Next, I connected the Toshiba laptop directly to the cable modem, bypassing the router and all the rest of the home network. Still no connectivity.
When you did this step, did you power cycle the cable modem? If you didn't, the cable modem may have been only willing to talk to the MAC address of your router, not the laptop. Many cable modems require a full restart to change what MAC address they will route to.
As for your WiFi, do you have it protected by a password? If so, see Tony's information about needing to patch XP to support more modern WiFi security protocols.
Previous Topic
Index
