I was finally able to access the RPi wifi with my laptop, I'm golden.

Well almost. A wire broke inside one of the lasers and it cannot be fixed. Any idea where I can get a replacement one?

Thanks to everyone for your help and support. It was a long and interesting journey that couldn't have been accomplished without your collective help!

   KennyB

You can't use just an ordinary network cable. Now if you have a router you could use that cable and connect the Pi to your router then access it over your network. But to do a direct connection from your laptop to the Pi you need what is called a crossover cable. Two of the 6 sets of pins on one end are actually swapped from a standard cable.

That's exactly what I said in my earlier post.  If you don't have a network hub, and plan to use a direct connection to the laptop, then a cross over cable is required.

I would post here the schematic of such a cable, but I think in this case, it may be a bit too complicated.  The OP (Kenny)would probably be better served by going to a store and buying one.

On the other hand, Kenny, I don't know your home network setup, but you might want to look at your cable/dsl modem or router.  Does it have any ethernet ports on the back.  If it does, you're in luck.  Plug both your RPi and your laptop in the hub, and they should work.

pirvan,

I connected an Ethernet cable between the RPi and my laptop.

hairu526,

Yes I access the internet wirelessly with this laptop and it works great!

You can't use just an ordinary network cable. Now if you have a router you could use that cable and connect the Pi to your router then access it over your network. But to do a direct connection from your laptop to the Pi you need what is called a crossover cable. Two of the 6 sets of pins on one end are actually swapped from a standard cable.

I connected an Ethernet cable between the RPi and my laptop.

hairu526,

Yes I access the internet wirelessly with this laptop and it works great!

"Ethernet" doesn't have a valid IP Configuration.

This sounds like a problem with the network configuration on your Windows laptop.  Are you able to access the Internet from this machine?

If you connect direct, you will need a cross over cable.  Connecting with a standard Ethernet patch cable will result in a lopback.

UPDATE: I finally configured my WiFi and have an IP Address of 10.0.0.26 for my RPi.

I'm trying to connect to it with my Windows 8.1 Laptop through the Ethernet.

I connected the cable and ran "ZenMap". This is what I got:

Starting Nmap 6.49BETA1 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2015-06-10 08:32 Pacific Daylight Time

NSE: Loaded 122 scripts for scanning.

NSE: Script Pre-scanning.

Initiating NSE at 08:32

Completed NSE at 08:32, 0.00s elapsed

Initiating NSE at 08:32

Completed NSE at 08:32, 0.00s elapsed

Initiating ARP Ping Scan at 08:32

Scanning 10.0.0.26 [1 port]

Completed ARP Ping Scan at 08:32, 0.92s elapsed (1 total hosts)

Nmap scan report for 10.0.0.26 [host down]

NSE: Script Post-scanning.

Initiating NSE at 08:32

Completed NSE at 08:32, 0.00s elapsed

Initiating NSE at 08:32

Completed NSE at 08:32, 0.00s elapsed

Read data files from: C:\Program Files (x86)\Nmap

Note: Host seems down. If it is really up, but blocking our ping probes, try -Pn

Nmap done: 1 IP address (0 hosts up) scanned in 6.24 seconds

           Raw packets sent: 2 (56B) | Rcvd: 0 (0B)

I ran Windows Network Diagnostics and it said; "Ethernet" doesn't have a valid IP Configuration. What am I doing wrong that my laptop does not recognize my RPi?

The key being an OS driver is needed as opposed to being supported by the built-in OS (Windows or Linux) defaults.  I have an Acer laptop that runs at 1366x768 @ 60Hz and even with its special drivers that resolution confuses many apps. so I had to patch it to use 1360x768 which is a standard, common, traditional, normal, etc. resolution.

You must be a Linux user if you had to "patch" the driver to use that resolution.

I work in the computer manufacturing business, but we're Windows centric.  I've had more devices that use 1366x768 resolution than you can shake a stick at, monitors, tablets, laptops, and never had to patch anything. 

