Can't see router

  • Thread starter Thread starter hrifraf
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hrifraf

I have a D-Link 524 wireless router, a PC connected directly to the
router and a laptop with a wireless card. The laptop can see the
router and access the Internet just fine. The PC, however, cannot see
the router. I cannot open the router's setup page at
http://192.168.0.1. I cannot ping the router. The router fails to
assign an IP address for this PC.

I have switched cables and tried each of the ports on the back of the
router. I have hooked up another PC directly to the router with the
same result - cannot see the router.

This router worked properly in a previous installation - two pc's with
direct connections and two wireless. The only difference is that the
previous pc's were running XP and my PC's are running win2000pro.

Any suggetions would be appreciated.

hriraf
 
Hi Ben;

Yes, I can connect to the router's config from the laptop. The router
has DHCP enabled but is only giving out one address - the one for the
laptop.

hrifraf
 
Aloha hrifraf,

Can you check to make sure it's configured to give out more addresses than
that? Otherwise it could well be that the hard ports are just dead on that
router. New routers aren't very expensive -- we've been happy with the LinkSys
WRT54G units but there are lots of choices.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenote.html
 
Thanks Ben;

Yes, the router looks like it is prepared to issue more than one ip
address. It is possible that the hard ports are dead - but they were
working earlier. Not sure why they might just suddenly die...

hrifraf
 
Aloha hrifraf,

Is it possible, on that device, to disable the hard ports in the router configuration?
If not (and I suspect not) then it sounds to me like they're dead. Could
just be a short or wiring fault inside the device - but they're too cheap
to waste much time repairing.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenote.html
 
Hi Ben,
Maybe for kicks, could try plugging the laptop which already works into one
of the other ports and see what happens.

Ya made it back from Chicago ok I presume. It was late when I made it home
but we did ok. Beth was going to make sure I stayed awake while driving but
she fell asleep about two-thirds the way home :-) I just let her sleep, I
don't have much trouble staying awake while driving,..it's the old ex-truck
drive in me. I think she woke up about 45 minutes before we got in.

I enjoyed the trip,..look forward to whatever the next thing is thats comes
up.
 
I take it you've checked the network settings on the pc, and it set to get
an IP automatically.
 
I just tried a couple of things. I have two pc's and a laptop floating
around and I wired them all together using an old hub that I had lying
around. The computers were able to see each other with no problem and
I had a dandy little network running in no time.

Then I plugged all the computers into the router and obtained the same
result (I pulled the wireless card out of the laptop for this
experiment.) So now I had a network but none of the computers had
Internet access. None of them was able to raise the router's setup
page at http://192.168.0.1.

I plugged the wireless card back into the laptop, and rebooted all
three computers. Only the wireless card obtained an IP address from
the router. I can access the internet with the laptop via the wireless
card, and also the routers' setup page. None of the other pc's
obtained their ip from the router and they cannot see the internet.

My conclusion so far is that the network cards on all pc's are
functioning properly. But perhaps there is something wrong with the
router as it is failing to assign ip addresses to any computer with a
direct connection.

Any comments would be appreciated.

hrifraf
 
Try the laptop in more than one port on the router.

Plug it into every port (one at a time), and then open a command prompt and
type:

c:\> ipconfig /release
c:\> ipconfig /renew

If you have bad ports, it will fail on those ports. If it works on all the
ports, the the Device is probably configured with only one IP# in the "pool"
(if that is possible).

You could also remove the laptop and plug one of the other machines (just
one) into the same port the laptop was in and see if it works.
 
One more step;
I added a wireless card to one of the pc's. The router happily issued
an ip address to the new wireless card. So, to answer Ben's question;
The router is certainly capable of issuing more than one ip address.
Only thing is that it is only issuing the ip addresses to wireless
cards, and not to computers directly connected.

Oh, and here's another thing - probably not related to my initial
problem. The router has issued ip addresses to all sorts of computers!
There are five dynamic ip addresses listed, only one of which is a
computer of mine. Perhaps I should be swithcing to static DHCP
addresses?

hrifraf
 
Solution found.

Browsing through my D-Link installation guide I discovered a phone
number for tech support. What a concept!

I called them up and after a bit of poking around we did the following:
(On the pc with the problems) we specified an IP address (instead of
obtaining the address automatically), and we specified a DNS server
address (4.2.2.2 - not a number that I would have guessed). Then we
re-set the router (using that handy tool - a paper clip). And now
everything works.

Thanks to all who provided suggestions.

hrifraf
 
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