What Can Go Wrong

Sounds pretty easy, right? In most cases it is, but joining a wireless network is a little like traveling on a trip with a very tight itinerary: If one leg of the journey does not go as planned, you miss a connecting flight, and it can mess up the whole trip.

What can go wrong? Well, during each of the steps discussed in the previous section, something can go wrong. Some of the issues are shown in Figure 10-2 and described in the following sections.

Figure 10-2. Things That Can Go Wrong Joining a Wireless Network

Problems During Scanning

If your wireless NIC does not see any wireless signals from a wireless router, you are pretty much dead in the water. Reasons for this could be that you are using the wireless NIC in a room of your house (or outside) with poor coverage. Another very common reason is that your laptop has a switch that turns the NIC on and off to save power, and you forget to turn it on. Unfortunately, most laptop built-in NICs we have seen do not alert you that you simply forgot to switch it on, but instead just give you an indication that there are no wireless signals in range. Quite maddening.