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Connecting to the Internet at a Hotel

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drenader

Member
Joined
Nov 8, 2003
Location
Austin
Hey my father is at a hotel for the week and he brought his laptop down. His hotel offers free internet through there lan. So he went out and bought some cat 6 patch cable and plugged it up. Hes not able to go online, it shows that he is on the network but its not connecting to the browers. He is sending things but not recieving (when the network icon was double clicked). He is using xp home edition. Can you guys think of a way to fix it?

Thank you

Dre
 
I take it that the front desk is no help. And most of the night auditers at hotels in this area are all computer nerds so they can sit up all night caming with few interuptions. I'd say wait till about 11pm then grab the guy/gal behind the desk.
 
Has the laptop been hooked up to a network before, or is this the first time it's ever been networked?

Is it getting an IP address?
 
At his house he connects to DSL. I believe it gets an ip not for certian since im not htere right now. It shows the network as connected but cant do anything as far as internet goes.
 
Yea, you're going to have to get an IP, probably pick up one those AOL disks and use that for the time your there. Iran intothis last year in LA.
 
This can probably be solved very easily by going down to the front desk, and asking them why it isn't working (maybe it's some kind of pay system that isnt' being paid for or some weird requirement before they turn it on?).

Besides that, if it could be tried in a different room (maybe it's just a problem with their room).

The first things to look for are:
1. Connectivity: does the link light go on and stay on when plugged in?
2. IP address: start / run / type cmd, hit enter, and then type ipconfig and see if you get an address that isn't 169.x.x.x
3. DNS: try pinging an IP: start / run / type cmd and then hit enter and type ping 4.2.2.1. If it returns a reply, then you are having DNS problems, or everything's working properly. If not, then you have a problem with connectivity or IP address.
 
Ill have to try that when i go back to the hotel, but it was showing that it was connected to a network and if you unplug and replug the cat 6 than it disconnects and reconnects like it should. We have an aol account that we were trying to use too but still no avail. The front desk tried fixing uit but couldnt figure it out.

Thank you

Dre
 
doesnt cat6 patch cable do the same thing? I was going to buy it when i installed my router so i could network some computers. But i wasnt sure thats why i kept saying that i was using cat6 i thought that might be it.

Thank you

Dre
 
CAT6 does the same thing as CAT5. You could use CAT6 for phone cables, if you change the ends. It's just a wire. And it has higher specs than needed for 100Mbit networking. So all is good with that cable.
 
Do they require you to use a proxy server for internet perhaps?
 
ill try that and see if that works, he has zone alarm but i keep disableing it and trying but still no avail tomorrow i will try that out
 
most likely they have mac filtering enabled. this would allow your conenction to be shown as active and ouwld be able to send packets but not receive them. in order to be able to get online you would need to register the mac address (sometimes called physical address) of the network adaptor with the front desk so you could get online.

mac filtering would be used so people wouldnt be able to just walk in off the street, plug in their laptop and start getting online. its just a form of authentication.
 
Do as su root says. The hotels I've been in often provide an IP address via DHCP. If you aren't using one of their IP addresses it simply won't work. (but you will get link on the NIC) If you suspect this is the case, verify if your NIC is getting it's IP address via DHCP (check your Internet Protocol [TCP/IP] properties and look at the "Obtain an IP address automatically" setting)
 
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