Wireless Connection Difficulties
 

Got one I've never run into before. I inherited an older HP Pavilion
DV9720US that has Vista on it. I wiped it clean, and reinstalled Vista from
the HP Recovery Partition, then installed all updates and service packs. I
uninstalled most of the crapware that came with it, and it runs well. It has
an Atheros wireless card in it, and that works well . . . at my house.

The problem I'm having with it is when I go over to my friends house and try
to connect on her wireless router, it comes up as an unidentified network,
and has a local connection only. She has the same router with the same
firmware revision as I have at home (I bought them both at the same time;
Netgear WGR614v9). The settings on both routers are identical except for the
IP addresses. If I'm at home, the HP connects with no problem, but at her
house, not a chance. I can connect to her neighbor's wireless network (I set
it up, too, but don't remember her router make and model), and it works
fine, too.

I'm sure it's probably a router problem, but I don't know what it could be.
My Gateway laptop connects on all three of the same networks just fine. I'm
at my wits end on what to do. Maybe I'll take it home and mess with it, but
for right now, I'm stumped.

Any suggestions would be deeply appreciated.
--
SC Tom