Need help with Linksys router.

[de8212]

Where do I start?
My borther had an issue with his pc that is connected to a Linksys befw11s4. He could not connect to the net and had a message (near the clock, bottom right corner) Limited or No Connectivity.
Helping him over the phone I tried a few things to no avail. I, then, got him to take the router out of the loop and connect the modem straight to the pc. It worked fine. SO I figure something in the router crapped out, maybe firmware. So I got him to reset the router and go through the Linksys Set Up cd. Worked like a charm and he was back online.

But...I thought to myself, maybe the firmware was corrupted or something so let's go ahead and upgrade the firmware before we reconfigure his settings (port forwarding, etc). I dowloaded the newest firmware from Linksys and emailed him the file. Walked him through the upgrade and it loaded the file and gave a "success" message at the end.
But he could not open any pages in IE. Rebooted, still "No Page can Be Displayed".
Read a littel more on the net and found another firmware for the router and tried it.
Still nothing. Tried to do the setup disc again but near the end it gave a message about the pc was not configured for DHCP and you have to enter Host Name, MAc Addy, Domain.
By now I knew something was wrong and did not enter the info.

Besides buying a new router what else can I try?

BTW, link to the first firmware Here.
Link to the second firmware Here. Notice the International in the url???

 

[Rottie]

I use firmware 1.50.14 it depends on what version on your brother's router? that firmware works on my router version 4.
your brother can look under router to see what version is?

 

[de8212]

Rottie
His router is version 4, I forgot to mention that. Thanks.
So you use the same firmware that I linked up above and your is fine? Did you have any similar problems which led you to upgrade the firmware?
I am leaning towards the router being bad but I will try and go by his house one day this week and try to load the firmware myself. Also I'd like to be able to get a hold of some older firmware to try, anyone know ehre to find it?

Anyone know of any other ideas I could try?
I do have an SMC router at my house that I no longer use. I guess I could take it over there and see if it works.
Anything else I could do to positively narrow it down to the router?

 

[Xitar]

Your message doesn't clearly state what you rebooted, but after you flash the firmware you should unplug the router and modem for 30 seconds then plug in the router wait for it to finish initilizing then plug the modem back in wait for it to finish initilizing, THEN restart your machine. I have to do this when ever I am having network problems and ususally clears everything right up.

 

[de8212]

Originally posted by: Xitar
Your message doesn't clearly state what you rebooted, but after you flash the firmware you should unplug the router and modem for 30 seconds then plug in the router wait for it to finish initilizing then plug the modem back in wait for it to finish initilizing, THEN restart your machine. I have to do this when ever I am having network problems and ususally clears everything right up.

Strange, I have never had to do that with my linksys after upgrading firmware. But I certainly will take that into consideration and try again.

 

[de8212]

Well, I got him to try and flash back to 1.50.14 but it errors out saying something about firmware upgrade Failed.
I'm gonna get him to bring the router by my house and I will try.

Anyone ever had to RMA something to Linksys? This router isn't that old. No0t sure when he bought it but it was set up back in Nov. What all does it take to RMA?

 

[Xitar]

I had to send in my Linksys modem. It had random restarts and really pissed me off when trying to game. Anyways it is a pretty painless process. Just make sure you know what your talking about to the tech so they don't treat you like a nub.

Sorry to hear that the problem wasn't resolved. I assuming your/he is using the wire to configure and not wireless. Also I'm going on a hunch that you have a compatible (B or G) wireless nic. Could you verify my assumption of hard line connection before I dive deeper into this?

 

[de8212]

Yep, cat5 connects the pc to the router. Back when he bought it, I told him to just go ahead and get a wireless router in case he ever needed to use the wireless function. I had disabled the wirelss in the configuration.

Thanks for the asking though.

 

[Xitar]

The procedures that I would try are to
1. Reset the Router to factory default by pressing the Reset button for 10 seconds and then releasing it.

2. download the firmware here
if that doesnt work go here and download the firmware

3. Update the firmware by using these procedures instead of what the manual says. Don't use the update firmware functionality of the router. I've never had any luck with this. Again if link doesn't work go here and download the upgrade instructions.

4. follow the soft reset that I presented above in previous post.

5. Now follow the setup disk (or configure it manually if you know how).

6. If the above procedure fails take router and throw it as hard as you can the the closest wall, followed by extreme swearing and gripping. Next call linksys support and tell them that the router, now in pieces, self destructed and ask for guidance.

Other than the straight forward approach you could have a bad cable, swap them out, if you can, and try again. Good Luck.

 

[Rottie]

Originally posted by: de8212
Rottie
His router is version 4, I forgot to mention that. Thanks.
So you use the same firmware that I linked up above and your is fine? Did you have any similar problems which led you to upgrade the firmware?
I am leaning towards the router being bad but I will try and go by his house one day this week and try to load the firmware myself. Also I'd like to be able to get a hold of some older firmware to try, anyone know ehre to find it?

Anyone know of any other ideas I could try?
I do have an SMC router at my house that I no longer use. I guess I could take it over there and see if it works.
Anything else I could do to positively narrow it down to the router?

sorry for not reply back soon...
Yes I use te first link above and it works just fine...I had it working right out of te box until I upgrade from the link above..still working very well.
If I remember correcty after the firmware upgrade it has to re-boot in order to work properly. I think Xitar is correct about re-start your router.

 

[de8212]

Thank alot Xitar and Rottie.
Xitar, I will try your method as soon as he drops off the router at my house and see what it does. It's just easier for me to work with it than try to explain to him over the phone.
Thanks again and I will hopefully update this with a day or two.

 

[Brazen]

Can you ping the router's internal ip?

If you can, then log in to the web interface and use the ping utility in there to ping www.google.com

 

[de8212]

Xitar
Going by the instructions that you recommended, the firmware only comes as a .bin file, there is no "tftp" file that is mentioned in Step 6.

BTW, he didn't drop off the cd-rom. You mentioned a manual way, can you please elborate?

Brazen, I have the router with me now so I will try what you suggested as soon as I gfet everything hooked up.

 

[de8212]

Nevermind Xitar, I figured it out.

I reflashed the router with the tftp utility and it didn't work. Then I unplugged the modem and waited about 30 seconds. PLugged it back in and I was working fine.

This was aat my house so now I just have to go to my brothers house and set himp up again. Thanks for all of the help and hopefully this issue is behind us.

 

[Xitar]

good to hear. I guess we'll never know.