New Laptop & SBC Yahoo DSL-DO NOT INSTALL!!!!

[msbegin]

I ordered the $579 Gateway from Best Buy Thanksgiving night & it arrived today. I LOVE it, it is great... so here I am adding my software, I set up MS Office first- works great... Then i set up Print shop- still works great...

Then, I go to Best buy to purchase a wireless router so we can connect to our DSL w/ the laptop & our desktop. I install it & connect to internet fine from the notebook... Then I started to install network setting to share our printer. I had to shut down & reboot for settings to take effect & all of a sudden- all of my icons are cone & not even a start menu! After thinking I messed up & starting to panick- I call Gateway & they install a patch which gets my start menu & icons back- but I can no longer get online- seems that my computer no longer recognizes its wireless internet card. I call back Gateway & the have me call Linksys(router company) who refers me back to Gateway- hours later, I am tired & frustrated, but I cannot fall asleep. I call back gateway & finally get a VERY knowledgable rep- He tells me all about how the SBC software messes up windows software- it does all sorts of crazy things.

So, I am now sitting here with my computer which we had to restore w/ factory settings (luckily it was new, so I didn't lose anything). He advised me I can call SBC to have my user name & password "stored" insied my roouter so that I don't need to use SBC software, I can just use Internet Explorer.

Please Please- If you purchase a new computer for yourself or as a gift- Do not install the SBC Yahoo DSL software- I'd hate for anyone else to have to go through these headaches.

 

[2angelsinheaven]

I had the same thing happen to my computer a few months back. Except it was with Earthlink's software... it crashed and I did not have the discs, so no computer. Yikes

 

[my3kids]

With XP you can restore just an earlier point, right? Would that have worked if the computer hadn't been brand new? I'm not familiar with SBC. We had a hard time getting a wireless network to work here. We tried 3 or 4 brands of equipment before one clicked with my house and my equipment. Good luck!

 

[MUFFYCAT]

I received the same computer yesterday. My DH is installing everything now.
I have a very stupid question, where did you order the wireless router? Didn't it come with the wireless internet connection?
By the way we have a DSL connection through Verizon and use AOL.


I can see my DH going nuts that i bought it!

 

[msbegin]

Well... FINALLY! Here I am sitting on the couch, "dis'ing" wirelessly!
I called Linksys and the had me connect plug my computer right into the DSL line & then accesses the linksys website & it ran everything by itself...

I did try to reset the computer to "last known"... but what happens is the SBC Yahoo software makes that not able to wor either (it renames things so MS is not able to recognize them) Don't know if that makes any sense, but that's the best way I can convey what the tech guy at Gateway told me.

Boy, after this mess, I'm going to play some cood old fashioned checkers with my son whi is home with the chickenpox!

 

[msbegin]

I received the same computer yesterday. My DH is installing everything now.
I have a very stupid question, where did you order the wireless router? Didn't it come with the wireless internet connection?
By the way we have a DSL connection through Verizon and use AOL.


I can see my DH going nuts that i bought it!

It does come with the wireless internet card, but you still need to buy a router to set up your household network. I got mine at Best Buy as well... It was 69.99 w/ a $30 mail in rebate (you can get more expensive ones, but the guy told me this one is fine if you are not downloading large files)

You connect the router to your main computer (the one that is plugged to the wall) the you configure the notebook to recognize it wirelessly. Now I can be online on my notebook at the same time DH or DS os online on the other computer. Apparently, you can also set the notebook up to print wirelessly... but I haven't gotten that far yet.

Good luck!