What is "Limited Connectivity" and how do I fix it?

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You also get 'limited connectivity' if you connect to your router but do not imput a wep/wpa key or the wrong one.

Basicly you are connected to the router, but it doesnt want to know you without the correct key.

I had this experience in a public library's hot-spot. I was assigned an IP and it is an open (no security) wireless connection. Yet, I got limited connection. May be the router was kaput like Leo says. My trouble was that whatever I did with my computer, I got the same IP and same "no connection".

Ultimately I had to take the course Leo suggests as a short term solution - manually configure TCP/IP setting. I went on to assign myself an IP and got full connection pronto.

You have got to know your settings. Computer systems are still not ignorant friendly.

For me i have a personal experiment at this problem, and see that "limited connectivity" caused also when there was a malfunction on the main lines of the Internet network , any way thank you leo for useful article.
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Although I don't usually get the "limited connectivity" errors, I find that some routers (I have a Speedtouch one) drops the wireless whilst keeping the ethernet somewhat active, though in this state the router is extremely slow, sometimes unresponsive and I usually either wait for it to reboot itself - though I still haven't figured out how or why it does that - or just restart it manually.

We also get the "limited connectivity" when our ISP broadband feed isn't working. Since Comcast and Insight swapped coverage areas in the Midwest this year, this has been happening while they do their maintenance.

I had Limited Connectivity for at least five months, I had to re-boot every time I looked at my computer, I tried everything I could read about,but then I put my computer in for a service as I needed help, they sorted it right away, it was my Panda Antivirus plus Firewall that was at fault, it was running but blocking use of the computer,Panda is now running perfect.hope this helps, JIM.

If you have Windows XP, from a command prompt enter "arp -a". If you get a response like:

Interface: 192.168.1.77
  Internet Address Physical Address   Type
  192.168.1.1       02-10-40-4c-3c-8c dynamic

then your computer is able to talk, at the lowest level, with the router. That's a good thing.

In this example, the router is 192.168.1.1 and the computer where I entered the command is "Interface" or 192.168.1.77.

If you don't see any IP addresses other than the Interface one on the first line, then the problem is likely hardware rather than software. Is a wire unplugged? Is the WiFi radio turned on? That sort of thing.

This should work with other OSs and other versions of Windows too as ARP is a TCP/IP thing rather than a Windows thing, but the command syntax may differ.

My internet connection was working one day and failed to connect the next day with limited connectivity. I tried everything I read from the web but was unable to resolve it. Fortunately, I check the list of install softwares/update and found that the last thing installed on the laptop was an antivirus update. When I uninstall the update, things started to work again.

I always wondered where that 169.x.x.x ip address came from thx

Thanks for the article. I was having a terrible time installing a linksys wireless N adapter while using a linksys wireless N router. They should be compatible, right? I had already tried rebooting the router, but after reading your article I decided to try rebooting the router again... and it worked. What a pain tho!

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