I'm guessing that this is zeroing in on the problem. The last time this computer worked on the internet was in Mexico, where it wouldn't work until our hosts at the B&B where we were staying had a friend of theirs come in and configure something on the computer so it would talk to their secure wireless network. Could he have turned off DHCP and assigned a static IP address? (Wow -- doesn't that sound like I have some faint idea of what I'm talking about? I don't!)

The computer is running Windows XP, and in response to other posts, there isn't third-party networking software installed unless Toshiba set it up that way when they built it. Which, I suppose, is possible.

The computer has other problems too, I think. It is incredibly slow. It takes 92 seconds from the time I click on the FireFox icon until the browser actually appears on the screen, and then about 30 seconds later it tells me that it can't find Google's server. Opening an Excel spreadsheet takes the better part of a minute.

Maybe nuke and repave is the best option here, but of course the computer didn't come with any XP disks. Instead there is probably a recovery partition or something somewhere. I haven't spent much time with this computer, I don't know much about the ins and outs of it.

Again, in response to previous posts... my internet comes in on a Comcast Cable TV wire, through a cable modem and into a Linksys WRT54G router. The two desktop computers are connected to the router through Ethernet cables, the TiVo USB update thingie is working wirelessly, and I'd like for SWMBO's laptop to do the same.

Hmmm... I just found a document I cleverly created when I set up the TiVo networking...

Network Security Settings:

router username: [none assigned]
router password: xxxxxxxx
network name (SSID): Doug-and-Jean
network security type: Higher Security (WPA / WPA2)
network security key: xxxxxxxx

(I have obscured the actual password and security key, obviously...)

Is any of this helpful? If (as I suspect) the wireless interface is set to a static IP address, how do I fix that? Would anybody in the Bay area like to come visit me and help me pack up stuff in my School Bus and fix SWMBO's computer? We will be departing for South of the Border in the next week or ten days, and I will be incommunicado for probably a month while we get moved and get internet service connected, etc.

Let the adventure begin!

tanstaafl.