Cox Says It's Linksys' Problem. Linksys Says It's Dell's Problem. HELP!

Question

I purchased a Linksys wireless-g broadband router and two pci cards over the weekend in hopes to give my two computers wireless access at the same time with no wires.  My ISP is Cox.  After I installed and set up everything, only my mother's computer could connect to the internet.  My Dell 4600 would recognize the signal but not connect.  I talked to three different people from Linksys.  They told me to uninstall and reinstall, change pci slots, manually configure the ip address, change channels, uninstall my mcaffe firewall, etc etc.  They had me do everything in the book.  Finally, the last lady I talked to had me ping ip addresses.  My computer would recieve replies from the router, but not from websites.  Due to this, she said, my computer was not resolving DNS addresses (or something like that).  She said that is caused by the manufacturer.  I am sick of talking into the phone, and was hoping soemone out there might be able to offer help.  I am sick of not having internet access on my computer.  Please help.

jwatt · Answer

Skyla157,

First, a quick summary to make sure I haven't missed something...

Your mother's machine's wireless connection can connect to the Internet, but your machine's wireless connection cannot. But both machines can ping the Linksys broadband router.

Is it possible that the cable modem is still connected to the Ethernet adapter in your mother's computer, and not to the Linksys router?

(edit) If you answer "volcano11"'s questions, you'll answer mine! He types faster and better! :-)

Jim

Message Edited by jimw on 08-04-2004 06:24 PM

volcano11 · Answer

Are all computers connecting to the router through wireless (you said you bough PCI cards for them, but you didn't say if they are wireless network cards or ethernet network cards). Can the PC that doesn't get a connection connect to the cable modem directly and connect? (If so, that would eliminate a software problem on the computer that can't connect). Is the computer that can't connect getting an IP address from the router in the range 192.168.100.xxx? Are the security features of the router enabled? If so, disable them by enabling SSID broadcast, MAC filtering, and WPA or WEP encryption, until you get the problem solved. Completely uninstall any firewalls to make sure that they are not interfering with the connection. You can go back and install the firewalls and security features once you are sure the network works.

Steve

Skyla157 · Answer

They are both connected wirelessly.  I tried connecting with wires through the router though, and still no luck.  The ip address on my computer isn't in the linksys range.  it isn't even close.  The only thing I haven't played around with yet is the SSID broadcast, MAC filtering, or WEP encryption.  And jimw, you got the summary right, but, cmon, i'm a bit smarter than that. ;-)

jmwills · Answer

First of all, don't play with too many settings at one time. Leave the SSID broadcast alone (enable), do not use MAC filtering, set both machine to receive dynamic IP addresses (obtain automatically). The router and and address of 192.168.1.1 and your two client machines will fall within the same subnet of 255.255.255.0 with an address of 192.168.x.x

You can tweak these settings after everything is working.

If you are getting the 169.x.x.x address, something is set screwy in your configuration, especially if you can't connect wired.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Cox Says It's Linksys' Problem. Linksys Says It's Dell's Problem. HELP!

Was this post helpful?