deafult gateway

I have a laptop that will connect to the network but can't seem to find the gateway. nothing wrong with the router. it is windows 7. I tried ipconfig /release and renew and still nothing. the ethernet interface can't find the default gateway either. I also tried a static ip and gateway with no results. any ideas on something I can try or what it might be? The drivers are up to date aswell.

Yeah, I've solved this problem over and over when I used to run Slackware and Gentoo. In Linux, when the dhcp client tries to lease an IP, entries are made for the DNS server and the routing table as well. But it may not happen on all systems.

What you want to do is find a system that works, see the results of ipconfig /all (Windows) and then manually make those entries. You mentioned that you tried static entries. Check if your routing table (route print) matches the working computer's routing table. I wouldn't expect it to if your system isn't working. In that case, manually add the routes (route command). If it works, put the commands in a batch file and run it every time you want to connect.

Hope this works.