Granted that that the driver needs to be installed to get full access to the display adapter capabilities, but more often than not, even with the "in-box" drivers, that resolution is supported.  It really depends on what E-DDC/EDID information the monitor firmware passes to the OS.

Some monitors are not recognized automatically, and the OS simply chooses a default resolution, other times, they pass the information correctly, and expose their capabilities to the OS, so the in-box generic driver works fine.

In this particular case, this monitor doesn't have properly written firmware  EDID, because it doesn't expose its capabilities, or the RPi doesn't know how to read that information, and relies on manual editing of the configuration file.

IN this particular case, it appears that replacing the monitor is an option, so yes, I agree that's probably the best solution, but that may not always be the case.

Edit:
Technically, it's not the OS that addresses the display, it's the display adapter (video card), that's why you need a driver.  Windows either understands the video card and installs the built in (in-box) drivers, or treats it as a VESA standard display adapter.  through the VESA interface it tries to probe the display device and get information as to its capabilities, but the information coming through the VESA interface, is not always complete.  That's why a proper driver is required.  Once the driver is installed, it can probe the display device and extract additional information regarding it capabilities.  At least this is how it works in Windows.  Obviously that's not how it always works in the Linux world

If you read KennyB's first entry in this thread you will see he already did the correct steps to eliminate the RPi; the HDMI cable; and the connections; which is why I and others have focused on the monitor as the "problem".

And if you read the article in the link I sent what you show is a listing of the values to use if the monitor display is distorted.  Again, read through this thread and editing the "config.txt" values for one of these values was suggested.

Lastly, my aspect ratio notation had to do with my suggested monitor that supports multiple AR values in its Menu settings so that Raspbian doesn't have to be modified to get the best possible text rendering.

Anyway back on topic, it appears to me at this point KennyB is asking about exchanging the monitor for another model so he doesn't have to edit Raspbian files.  Personally I agree that exchanging the UpStar for a different monitor at this point is the best solution.

Or you could try a completely different approach, like I did. Skip the direct connect and use TELNET to get into it.

Connect the RPi on the Ethernet cable (this way you don't have to worry about SSID, and WPA/WEP passwords), find the address it got (for this I use a program called Network Scanner), then connect to it from your main computer using using Putty.

The default login & Password are pi / raspberry.

Once you're here you can make all the changes you need to your config, your wireless configuration so yo ucan input the SSID and password, etc.

Hope this helps

HDMI_DMT_1366x768_60 = 0x51, /**<1366x768 60Hz */
HDMI_DMT_1080p_60 = 0x52, /**<Same as 1080p60 in CEA above */
HDMI_DMT_1600x900_RB = 0x53, /**<1600x900 reduced blanking */
HDMI_DMT_2048x1152_RB = 0x54, /**<2048x1152 reduced blanking */
HDMI_DMT_720p_60 = 0x55, /**<Same as 720p60 in CEA above */
HDMI_DMT_1366x768_RB = 0x56, /**<1366x768 reduced blanking */

And the whole point of the OP's question was not whether the RPi supported the right aspect ratio or not, so much as he couldn't get it working at all.  His problem has nothing to do with resolutions or aspect ratios.  So based on the list above, that monitor he has should work just fine.  So I still say, check to make sure the HDMI cable is plugged in properly.

1366x768 is a pretty common resolution usually found in inexpensive notebooks and tablets.

By definition laptops and tablets will use resolutions that are not "standard" and often have OS drivers to attempt to adjust for this.  If you check the raspberyypi.org link I included in one of my earlier responses you will see a table of the supported resolutions.

And since the Raspbian interface supplied with the A3D scanner does not include a GUI, the monitor should also support better than usual text rendering.

Do you think this would work, out of the box?

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-19-5-Inch … mi+monitor

Take a look at this one:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005BZ … PDKIKX0DER

It has a standard PC resolution of 1920 x 1080 and an adjustable aspect ratio down to 4:3 that should let you get better text clarity which is important for an RPi monitor.

BTW, be sure to reboot or power cycle the RPi after you make any monitor adjustments so it gets the correct EDID video information from the monitor.