Can’t Connect to WiFi with Laptop – Troubleshooting Guide

I suspect that, with the router change, you've gone from a situation where the router signal was strong to one where it's marginal. How far it is between router and your usual laptop location? Is there substantial metal or concrete between the two?

Try your laptop in a location closer to the router.

(Note that some laptops will reduce the WiFi signal strength (to save battery) when running on battery. There may be a setting to control this.)

Well, I don't like my solution, but I'd better post it since it actually solved the problem I'm having.

I had Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) settings on the router turned off because having it on had been causing speed issues with my iPad. The laptop, at least for a while, had worked fine with that disabled. Turning it back on, however, made both laptops work again. So, if someone else has this same issue, you might try making sure that you have WMM enabled to see if it fixes your problem.

The steps to check this for my router were:

1. In a browser, go to 192.168.1.1. Log in with username/password for router.
2. Go to the Advanced Wireless Settings
3. Tick the Enable WMM (Wi-Fi multimedia) settings checkbox and hit Apply.

My router's help has this to say about WMM:

WMM (Wireless Multimedia) is a subset of the 802.11e standard. WMM allows wireless traffic to have a range of priorities, depending on the kind of data. Time-dependent information, like video or audio, will have a higher priority than normal traffic. For WMM to function correctly, wireless clients must also support WMM.

Why having that disabled would block the laptops entirely from web browsing is a mystery to me.