Situation: Since we live in a remote area the only way I can get Broadband is through a USB Wireless Antenna. USB Antenna is connected to Main Computer. So far I had all my other PC's connected through a 5 port switch TrendNet 100 and it worked fine till a coupple a months ago. Something went haywired and nothing worked anymore. 1 Laptop running XP was still able to connect but not the others. Once in a while PC1 running ME would be able to connect for a few minutes. I figured that the switch is probably defect.
Yesterday i got a good deal on a Linksys 2.4 wireless router including laptop adapter. (all for 24 Can.)
However I can not figure out how to get anything working. Will this setup work at all? since I can not connect directly from a modem to the router but have to go through my main PC first. What computer do I need to use to configure the router? Can I still somehow use file and print sharing?
Main Computer is running XP Pro , Zonealarm Pro. Firewall active for the USB Wireless connection but not for the LAN going to the router. Same connection is configured to automaticly obtain IP address (should this be changed?)
If you can make sense of this please help!!!
Big thing would be to assign your PCs a static IP. The linksys doesn't use the normal 192.168.0.1 setup, it uses 192.168.1.1.. So give your PCs a static IP like : 192.168.1.100, 192.168.1.105 etc. for each PC. This should get you onto the router. I had issues when I first got mine getting it to work and setting static IPs for everything helped. I'm sure somebody else knows an easier/better way, but this way isn't too hard.
GL
eGo
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Heat Under eGoCeNTRoNiX Who Farted? BEANIE!!!
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I have a static IP address from my ISP. Never changed for the past few years. I never had problems loging in with my main computer just the other ones that are connected.
Why would you want to run ICS on the main box? Your router should be doing all of the connection sharing. There really is no reason for you to have ICS enabled. This may be causing part of the problem. I would recommend running netsetup.exe (It's located in c:\windows\system32) Then when the wizard is done it will ask you if you want to make a setup disk to use on the other computers. Go ahead and do that and run the disk on the other PCs, it should fix the problem. You will want to run the setup wizard on the PC that is currently working on the connection.
Best of Luck!
eGo
***EDIT***
I see why you're running ICS now, but I would go ahead and still follow the steps above (the wizard will do what needs to be done to get it to work)
PM before Email People!!
Heat Under eGoCeNTRoNiX Who Farted? BEANIE!!!
!Welcome to the United States of the Offended!
No, that doesnt help either. Somewthing is really screwed here. I can interact between PC1, PC2 and Laptop, share files modify files etc, but I can not access any of those from my Main Computer I also cannot access the Router from the main PC. I can from all the others.
Tried different LAN cables to make sure it isnt a faulty one. Going from my Main PC to router In Port, also tried to go directly to port 1 on the router.... i'm lost...
You should have the 2nd NIC on main computer (the one sharing using ICS) connected to the WAN jack on the router/AP.
The one thing to watch for is that the router/AP must not use the same base IP address as ICS.
Windows normally uses 192.168.0.1 for the address of the ICS port. Some routers also use this address. You can't have two NAT routers (and an ICS connection IS a NAT router) connected together that use the same BASE address (the first 3 numbers of the IP address).
So for instance if the ICS IP address of the 2nd port on the main computer is the default 192.168.0.1 then you should configure the LAN IP of the router as 192.168.1.1
You CANNOT configure the router from the main computer. You have to configure it from a computer connected to the network switch on the router.
Configure the router BEFORE connecting it to the WAN.
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“The Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.” - Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez
OK I tried your suggestions FP, did not work (thats strange, normaly FP's suggestion are always right)
Linksys router uses as default 192.168.1.1 as IP so there shouldnt be any problems, right? NIC using ICS has 192.168.0.1
Tried DoPey's suggestion and it did work somewhat. Something somewhere is just screwing up the whole thing and it is probably some stupid little thing.
For now it kind of works again, I can go online with 2 Lappies running XP, but not with the Kids PC running ME. I can access Lappy 1 and share files, I cannot access Lappy 2, however I can access Lappy 1 and the Main PC from lappy 2, I also used Lappy 2 to configure the Router. Firewall on Lappy 2 is turned off. Wireless Network does not work, both lappys pick it up but nothing comes down the pipe. Would the wireless be accessing the WAN port on the router?
Dopey's method will work and is actually the RIGHT way to do it, but it's more complicated which is why I didn't suggest it.
My way is easier and should work, but it stacks two NAT routers back to back which is not totally kosher and would cause problems with port forwarding, but that's probably not an issue.
If it didn't work it means that you probably didn't force all the computers to reconnect to the DHCP server - they were all trying to use the old IP addresses and it won't work. Whenever you make any changes to a network that changes the address the computers will use you need to reset the connection (on an XP system do a Repair on the connection, on Win9x do a "Re-aquire DHCP License" in winipcfg) or just reboot all the computers.
By connecting everything to the switch side of the router as Dopey suggested you're using it as an Access Point only. However, there's a LOT more you need to do. Right off the bat you'll have problems with DHCP conflicts. You need to configure the router as follows:
- Connect the router to one of the computers BY ITSELF to program it.
- You need to set the LAN IP address of the router to one on the SAME local LAN address group that the ICS NIC is using. So if the ICS NIC on the main computer is 192.168.0.1, you need to configure the router to be 192.168.0.2
- Reconnect to the router (changing the IP will make you lose the connection so you'll need to log into the router with the new IP) and disable the DHCP server on the router (ICS on your main computer will be providing DHCP from now on).
- Now you can connect all the computers to the switch side of the router (leaving the WAN jack unconnected).
- Reset all connections or reboot the computers to re-aquire the proper IP from the DHCP server.
I am assuming that all computers are configured to aquire the IP automatically.
Hope this helps...
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“The Government of Spain will not applaud those who set the world on fire just because they show up with a bucket.” - Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez
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