Posted: 7/9/2004 5:57:29 AM EDT
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About a month or so ago Roadrunner was installed in my apartment. My roommate and I both have notebooks so we set up a wireless network. We're both using D-link cards and have a Netgear 802.11B wireless router. Everything was working fine until two days ago when my roommate had trouble getting onto the Internet and checking his mail through Outlook Express, I was still getting on fine. Last night RoadRunner support told him to hook the line directly from the cable modem to his computer and see if he got a connection, he did. So he and I get to thinking that he must have a bad wireless card. Well last night I'm on after he went to bed and out of nowhere my connection drops. Try rebooting, nothing. Try reinitializing the cable modem, nothing. Hook the cable modem directly into my laptop with a cable, bingo connection. Now here is the screwey thing, the icon in the system tray shows an excellent wireless connection. The system status lights on the router are all green. They SHOULD be talking to each other, but they're not. Tried dropping the firewall, nothing. This leads me to believe I either have a bad router on my hands - not likely as I seem to be receiving an "excellent" signal from it, or I some how got my configuration scrambled out and I don't know hot to fix this. The cable-tech set it up the first time even though they aren't supposed to do wireless networks. Not sure if this could have anything to do with it, but the power went out briefly the other day, I believe the same night my roommate began having problems. I however had no problems even though I was online when it went out so I was booted off, but when power was restored I was right back on. I had no problems with my computer until my roommate started unplugging the modem from the router and directly hooking it into his notebook. Even then, I was able to get on-line with mine wirelessly afterward for a couple hours. Really at a loss here. It shouldn't make a difference I guess, but would having D-link cards and a Netgear modem be the issue? Like I said, its been working fine for over a month now. |
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First step would be to power down the router and the modem for about 5 minutes. Turn ON the power to the modem first and let it boot up completely. To be on the safe side, let the modem sit with nothing connected but the Roadrunner connection for 5 minutes to make sure it downloads its address information. Then plug the router into the modem and power on the router and let it load and request its address from the modem. This may take 2 minutes. Then boot up your laptop and see if you can connect, then try your roommates laptop. Its possible that the storm affected something. It is probably not an incompatibility with the d-link and netgear hardware since it was working, unless you or your roommate changed configurations of the netgear or either of the d-link cards. The worst situation would be that the storm fried your netgear, or damaged the configuration file and since someone else configured it, you don't know what the configuration is or what it should be. (Note to people who allow others to configure their network: Make sure you save the router configuration file to a PC, or at a minimum write down the configuration settings so that if you have a problem you will have the ability to restore the configuration). |
WAPs (Wireless Access Points) are incredibly sensitive to power fluctuations. I've burned out 3 diff wireless routers this year at home. The last one (this week) took a hit through the coax from the cable company. So now I need to get a new UPS that will protect the coax input as well.  I have one location at work where we have 40 WAPs and for a year we put individual UPS units on them. This year we went to power over ethernet so we could UPS them from a central point. Good luck. |
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The only reason I doubt the storm scenario is that was three days ago and the set-up worked fine for me for two days after that, including me turning off the computer, removing the wireless card and bringing the computer to the office (never hook it up to office network). When I came home and started everything up it worked fine. All of the sudden mine isn't working, I was online and the connection just dropped. Been trying to do some research online and the Netgear website indicated that certain viruses can cause something like this to happen. I keep my definitions up to date and run a firewall on my computer, as does my roommate. One thing I hadn't thought of was the Windows XP firewall might have kicked on and be running at the same time as the RoadRunner firewall from Computer Associates. Not sure if that might cause a conflict. Of course, one would assume such a conflict would still exist if you ran the modem directly to the computer, and there doesn't seem to be a problem there. Netgear offers tech support, but at $30 a call, or something like $2 a minute/ |
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This has happend a couple of times over the past few months with my Netgear Router. Always seems to happen a few days after a storm passes by to... 1 of two things usually works; Right-click Network Places-->Properties....Right click your wireless connection and Try repairing the connection. From what I understand, it resets your IP from the router, and usually solves the problem. Or just power down the puter and get a beer watch some TV and come back to it 20min later.... |
Uninterrupted Power Supply It's a big external battery/Surge Protector. When your power goes out, it will give you anywhere from 1hr to 10hrs of power (depending on model) |
I don't use them for the battery, I use them for their ability to protect the WAPs and PCs from surges (read: Lightning). They also "clean" the power coming off the public grid into something consistent. BTW- power strips will not protect equipment - they are basically extension cords with a candy-ass fuse. A good surge will blast right through them and fry your gear. |
| I was thinking about buying one of these the other day before the problems arose because I was in the middle of an on-line game when I get kicked out and was thinking, man had I been in the middle of a fight rather than resupplying my character, I would have been toast! I seem to recall BJ's had an APC (?) brand back-up power supply for around $40. Do I need one that has a cable coaxial to protect against a spike through the cable line? From what one poster stated it would seem to indicate yes, is this a fairly common feature on back-up units? |
Yes - if you're on cable modem, get the APC with the coax jack. For folks on DSL, they should run the phone line thru a UPS as well. |
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Are you set up with WEP? Is it possible that somebody else with a wireless connection got into your router and set up a WEP passphrase? If you have the wrong WEP key, you can still receive a good signal, but you won't get any connection. You might try resetting the router before you run out and buy a new one. If you don't have WEP set up, DO IT. |
Brou I thought we long ago established that I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!  I am completely clueless about this alphabet soup crap. I think I had WEP set-up, I don't know. Now if somebody wants to volunteer to walk me though it on the phone and help me, I have unlimited free long distance and glad to send you a six-pack for your trouble. Otherwise I can't help you by answering technical questions. I need to be home looking at a monitor and describing what I see, otherwise I can't offer any help here. Like I said, I was using it just fine and then BLAM, dropped me like a rock.
