "Default Gateway" Then run: PING IP_ADDRESS_OF_DEFAULT_GATEWAY If you get a return, your computah can talk to the gateway.

If that works, the rest will be determining why your AT&T FIOS gateway isn't talking to the internet.

Or, the CAT5 cable is miswired or a crossover cable. Or, there's a box between the computers and the router that you neglected to mention. If it's a home made cable, I would be rather suspicious of the cable.

Model number?

Two things:

#1 The lights on the connector. If at least one interface is auto-MDIX then crossover and straight cables will work, otherwise a straight cable is appropriate.

#2 There is "metric" which can be set. It's the "cost" of an interface. The lowest # is used first.

If Windows 7 sees a wifi connection and a cable connection it will prefer the wifi one. This puzzled me for a while, but it seems Micro$oft don't worry about your link speed.

Run your browser. If it can not connect to Internet then you have your answ er. Second way in case of fire wall. Type google,s IP address in the top pa rt of the browser. All browsers support IP direct ping.if google does not p ing then you are not connected to the Internet. I think google IP is 8 . 8 . 8 .8

e on the computah. Make sure that the ethernet interface is enabled. "

Just my two cents here - with what all it takes in Winblows to disable the wifi, it might be easier to just disable it temporarily at the router. If i t is your router or is in your name you have the master password, so it is just a matter of typing an address in a browser and a few clicks later you have no wifi. It might pick up wifi from the neighbors but if you aren't or can't sign in, it should look for an internet connection and default to th e ethernet.

That is unless they removed even more stuff from Windows, don't get me star ted on that, I still want 98SE back, it did more for me than anything since . Now it seems everything I want automatic is manual and a big hassle, and everything I don't want automatic is and it screws it up half the time and takes more trouble to set it how I want it than it would to just do it in t he first place.

Enough rant, I think my method will work and it might be easier. less typin g at least.

Other than that I know nothing. (Sgt. Schultz voice)

Why would you need Google ? I think most of them are 192.0.0.0 or some such. There should be a paper manual that gives it.

Hi Miguel, nice to see you!

Many laptops replace the wifi by ethernet when you plug the cable, that dep ends on the cost metrics set to the interfaces.

But I have one that keeps the wifi on when plugged and it does not work ver y well with both connections active. The connection appears to work but exp eriences frequent errors, pages load slow and miss half the pictures and do wnloads stall or abort half-way. Not sure why but I learned to watch out to disable the wifi if it does not automatically.

Far too complexicated. It's much easier to just place the router inside a metal trash can for the duration of the test. No cryptic incantations to type, no icons to click, and nothing else to change. No teach-n-type, no drag-n-drop, and no point-n-click. Just lift the lid and toss-n-dump.

If ancient Windoze 98SE was that good, Windoze 3.1 must have been even better. If that still has too much "stuff", then perhaps Windoze 1.0, which lacked a preemptive scheduler and overlapping windows would be even better. Never mind the future... things were always better in the past. If having four speeds in forward is too confusing, you only have to worry about one speed in reverse.

Not to worry (much). The past is not forgotten. You can run most of the old operating systems on your PC: Windows 1.0 and others in your browser for that nostalgia fix: Too advanced for you? You can usually run your old DOS programs using DOSbox: (what I run)

Designing a product that works the way everyone expects, does everything for everyone, and can be configured for everyone's personal idiosyncrasies, is unsurprisingly difficult.

Mine is better.

That's a tolerable substitute for "Everything you know is wrong".

To answer all your questions. If Google can't find it, it doesn't exist.

Google's DNS servers are at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. They respond to ICMP pings like this: C:\JeffL> ping 8.8.8.8 Pinging 8.8.8.8 with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=57 Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=57 Reply from 8.8.8.8: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=57 Ping statistics for 8.8.8.8: Packets: Sent = 3, Received = 3, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 17ms, Maximum = 17ms, Average = 17ms

Nobody does paper manuals these days. What you get is a "Getting Started" or "Read Me First" paper, which provides simplified information needed to get yourself into trouble. There's also a "Wholesale Repudiation of Responsibility" document and warranty disclaimer, in a dozen languages, both helpfully provided by the company attorneys. If you want more detailed documentation, which usually covers the previous hardware version, it can be downloaded from the company web pile. Tech support is often provided for free, which is a good indicator of what it's worth.

exist. "

Have you heard of Shodan ? If so, what do you think of it ? I know very lit tle because my IT knowledge is limited, but I tries it and actually found s omething. Didn't know what to do with it but found it. But they say it is d angerous so it is right up my alley. Just like this cupasoup I found that i s hot and spicy. So much so that if you eat it fast your windpipe starts cl osing up. It has become one of my favorite smacks with one package, I will be buying a bunch of it in the future. My power saws have no guards on them either. No safety on my pistol either, I had to disable it because of a de sign flaw...

And there's another thing about this which may or may not apply. My laptop has a switch on the front to turn the wifi on and off. Even if there is no physical switch, shouldn't there be an easy way to disable it like in Contr ol Panel or its own software ?

Or did the last "upgrade" remove that ?