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I have an open WiFi network that I use in my apartment (provided by my realtor). The network shows up on my phone's WiFi and works smoothly but doesn't show up on my laptop. I have Windows 7 and Linux Mint 16 installed on my laptop and the WiFi network doesn't show up on either. However, the WiFi network does show up on my roommate's Macbook Air.

Could this be a problem with my WiFi network card? Or could it be related to something else? I'm not really sure what to Google so I thought I'd post here.

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    Maybe the network is on the 5 GHz band, and your phone supports that, but your laptop doesn't (not too unusual).
    – jjlin
    Sep 15, 2014 at 20:31
  • As jjlin implies it could be that it's a 802.11a/n network (which the Macbook air supports) while your laptop may only have a 802.11b/g adapter.
    – ThatOneDude
    Sep 15, 2014 at 20:34
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    You could always run to a McDonald's or somewhere else with free WiFi. If it connects, then you know for sure it's not your laptop but just that it's wifi type isn't supported; like the above comments suggest.
    – jAce
    Sep 15, 2014 at 21:06
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    Please provide as much information as you can about the network itself and the devices being used. As you're using Windows, you could always try to 'forget' the network and flush your DNS, as well as your TCP cache and try again.
    – Rowan Kaag
    Sep 15, 2014 at 21:09
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    check channel, not all wireless nic have support for channels above 11 that should be the problem. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels
    – Francisco Tapia
    May 18, 2015 at 17:26

4 Answers 4

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A possible problem as that your phone and your friend's MacBook can access 5GHz networks, while your laptop, which sounds quite old, only can access 2.4GHz networks. Possible solutions are:

  1. Get a new computer
  2. Get a external wireless card that supports 5GHz networks.

Probably time to get an upgrade.

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Update your WiFi driver and then check if it works and if it doesn't work go to Control Panel and then Network and Internet and then click on Network and sharing Center and then set up a new connection or network.

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That issue occurs when Linux and Windows are installed for dual boot.Try running ubuntu first and enable wifi incase it is switched off.Then run Windows and it would work fine.

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Install device driver software from manufacture site. In most cases wifi cards works well in linux with drivers installed by default. Since it is not working with linux either then your device might be not working. You can also try to unplug wifi and replug it.

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