Linsys Router problems

[eurolarva]

I am on my third router now in 5 years. They seem to quit working. My newest one is about 2 years old and the problem is no matter what we do one or more computer will lose connection to the router including the computer that is hard wired to it via cat 5 cable. Two wireless computer will work fine but the third one will not. The only solution is to remove power from the router for 30 seconds then everything is fine again. Is this common? Would doing a complete reset and starting over improve this? I uploaded and installed the newest firm ware a couple of weeks ago and that did not improve the situation. The router is WRT54G it is a 2.4 gig and our internet is comcast.

[Scott K]

I had very bad luck with linksys, terrible customer support. I went through 4 in a year, all under warranty, and they all cost me money, and 4 weeks to get replaced, each. I will never own another Cisco product again, because of how I was treated from their customer service. Throw it away and buy a Dlink, you wont be sorry!

[eurolarva]

Thanks for the quick response. On my way to Best Buy. I am comfortable with the linksys setup but do not want to go through this again. If I have problems setting it up I will be back

[Jim Almquist]

Do you have any wireless phones ? If you go into the wireless settings you can change the frequency. I have seen it were a computer will lose the connection when the phone rings and what we did to solve the problem was to go into the wireless setting and go higher up in frequency.

This really should not affect your hardwired computer.

You can also set the router back to default settings and see if it helps.

[eurolarva]

I got a new router. We have been having problems with the computer that is hardwired to the router as well while the wireless ones will work. Seems to me that the phones would not interfere with the hard wired computer. Could not get a Dlink at best buy so bought a Belkin. As cheap as this was I am sure it is junk but money is real tight right now.

[upnorth]

I had some issues with my Linksys router(5 years old or so) and did a firmware up cuz I was having some VPN issues and now it works like a charm. Even then all I had to do was power it down once a month or so. Probably not a whole lot worse than the friggin Watchguard Firewalls I inherited where I work, actually more stable than than those things.

I would try a firmware update and see if that helps if anyone is having issues with linksys.

[LMITOUT]

That's what I had to do as well. It kept dropping out and required periodic resets. After installing the latest firmware it sails right along and I never have to touch it. It was making me pull my hair out for the longest time.

[eurolarva]

Firmware updates did not seem to help me. I bought a new router today. Will see how long this one lasts. Still am having problem with one of my older computers. I think this might be an adapter problem trying to use WPA. It will work with WEP 64 but not with WPA. Three out of four computers are working fine with the new router.

[upnorth]

Update the driver for the wireless NIC. Many older wireless NICs wouldn't work with the more advanced WPA.

If that doesn't do it, and you are using AES you could try TKIP, not quite as secure as AES but far better than WEP.

[eurolarva]

So is it possible to set up the older computer using DMZ? I know this will not be protected but it might allow that computer to share the internet. If so how do I set up DMZ

[upnorth]

1st off your router would need to be capable of a DMZ. I just peeked at mine at it doesn't have the capability. What a DMZ is basically another network separate from the your main network and router would keep them separate from each other. What device did you buy?

Did you download and install the new drivers for the old wireless card. Quite often that will bring the device up to speed for WPA. Setting up a DMZ is a bit difficult, especially if you want to share files and printers.

[eurolarva]

I installed the drivers for the wireless adapter. It is Linksys WUSB11. It was still not working with the WPA. It works fine with WEP64. The computer has the option in the network configuration to do WPA. May just use the neighbors unprotected wifi till we can get a new adapter. The new router is a Belkin F7D2301 router. I saw the option for DMZ in the router. Sounds like you need to just pick the last digits in the TCPIP address and that will kick that computer into DMZ. My guess is if it is that easy it would have to be done every time we want to use the internet on that computer.

[upnorth]

Make sure you select the WPA personal the others won't work right. There is a drop down to select the type of network. I have a similar one on a PC in the basement and had to select the samething too.

[eurolarva]

This router does not allow me to switch between AES and TKIP when using WPA. The option does not exist I can only do AES and I think that is what is hanging up my XP machine. I switched everything to WEP 128 and everything is working. If I get a new wireless adapter that should hopefully fix everything.

[upnorth]

I was referring to the WPA setting on the USB wireless card. I have one similar on a PC in the basement here.

[pureinsanity]

I won't use anything but Linksys. Make sure you updated the firmware right and from a good computer. Ive seen a router updated incorrectly and it bricked.

I have not reset, powered off, or needed to do anything to my linksys for almost a year now.

[upnorth]

Some of the issues of the routers failing could be the ISP and how they change their networking schemes. I have had little problems and most people I know haven't had issues with the Linksys products.

[eurolarva]

New router locked up today. It has a feature called self healing that Belkin support instructed me to disable. All of our computers could get into the router but not connect to the internet. I hard wired one computer to the modem and everything was fine. I went to the self healing and enabled it then it started working again. Could be the old router was not the problem. Not sure where to go next.

[upnorth]

Could be your ISP. Most are using and automatic IP addressing system called DHCP(Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) and if they are changing they IP address scheme your router will wind up with an incorrect IP address. There a couple things you can do to get a new address, easiest it to reboot the router, the other is to connect to the router and have it refresh it's IP address.

