Routers

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » April 7th, 2007, 22:43

Quite naturally its tricky to tell from over here. But if it's working except when you've got the router plugged in then it a strong suspect that there is something wrong with it or it's configuration. Of course the nature of networking means that it may not be the case, but you've got somewhere to start.

Next move (after anger has subsided, electronics has a funny knack of knowing when you're stressed and makes it more difficult

), factory reset the router and just set it to DHCP on the WAN side (the Dlink is taking care of the authentication). That should be the only setting it needs as far as I can see.

Post by **Dog Pants** » April 8th, 2007, 8:07

Aha! Having both the modem and the router set as the DHCP server sounds like it might cause problems. I've turned that off on the router and I'll see how stable it is now.

*crosses fingers*

Post by **Dog Pants** » April 8th, 2007, 12:24

Well, there seems to be a slight improvement but I'm still getting disconnects. Doesn't help when 5punk goes down and I think it's my modem going tits too

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » April 8th, 2007, 13:18

Dog Pants wrote:Aha! Having both the modem and the router set as the DHCP server sounds like it might cause problems. I've turned that off on the router and I'll see how stable it is now.

*crosses fingers*

AAs far as I can understand it , it shouldn't.
The modem gets DHCP from the ISP, since it's a "modem" (I hate these things) it passed the WAN IP to the Ethernet port. This is then picked up via DHCP on the WAN side of the router (attached to the Modems ethernet port) and then you have DHCP set on the LAN side of the router to assign internal IP's to the rest of the network.

This is how I am envisioning it. Is this how you've got it set up?

Post by **Dog Pants** » April 8th, 2007, 13:36

Ummm, I don't think so. I've turned off DHCP server on the router and on on the modem. Does this need to be the other way round then? I'm feeling awfully thick now

eion · Post by **eion** » April 8th, 2007, 13:44

Dog Pants wrote:Ummm, I don't think so. I've turned off DHCP server on the router and on on the modem. Does this need to be the other way round then? I'm feeling awfully thick now

This needs to be the other way round.

edit: moar explanation.
The modem gets an IP address from your ISP. It passes this IP address (along with a bunch of other stuff like gateway IP address, subnet mask etc.) to the router.

The router is responsible for assigning IP addresses to computers connected to it on its LAN ports (i.e. your computer). It's also responsible for doing some magic so that information gets passed from your computer to the modem and vice versa, as necessary.

Basically the modem does not have to assign IP addresses unless you aren't using a router. If the modem is assigning IP addresses, it'll most likely confuse the router (as I said before, in your situation the modem should just be passing on the IP address it receives from the ISP).

Post by **Dog Pants** » April 10th, 2007, 11:44

Result!

After a lengthy phone call with Cheeseandham (very nice of him to help out), we pretty much decided it was a hardware fault and that I'd pretty much had it set up correctly to begin with. Unfortunately I'd accidentally got such a weird setup that it wasn't obvious (turns out the modem is a sort of one-port router thing). So today I tried to send it back, and the company refunded me with no questions (apart from what was wrong with it). I've ordered a switch instead and they didn't even want me to send the router back. Very happy with the customer service I received. The company, if anyone's interested because I'd recommend them after this (and their delivery is fast even on first class) is <a href="http://www.misco.co.uk/indexuk.asp?" target="_blank">Misco</a>.

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » April 10th, 2007, 13:38

Result!

After a lengthy phone call with Dog Pants (very nice of him to listen to me babble on), we pretty much decided it was a hardware fault and that he'd pretty much had it set up correctly to begin with. Unfortunately he'd accidentally got such a weird setup that it wasn't obvious (and it turns out the modem is a one-port router). So today Cheese reads about Dog Pants sending it back, and the company refunding him with no questions and ordering a switch instead, which is cool for Dog Pants.

Oh and Cheese gets 1000 5perm! Fantastic!

(oh and Cheese himself recommends <a href="http://www.runpcrun.com" target="_blank">RunPCRun</a> because it's his company and he thinks it's the bestest company ever.)

amblin · Post by **amblin** » April 10th, 2007, 13:50

Post by **Dog Pants** » April 10th, 2007, 15:45

cheeseandham wrote: (oh and Cheese himself recommends <a href="http://www.runpcrun.com" target="_blank">RunPCRun</a> because it's his company and he thinks it's the bestest company ever.)

I did check out your site out of curiosity, and yes I can also recommend it if your technical expertise is anything to go by. Pity I can't convince my employers to get professional technical advice when our stuff goes tits up. Typical military boss types just say "you're a technician, fix it". Like when our Exchange server died. And we're all trained in radio, radar and electronics, not IT stuff.

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » April 10th, 2007, 17:04

amblin wrote:We use misco for almost all our IT purchases at work. The 3 day delivery almost always comes through next day, so don't pay for first class. They also appear to have the cheapest acer laptops in the UK, and the returns policy is very good except for RAM - which they will not accept returns of at all.

(Since the topic is changing to commercial IT supplies

)
Interesting, we may give Misco a go then. We use Insight for all (except memory) as we've always had good account managers that sort us out promptly, get stuff to us next day (when ordered before 3pm) and price-match, so we've not had incentive narf to try others.
RAM = Orcalogic for us and even if you don't use them, check out the Memory Finder (it's pretty useful)

Post by **Dog Pants** » April 10th, 2007, 21:27

Fookinell! I was rudely dumped out of my COD game tonight by my machine turning itself off. Wouldn't turn back on, so I tried a different cable and nothing. So I was getting the rage about having to buy a new PSU. Fortunately it turned out it had just blown a couple of fuses.

I think I should rename this thread to 'What Pants has broken today'.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » April 10th, 2007, 21:29

That's probably not good.

/expert opinion

Post by **Dog Pants** » April 11th, 2007, 6:56

No, I expext not. I've had to buy so much stuff this month though that I can't afford to buy a new one on the offchance that it's going to fail. I'm getting dangerously low on money and it's only the 11th.