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Need some help quickly...

N

New2Computers

Member
Was on my way to the store this morning to start buying the things to network my home with my @Home service(some CAT5 cables, and maybe a wireless access point etc)... already have a linksys 4 port router, I forget the model but its blue and black, fairly new. Well anyway I boot up my pc this morning to check some news online before heading to compusa and what do you know, my connection isn't working. After calling my cable company, apparently since excite went under they changed some things in the network and now my ip address is dynamic instead of static... no big deal I assumed, its easy to change a NIC to be dynamic instead of static, and the router should reconfigure easily.

To make 2 hours of argueing short, since the cable company will not provide me any support because they don't want me using a router to split the line (some people are just truly unfathomably stupid), I have my cable line set up right now without the router, because for some reason I'm failing to see a way to change the router to connect to a dynamic ip address instead of a static ip.

I had no idea that this was the case, but are routers unable to connect to dynamic ip addresses?? This truly makes no sense to me, since many, many ISPs use dynamic ip addresses. If you can set it up to use a dynamic address... what am I missing in the router configuration, I've failed to see any setting for this?! I need to split the line between my 4 PCs 🙁

Thanks for your help, I need it quickly as I have a slight emergency I need to see fixed soon and would like to get to the store and back quickly so I can have this solved instead of hanging over my head.
 
there is a configuration setting in the router such that you can set it to be a dhcp client as well as a dhcp server. i used to have the router that you have but it's been a while and i cant remember the setup screens. it would probably be near the pppoe setup screen where you give username and password, but i cant be sure.
actually, here's the manual which explains how in very clear detail.
manual
good luck
 
Actually I posted this message without looking at the router configuration since someone else was working on it this morning and did a poor job of explaining the problem to me.

We know how to set it to automatically obtain the ip address in the router configuration, but the router isnt picking up an IP address through DHCP from the service provider.

The connection works fine when connected directly to a computer, but when going through the router, even though it has the latest firmware (updated today) and is set to automatically obtain the ip address... under the status tab in the linksys router configuration browser it shows the ip address as 0.0.0.0 .....


Any ideas why it isnt getting the ip address? The service isn't down, we connected it directly to the pc without the router and can do anything we want on the internet. Arghhhhh this is so frustrating it isn't supposed to be anywhere near this difficult, it should just obtain the address automatically like we have it set to do. I'm startin got get a headache ........ 🙁
 
You have to tell the router what the MAC address of your computer is. That is what your ISP's DHCP server has on file and it will only hand out an address to that MAC address.

 
It is my understanding that I can't have my router and my computer set up to have the same MAC address... is that correct? I cannot change the MAC address on my laptop because I need that to be set to what it currently is to be able to connect to my work's network.

Is it possible to have the router and my laptop set to the same MAC address without any problems?
 
Your router should take care of that. Do you have the instruction manual? It should discuss doing this as that is the most common setup.

 
Ok, I have the MAC address typed in and it was still a no go.

When I connect directly through the modem instead of the router and check the ipconfig, it says it is using a subnet mask of 255.255.254.0...

I think this may be the problem... I cannot set the router to use this subnet mask, the Linksys router wont let you type in a subnet mask and the pull down menu does not have anything besides 255.255.255... options.

Any ideas?
 
first uninstall any of the ppoe drivers that you had installed for your cable/dsl modem. restart. then in settings => network and dial up connections => local area connection => properties => tcp/ip => properties set it to "obtain ip address automatically" ditto for dns.
then restart and if you have configures the router correctly, you should be good to go
hope this helps.

edit*******************
this was all asuming you were using win2k. xp is more or less the same in you dont go through the dorky interface. win 98/me is from the control panels => network => etc. same stuff
 
Just make sure that your connection is working first. Then plug all your computers into the router, and configure your local area network to obtain the IP automatically (just click on network settings). After you have that done, unplug your cable modem and unplug the router (do not turn it off, unplug it so that it obtains a new IP). Wait about 30 seconds to a minute and plug the power back into the modem, and wait till the modem finishes doing its tests. Then plug the power back into the router. Wait a few seconds to let all the settings apply itself. You should be good to go after that. Also try updating the firmware to your router. Hope this helps.
 
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