Home Networking problem with Broadband Router and Hub.

[Spagina]

I'm trying to setup a file server on my home network, I'm running into a few problems with the server though, and I don't know whether the problem is in the router or the computer itself. My home network setup is that the cable modem and the broadband router are in the living room. The router is an SMC Barricade SMC7004BR. It has 4 ports on it, with currently 3 PC's hooked into it through it's ports. The file server is inside my bedroom along with my personal PC. I set this up using a Linksys Etherfast 100BaseTx 8-port hub. The cable from the router is hooked into the uplink, and my PC is hooked into port 2 and the server into port 3. My problem is that my file server is not reading the DHCP server. It sees that the network is there, it connects to it, but it doesn't find the router. As a result, it assigns itself it's own internal IP on it's own subnet. So the server can't see the network or the internet.

At first I thought it was the hub having a problem routing the signal between the two PC's and the router, so I disconnected my personal PC and tried just running the network server on the hub by itself. Still no dice, NIC still assigning it's own IP and subnet. I switch ports around it's still doing the same thing. Reconnect personal PC, it connects fine. I'm wondering though, could the router be assigning the network cards MAC address to the ports on the router itself? Could this be the reason that it's not recognizing the second machine hooked up into the hub? I've been trying to troubleshoot this for the past 2 days, but nothing seems to be working. If you can offer any tips or solutions, they'll be welcomed. Thanks.

 

[vodocsis]

<< I'm trying to setup a file server on my home network, I'm running into a few problems with the server though, and I don't know whether the problem is in the router or the computer itself. My home network setup is that the cable modem and the broadband router are in the living room. The router is an SMC Barricade SMC7004BR. It has 4 ports on it, with currently 3 PC's hooked into it through it's ports. The file server is inside my bedroom along with my personal PC. I set this up using a Linksys Etherfast 100BaseTx 8-port hub. The cable from the router is hooked into the uplink, and my PC is hooked into port 2 and the server into port 3. My problem is that my file server is not reading the DHCP server. It sees that the network is there, it connects to it, but it doesn't find the router. As a result, it assigns itself it's own internal IP on it's own subnet. So the server can't see the network or the internet.

At first I thought it was the hub having a problem routing the signal between the two PC's and the router, so I disconnected my personal PC and tried just running the network server on the hub by itself. Still no dice, NIC still assigning it's own IP and subnet. I switch ports around it's still doing the same thing. Reconnect personal PC, it connects fine. I'm wondering though, could the router be assigning the network cards MAC address to the ports on the router itself? Could this be the reason that it's not recognizing the second machine hooked up into the hub? I've been trying to troubleshoot this for the past 2 days, but nothing seems to be working. If you can offer any tips or solutions, they'll be welcomed. Thanks. >>



If you are getting DHCP from your broadband provider, the number of CPE devices behind the cable modem may have exceeded the allowable number set by the DOCSIS configuration. If your router is providing an RFC1918 address to your PCs behind the router, then you've got other issues.

If you have a motorola cable modem, try doing this from a web browser window: http://192.168.100.1 go to the logs tab page and look through the log and see what file it downloaded from the TFTP server. Sometimes some providers will have really descriptive files which tells you how many cpe devices you could have behind the cable modem.


You want to look for something like this:

Retrieved TFTP Config pl-768kb-128kb-3cpe.cm SUCCESS

My modem here tells me I got a 768 Down, 128 up and I'm allow to have 3 cpe devices.

If that address fails, disconnect the 3 PC you got connected to the SMC router and the personal computer from the linksys hub, and remove power to the cable modem. This will clear the modem's cpe counter. If this doesn't work, connect your server directly to the modem.

All of this stuff is assuming that your 3 PC connected to the router are properly obtaining IP Addresses and your personal pc is also obtaining an ip address.