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[SOLVED] WIFI Issue

LloydXmas

Mon Nov 16, 2015 12:35:53 pm

Hi All,
pretty new to all this so please excuse and dumb questions or misunderstandings! I have an old Notebook (Samsung SF310) that I want to give to my dad. It was seriously crawling with windows so I installed Zorin 9. Initially the WIFI wasn't working, but I managed to get around that by installing drivers based on other posts I have read.

The odd thing now is that I can only discover certain WIFI networks when I scan, and unfortunately my home WIFI is not one of them, I have confirmed that the WIFI seems to be working on the PC by connecting to the internet wirelessly using my phone as a hotspot. My home WIFI works fine for all other Phones/PCs/Tablets in the house. Looked around quite a bit online and didn't find anything really that helped. I tried to connect to it manually as a hidden network and imputing the details manually but that did not work either. As I said I am quite new to this so I am pretty much out of ideas so any help you could give would be really appreciated. Thanks so much!

Swarfendor437

Mon Nov 16, 2015 1:02:48 pm

Hi, can you click on the 'Network' applet in the 'indicator3' applet in the 'System Tray' bottom right of screen? Right-click this to select 'Edit'.

An interface should open showing all connections - you want to edit the wireless one. Make sure that the method of connection is set to 'Infrastructure' (i.e., managed) - below that enter the MAC Address of the Router - this is usually on a sticker on the router.

In a terminal (Menu | Accessories | Terminal) enter:

Code:
sudo ifconfig /all


This will list all your network hardware - the wirless chipset should show up as 'wlan0' - that said I have seen on a Dell I have seen it mistakenly picked up as 'eth1'!

The MAC address of the wireless chipset should be given - make a note of it and enter that in the next MAC address field on the screen.
Make sure that it is checkmarked as 'available to all users' (can't remember exact term), and remember to 'Apply' - think it is 'Apply to all users'

I use OpenDNS servers in my router, so if you have something similar, you need to make an entry on the IPv4 Tab - change 'DHCP auto' to 'DHCP - addresses only.

Then in the DNS fields, enter the Primary address followed by a comma then space before entering Second IP address of DNS - if you use them!

Keep us posted! :D

LloydXmas

Mon Nov 16, 2015 1:38:38 pm

Hello, thank you very much for the quick and detailed reply :)!

I am a little confused on the instructions, If I go into edit connections, I need to find a wireless connection there so I do not see the one I am looking for as it is not detectable. I see the SSID I added when I was trying to manually add the connection but when I try to edit that I can not save it. I have also tried to create the connection again manually but it does not let you specify MAC address and the other settings (just the ID, security type and password).

Also when I try the command ifconfig command I get the following:

/all: error fetching interface information: Device not found

However if I just do it without /all I do see information, including for wlan0

Could you please clarify the instructions for editing the wifi settings. Sorry as I said kind of a novice with this! Thanks for your patience.

LloydXmas

Mon Nov 16, 2015 1:47:01 pm

Sorry, I don't think I explained myself well there. Attached is a screenshot, the only WIFI connection that you can see this is one that I had previously tried to manually add (Obviously that is also the SSID of the Home WIFI connection I am trying to connect to) . What should I be editing?

Thanks!

LloydXmas

Mon Nov 16, 2015 3:32:51 pm

Hey Guys,
Just an update to say I managed to fix this :D

The WIFI channel for my router was 13, seems that this sometimes causes issues when it is higher than 11. I changed it to 11 and it picked up and connected to my WIFI straight away :D

Swarfendor437

Mon Nov 16, 2015 10:49:45 pm

Well done! :D