Network help...

skypanther

skypanther

Exalted Code Master!
My home-office network is acting really funky and I can't figure out why.

My DSL line comes in to the modem and from there it used to go to my wired/wireless router (linksys wrt54gs). Both of those devices were on the third floor in my office. All my computers either were wired to it or via wireless. Well, my wireless coverage sucked--I lost coverage on the front porch, kitchen, etc.

So I decided to move the router downstairs. I didn't want to rewire the whole house (can't really, most of the PCs are in my office and I often hook up extra PCs there temporarily). So, I hooked up a wired-only router (belkin) in my office and put the wireless one downstairs. I configured the wired one on a different subnet and have it handing out different IPs via DHCP (subnets are 192.168.1.0 and 192.168.2.0). I configured the wireless router to be in "Router" mode rather than "Gateway" mode and pointed it to my wired router as the gateway to the internet and other PCs.

Sometimes it all works fine. But, say 20 times per day, I lose IP connectivity in my browsers. iTunes keeps its connection playing internet radio and FTP still works. But I can't connect to any web sites in Firefox or IE. If I do an ipconfig I still have an IP address, but web traffic doesn't work. Doing an ipconfig /renew gets me back up and working.

Short of rewiring the house, do you have suggestions of what I can change to get this back working like it should? I was thinking of setting up static IPs. But, since ipconfig shows I still have an IP address during the outtages I'm not sure that would accomplish much.

Thanks,
Tim
 
I have had similar issues, and here is what I do, and it works as long as you don't need the wireless to get to the wired.

If you need them to all work together you need to go buy a Wireless Access Point instead of router, it will integrate seamless into a wired network.

So, come in from the cable/dsl, go to a wired router, user any ports here like normal, use one of the standard LAN ports and link to the WAN/Internet port of the Linksys router, then use the linksys wireless router just like normal, only having an extra hop in the route.
 
So, come in from the cable/dsl, go to a wired router, user any ports here like normal, use one of the standard LAN ports and link to the WAN/Internet port of the Linksys router, then use the linksys wireless router just like normal, only having an extra hop in the route.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's how I set it up at first. But, that was giving me the same problems. So, that's when I split the subnets and reconfigured the linksys as a "router" rather than "gateway."

I might just put all back as it was and go buy a range extender. :eek:hwell:
 
Maybe the linksys is faulty on the wireless? I used to have this happen on a linksys unit and unplug it and reset it 4-5 times a day, really was annoying, I just went out and bought a buffalo, I reset it MAYBE once a month now. Also have a Motorola that works great, and a dlink that works good on wired, not much done on wireless with it.
 
Well, I think the Belkin (wired) router might have been faulty. It wasn't handing out IP addresses as it should and I couldn't reconfigure it. In any case, I hosed it so it's definetly faulty now! I tried updating its firmware to see if that would help but instead it killed it.

So, I'm back to my original configuration. I'll go by that range extender.

Tim

PS - I think I should stick to web dev stuff and leave the networking to someone else! :O
 
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