[Shack]

Yep UN might have the solution. Best thing when you are having modem or better yet router issues is to call your ISP. Unless it is one of those companies that is some off shoot that leases Qwest lines for DSL or leases cable access, which has no support for anything other than the models they sell, your ISP will walk you through a total reset (not just a shut down and restart). This will include config for PPPoE (or other fashion), static IP's reassigned and all the hoopla.

Quote:

The router is WRT54G it is a 2.4 gig and our internet is comcast

That is a pretty standard router with huge positive reviews. Just like hunting dogs, most times the router (dog) gets all the blame when it is the owners or ISP (masters) fault. I noticed you have cable. What kind of modem you running?

Also never rule out firewall. Windows, router, third party on PC, or even network server if you are running one have some sort of firewall that will block or restrict access ingoing and outgoing. NAT is another. With gaming this needs to be off for best reasons and I think this (maybe mixed with a little QoSing) mixed with any data (internet) use are not good.

You can never rule out product failure of defectiveness, but when it comes to the router blaming, unless a person can come out and say "this failed inside" or the unit is a melted pile of goo, the router can not be blamed. Even if you run down to the local B-W or T and buy a new one that hooked up automatically. Protocol is what it knows and if that has changed and the router does not know, things do not work.

I think going into your router via your PC browser and writing down everything (even recording screen shots for reference) back out and do a factory reset with your ISP support on the phone is best. Then you can review where the problem was or maybe rule in the router was the cause.

[upnorth]

If you turn off NAT you are going to mess up your routing and Internet access, that is what allows your router to us it's public IP address to share all the PCs on your interior network. Private addresses(what you are using on your interior network) are not routable on the Internet.

QoS or Quality of Service is mostly associated with VoIP not normal network. For QoS to work the packet passing through the router have to have tags as their normal priority would be. I am guessing the gaming stations are not tagging their Packets as EF to allow QoS to do them any good.

[eurolarva]

We dont game here. Most of what you are saying is way over my head. I need to use basic logic to try and determine where a problem lies. If I have a computer wired to a router and I can not get on the internet and I type 192.168.1.1 into my browser and it will not give me a log in screen to my router I have to think this is a router issue not an ISP or modem issue. If at this time I disconnet my router from my modem and I can still not get into the router this is a router issue. Then if I plug the cat5 cable into the modem instead of the router and I get internet I am still thinking I have a router issue. I have spent time on the phone with comcast and they will not resolve router issue. They will verify that the modem is working (I rent the modem from Comcast)and that is as far as they can go. They instruct me to contact Linksys at which time I am speaking to a person I dont understand that is explaining everything from a book based on how I ask questions.

I had another router just like this one go bad after about a year doing the exact same thing. When I bought the new router it was good for a long time. I have two kids and a wife and when they cant get on the internet they are not happy and trying to explain the router stuff is like a doe staring into headlights with them. I hope this is the end of the router issue. I thank everyone especially Upnorth for educating me on alot of these router things and helping me figure out what is going on.

[MuleShack]

If I have a computer wired to a router and I can not get on the internet and I type 192.168.1.1 into my browser and it will not give me a log in screen to my router I have to think this is a router issue not an ISP or modem issue.

On my router, it has an option to restrict access to certain computers or internal IP addresses. It could be that you are not set up to access the router from that PC? Might not be the case, but just saying.

[upnorth]

That was in response to shack.

You can try this to be sure everything is peachy keen with your PC or find out what isn't working. A few things first, be sure you are getting a link light on the router and the PC network card, check your cable to be sure the little plastic tangs that hold it in are there on both ends, slightly bend them out a little to be sure they will connect well, if either is broken, replace. Then on to the steps below.

1. check to make sure the network card it turned on, they can get turned off. Right click on my computer, go to manage, then go into device manager, find your network card, right click if it shows disable, things are find and just press escape. If enable shows up, click enable to enable the card. Reboot.

2. It is enabled go into network connections and find that network connections and make sure that you don't have a static address assigned. Right click on network, click properties, then right click on the network connection in question, then in the window scroll down and find TCP/IP highlight then click properties. That will open a window, in that windows it should show all blank. If the radio button for "obtain an IP address automatically" you are done here, if not check that button and say OK enough to close everything and reboot.

3. Go to start, run, key in cmd, press enter, this will open a command window. In the window key in ipconfig and hit enter. This will display your IP settings that is got by way of DHCP from the router. If you didn't get a proper IP address 192.168.x.x, try a different cable, ley in ipconfig /release then ipconfig /renew and you need to be exact on the syntax. If that doesn't work try a different port in the router and repeat the last steps.

4. If non of that works you can go back into the network connections and try adding a static IP address. Just be sure to choose something that is outside of what the other PC laptops are apt to get, 192.168.x.254 depending on your IP address scheme. You will need to find your DNS server(which can change depending on your ISP) you can find that from a running PC/laptop by opening a comamnd window like before and keying in ipconfig /all.

let us know what you find.

[pureinsanity]

Have you had your ISP look into the modem??? Ive seen many times were people have problems with their "router" and it turns out to be a defective setting or even a defective modem... If it is a modem, hopefully you can return your router or have them refund you for it