Tech Support!

[Commissar]

I know we've got some computer-savvy folk here and there around here, so I thought I'd run this by you guys and see if you can fix me up.

 

My wife was doing something for school on one of our desktops yesterday. We have two, though one is ancient and upstairs and I'm not sure why we even bother to keep it hooked up, and I also hook my laptop up to the network from time to time, usually using wireless. Anyway, she was doing something on the "main" computer computer yesterday, and claims that the lights on the router suddenly started blinking rapidly, and she lost internet connection. She then unplugged the router, and when she plugged it back in, all the lights were dead except for the power light. At that point, she left it alone for me to deal with.

 

I fiddled around with it some when I got home, but couldn't ever get the router to do anything other than display the power light, so eventually I just said screw it, plugged the cable modem directly into the main desktop so she could finish her work, and then later last night found an old router we still had and swapped it in for the apparently borked one.

 

I get all the indicator lights on the "new" router, and the main desktop has no problems, but I can't get the other two computers up on the network, for whatever reason. Both of their Network Connections pages claim that they're connected fine, but trying to bring up a page in Firefox or IE always times out. I've tried the good ol' release-renew thing on both of them, and no dice there.

 

So, any ideas?

[Commissar]

I just noticed something, while mucking around with 'em more...

 

The two 'puters that refuse to hook up have a different IP address listed in ipconfig than the computer that will hook up. I imagine if I could get the two stubborn ones to agree on the IP address with the one that's working, the problem would be solved.

 

Question is, how the hell do I do that?

[thepixiesrock]

I can't help you, as I am not good with computer stuff. I am only posting to let you know that I read your post, and would help you if I could , and am sorry.

[Hassat Hunter]

Never had this myself... but I believe this *could* work.

 

In the configuration screen find network-connections (or similar... don't have english XP so no idea what the exact names are). Double-click and then right-click on your network... Select properties (lowest...) and in that screen select Internet-Protocal TCP/IP. In advached (or such... most right button) force an IP instead of letting it make one itself...

[Surreptishus]

I think the other two computers may still be configured to connect to the "borked" router, SSID, passkey etc.

[Commissar]

Never had this myself... but I believe this *could* work.

 

In the configuration screen find network-connections (or similar... don't have english XP so no idea what the exact names are). Double-click and then right-click on your network... Select properties (lowest...) and in that screen select Internet-Protocal TCP/IP. In advached (or such... most right button) force an IP instead of letting it make one itself...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just tried that, and I get an error saying, "The static IP address that was just configured is already in use on the network. Please reconfigure a different IP address."

[kirottu]

Do you have wireless network? Someone might have hijacked it.

[Commissar]

Do you have wireless network? Someone might have hijacked it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I did.

 

That was the router that appears to have broken.

 

The "new" old router that I just set up doesn't have wireless - which is a massive pain, since that's how I used my laptop at home - but I think I finally figured the damn thing out. Had to play around with some of the router settings, but all three -seem- to be online at the moment. So, I'll roll with it, and thanks for the help, guys.

[WITHTEETH]

I've had to fiddle with my router plenty of times, there very sensitive. You'd think all you would need to do wasto plug and play.

[taks]

commissar,

 

the problem is most likely that your new router does not have a proper MAC address loaded (from your ISP). you have to reconfigure your router to play nicely with your ISP.

 

if you give me a bit i can point you in the right direction. who makes your router (uh, helpful if you have dlink)?

 

taks

[metadigital]

Also, older, gimped versions of Windows are very ... idiosyncratic (read: unpredictable) with router configurations. By "older, gimped" I mean Windows 3.11/95/98/ME/ anything with a Home suffix. The IP stack was always fragile in Windows, meaning it wasn't dynamically configurable (so any changes to the config mean you must reboot), unlike OS/2 Warp, or any flavour of Unix, for example.

 

You may have to (but don't unless all else fails) UNLOAD all the attached TCP/IP interfaces from your working ethernet cards and re-load them, as the older, gimped Windows do keep "secret" (i.e. from you) config info.