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Oh yeah  I'm just thinking that somebody else could have tapped into your signal and set up encryption. If nobody else helps you, I'll try. Problem is, every brand router has a different set up method. I have zero experience with D-link |
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A lot of problems with wireless networking are caused by interference. 802.11b/g runs at 2.4 GHz., the same frequency as some cordless phones, microwave ovens, and other wireless routers. If your neighbor has one of the afore mentioned applicances it may be interfering and can cause you to have a have excellent signal strength yet network packets cant get through. Something to try. Open a command prompt and ping the router. On your computer hit START, go to RUN, in the box marked OPEN type CMD. This assumes you have XP, w2k, or NT. At the blinking DOS prompt type IPCONFIG /ALL. You will most likely have more than one network card in your notebook and you will get the IP configuration for all interfaces. Find the one that says WIRELESS. Under it find the IP address for the DEFAULT GATEWAY, make a note of it. Default gateway is geek speak for the router. Depending on the manufacturer the address will be 192.168.xxx.1. Once you have it type PING, hit the space key and then type the ip address for the default gateway. Hit ENTER. This will send a test packet to the router 4 time. If if replies REQUEST TIMED OUT yet your signal strength reads excellent you may have some interference . You can try to fix it by changing the channel on your router, your manual will tell you how. Alternatively you can call the routers manufacturer and ask them how. Most likely you will speak to an indian fellow who will insult your intelligense by insisting his name is BOB or some such. His technical or linguistic competence may be enough to get you through it. |
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LOL, thank you shorty. Ire, one of our resident techno-super-network-admin geek folk... kidding, Pete is a really nice guy, has offered to help walk me through it. I'll be calling him later this evening after I have obtained a back-up power unit to prevent future spikes. I don't thinks its interference from phones or microwaves. I have successfully used my notebook while nuking dinner and chatting on my 2.4 ghz phone... only problem was on occassion phone reception might get a little interference, but never a problem in terms of my wireless connection. I live in a post-WWII apartment building with a lot of steel in the construction. One day for shits and giggles I took my notebook with the wireless card outside the apartment to see what signal strength there was. Leaving the apartment and closing the door took the signal strength from Exc/VG to low... and we're talking about a matter of 10 feet away, but on the other side of the wall. Any escaped signal would be so weak as to be almost unuseable. If I walk 20 feet further away I would lose my signal altogether. Anywhere inside the apartment yields at minimum a good signal, but most times very good or excellent. I'm pretty sure from your directions I can manage to ping... I don't want to call tech support at $30 a phone call to talk to Bob who might not be able to solve the problem, lol. |
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go to windows update - get all the critical ones first- reboot go to windows update- go to the "windows" updates- just below critical updates- look for one that mentions wireless fixes/updates download that/install- it worked here. had someone that was working fine then it just stopped, nobody knew why- downloaded this update by chance and it started working!!! may work who knows |
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HiramRanger, #1 Find the books that came with your router!! Log into your router (usually 192.168.0.1 on your web browser), the book give you exact instructions. User name will either be admin and nothing for the password or the username will be blank the password should be admin. The cable idiots never change passwords or setup security. #2 go buy 2 new cat 5 cables. The router should have at least 4 (maybe 1, but I don't think so) network jacks in the back. Instead of unplugging the router to gain access, plug into the router. In case you didn't understand you will have 1 network cable (cat 5) going from your laptop to the router, and a second cable (cat 5) from the router to the cable modem, then the cable modem has a wire (coax) to the wall. Wireless connections are screwy... as stated above get a little UPS and plug both the modem and router into it. If you can't find one with the coax cable jack I wouldn't worry... The common problem I have seen with wireless cards is when a laptop goes into sleep mode (power save) the wireless does not come back up and you have to reboot. |
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think it might be this one Update for Microsoft Windows XP (KB826942) Download size: 275 KB, < 1 minute Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) support is now available for Microsoft Windows XP. This update provides additional wireless security capabilities for the latest generation of wireless networking equipment supporting WPA. After you install this item, you may need to restart your computer. Read |
How exactly do you do that if you can't get the router to work and access the Internet? Doesn't firmware have to be directly downloaded into the router? Wouldn't I need a useable Internet connection first? |