laptop problems...

[manofsteel]

Just bought a new (used) Alienware laptop. Seems great, but 2 things:
it has an internal wireless internet card, and i piggy back off my sisters router upstairs from me. It works great when I turn the laptop on it automatically connects, BUT, if I put it to sleep the network wont connect again when i wake it up. I will have to shut it down and turn it back on, then it automattically connects again.
next, it has a dvd drive, but i cant get it to read it when i try to play a movie. It def has a dvd drive, and I have loaded cd software onto it so i know the drive works.
What gives here?
2.16ghz intel core 2 duo processor
dvd/cd-r drive
windows vista premium

 

[mooshue]

for your dvd problem, i dont quite know what you are asking me. You say it says DVD ROM on the drive, yet it wont play movies i think is what you are saying. To play DVD Movies on a computer you need DVD Playback Software. If there are no codec's installed the computer doesnt know what to do with the encrypted data from the discs.
As far as the wireless nic, cant really help ya there, i never use or encourage use of sleep/hibernation mode. It works like shit most of the time. Either turn it off or leave it on it will solve most of your problems.

 

[michelin]

Agree with mooshue, leave the laptop powered up and set your power settings to always on. When youre going into hibernate mode its stopping the services of your network connection and this is probably whats requiring a reboot.
Try going onto Windows website and make sure you got all the relevant drivers for your version of Windows, it should let you download codecs/drivers for your DVD player from the site as well.

 

[Kaiser]

Check Alienware's site for a BIOS update and wireless netwrok driver update. Sleep works really well with newer computers once SP1 is installed so make sure you have that installed. It takes a while so pack a lunch.