Windows 98 Internet Connection Help!

[YellowMenace]

Before you guys go off on the whole "JUST GET A NEW ONE" rant, I bought this Windows 98 laptop (a compaq armada 1530DM) on ebay for $12 just to toy with, not to be a practical driver.

 

Now that's out of the way, I'm trying to connect this thing to the internet via a PC card. Installed the drivers, it reads a signal, says it has good strength and says it's connected. The router says that there's no connection to the device and IE doesn't want to load.

 

Note: The laptop has no built-in wifi or Ethernet connection, only for a phone jack.

[Levent]

you can only have dial-up connection unless you buy an ethernet card (PCMCIA)that is supported in win 98 and 

[YellowMenace]

you can only have dial-up connection unless you buy an ethernet card (PCMCIA)that is supported in win 98 and 

It came with a PC wifi card and drivers. It says it's working on the computer

 

 

 

ALSO, it did come with this, but it seems to need an adapter.

 

[Levent]

It came with a PC wifi card and drivers. It says it's working on the computer

 

 

 

make sure it gets IP 

win+r

ipconfig -all (not sure if this works or not we are talking about 16 year old OS)

[YellowMenace]

make sure it gets IP 

win+r

ipconfig -all (not sure if this works or not we are talking about 16 year old OS)

it opened for a second then immediately closed.

[YellowMenace]

it opened for a second then immediately closed.

Ok, I ran ipconfig in the DOS prompt and got this.

 

 

 

The first 2 have all zeros, but the last one is reading something.

[Jrx1216]

You don't need to block out an internal IP, we can't really do anything with that information.

You'll need to set the default gateway to the IP address of your router to get an internet connection. 

I'm gonna go throw 98 on a VM to try to give you exact instructions.

 

EDIT:

Also, I'm assuming that since it didn't pull the default gateway, it didn't pull a usable IP address. Most home networks (that I've encountered) use 192.168.1.* or 10.0.0.* with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0

[Jrx1216]

that took way longer than I anticipated, and I learned nothing from it... Windows 98 doesn't seem to have any coherent IP configuration utility. I'd assume that the software for your wireless card handles everything. If you have an option for setting the DHCP server, it's most likely the IP of your router. 

 

If you can't get DHCP to work, but can manually setup your connection you'll need some information first. I'd start by running IPconfig on another machine on the same network and writing down the following information:

IP address (may be listed as IPv4 address)

subnet mask (should probably be 255.255.255.0)

Default gateway

and if listed, a DNS IP.

 

for the 98 machine, you'll want to use the same information as the other machine, but change the last number of the IP/IPv4 address (a higher number, but less than 255, is more likely to be unused.) If your were able to find DNS on the other machine you can use that, or you can use google DNS (8.8.8.8) 

 

I'm getting kinda tired, so I'm sorry if what I'm saying doesn't make much sense. This video might not be completely relevant, but you may find some of the information helpful if anything I said didn't make sense.

[YellowMenace]

that took way longer than I anticipated, and I learned nothing from it... Windows 98 doesn't seem to have any coherent IP configuration utility. I'd assume that the software for your wireless card handles everything. If you have an option for setting the DHCP server, it's most likely the IP of your router. 

 

If you can't get DHCP to work, but can manually setup your connection you'll need some information first. I'd start by running IPconfig on another machine on the same network and writing down the following information:

IP address (may be listed as IPv4 address)

subnet mask (should probably be 255.255.255.0)

Default gateway

and if listed, a DNS IP.

 

for the 98 machine, you'll want to use the same information as the other machine, but change the last number of the IP/IPv4 address (a higher number, but less than 255, is more likely to be unused.) If your were able to find DNS on the other machine you can use that, or you can use google DNS (8.8.8.8) 

 

I'm getting kinda tired, so I'm sorry if what I'm saying doesn't make much sense. This video might not be completely relevant, but you may find some of the information helpful if anything I said didn't make sense.

Under ipconfig it says that DHCP is enabled, there is an IP address, sub mask (255.255.0.0) and a DHCP server. As if it wasn't obvious enough, I'm not too good with networking. 

[FrankTheTank]

I think that the yellow marked IP-adres is a 169.254 address? That means that you aren't getting an IP-address from your DHCP server. Use a fixed IP-address and you should be fine.

There is also a possibily that you can connect to your wifi, but your wifi-card doesn't support your security-type OR that you are using MAC-filtering on your router.

[ManIkWeet]

Have you tried removing the WiFi password?

Old systems don't like new encryptions... Like the Nintendo DS...

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

If the IP you blocked out is 169.254.x.x, you actually have an APIPA address, which means that DHCP failed on your system, and it couldn't obtain an IP via DHCP. I believe IP config on Win98 was done via winipcfg entered into run. Try that, and make sure it actually has the proper default gateway and so on.

[YellowMenace]

I think that the yellow marked IP-adres is a 169.254 address? That means that you aren't getting an IP-address from your DHCP server. Use a fixed IP-address and you should be fine.

There is also a possibily that you can connect to your wifi, but your wifi-card doesn't support your security-type OR that you are using MAC-filtering on your router.

is there anyway of allowing a device to bypass the filters?

 

 

Have you tried removing the WiFi password?

Old systems don't like new encryptions... Like the Nintendo DS...

 

My ds had no problems with the encryption on my router.

 

If the IP you blocked out is 169.254.x.x, you actually have an APIPA address, which means that DHCP failed on your system, and it couldn't obtain an IP via DHCP. I believe IP config on Win98 was done via winipcfg entered into run. Try that, and make sure it actually has the proper default gateway and so on.

To be honest, I have no idea the difference is between different addresses. 

I did run winipcfg and it gave me the same numbers. 

 

What do?

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

An APIPA address is an IP address that its auto-configured by Windows when DHCP fails. Since it's 169.254.x.x, it means it can't communicate with anything else, unless it's also on the same subnet, in this case 169.254.x.x

As for configuring it, and fixing it... I was 5 when Win98 came out, so unfortunately, I can't help. The issue could be with Win98, it could be the adapter you have, or even the router, I'm not sure since the OS is so old.

[FrankTheTank]

You should get another wireless device and find the ip-address. Just add +10 to the last number. Take over the subnet and gateway. Do you know how to enter this to your ip4 on your wirelesscard?

[SlayerOfHellWyrm]

You should get another wireless device and find the ip-address. Just add +10 to the last number. Take over the subnet and gateway. Do you know how to enter this to your ip4 on your wirelesscard?

+10 doesn't always work, should be just keep it in the .2 -.254 range, and make sure it's no a duplicate address (so check the router). I only mention this because my laptop always gets fed anywhere from .128 -.254 for some reason, and if I had .254, +10 would not work.