Acer aspire 4720z internet problems
 

It will connect to the network, but only as a local area connection. I've googled things and couldn't find a solution. I cannot download the drivers for it until it can connect.

When you try to connect is it via Wifi or Ethernet cable?
And have you diagnosed the network itself?

+1 to making sure your network itself is working -- get another computer and see if it can get online.

The network works, they were at my house last night. My tablet, my mom's computer, everything else connects (including their phone) but not the laptop. (They're not over here right now, but I thought I'd try to find possible solutions....and they don't have internet at home).

It's wifi.
And I used the diagnosis tool Windows provides. It was useless....even used this one scanner that finds worms, viruses, etc....it found nothing.

Was it a Malware finder specifically that you used or an just an antivirus software?

A customer where I worked had a similar issue. Based off that at the most I can say is see if the wifi chip in your computer that needs to be reconfigured so it picked up networks if you can. I would try searching in that direction and see if anything fruitful comes out.

Microsoft Safety Scanner. Not their antivirus....It used to be windows live one care safety scanner or something.

She contacted me today....she could connect at her friends. Just put in the password and it worked....whereas here at my house....it didn't.

Everything I was seeing was saying uninstall and reinstall the driver...I wanted to do anything but that XD

Maybe the laptop just hates my wireless XD

Maybe or maybe your antivirus software hates it? I know with my computer sometimes my software conflicts so it won't let me mix programs. Especially the various opensource stuff I have.

I've never seen antivirus software conflict with the operating system's ability to actually connect to the Internet. I've seen it screw with browsers, but not with the OS.

A thought: Have you tried deleting the network settings and reconnecting? It's possible there might be a bad saved configuration.

I got rid of the antivirus since it was a paid one that the license had expired.

I did delete the connection and reconnecting....then it wouldn't even ask for the password to connection and still did local area only. Idek. It apparently hates my internet.

If it didn't ask for your password...

Hmm.

What version of Windows are you running? It's starting to sound like your laptop doesn't recognize or doesn't support the encryption being used by your router.

That one is Vista.

I think my internet protection is WPA? Idk?

Vista has problems connecting to encrypted networks. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about troubleshooting it to help you -- I've HAD this problem in the past with my father-in-law's laptop, and I ended up giving up on it because I couldn't figure it out and just turned the encryption off for a couple days.

That's the thing....the network she connected to later....has a password too and it connected fine. It makes no sense really.

There's more than one kind of wifi encryption, for one thing. I think there might also be some passwords that Vista doesn't handle right or something. I've never figured out the details because my father-in-law got a new laptop where it wasn't a problem.