problems with home network

[jayosu1]

I'm having a few problems with a friends home network. Here is the setup: Wireless Belkin Super G router connected to Dell desktop with Belkin wireless NIC, a wired connection to another Dell desktop and a wireless connection to a dell laptop. they have DSL connection and all 3 have winxp

for one thing, the wired dell desktop cannot access the router config. Secondly, when i restart the computer i can't access the internet but it is connected fine. so i used a small program (winsockxpfix) to fix this problem. after i restart the computer for the changes to take effect everything works fine accept i still can't access the router config. but when i restart the computer again, the same thing happens and i can't access the internet. Possible TCP/IP or winsock problem??

the wireless connection to the other dell desktop has a weak signal and the internet is very slow. the connection was working fine before. i uninstalled the software and drivers and removed the card, then reinstalled everything and still have a weak signal. I don't think it's the router because the Dell laptop works just fine and has a strong signal.

this network was working just fine when i installed it a month ago. i don't have a lot of time to work on these problems myself so hopefully you guys can help me out.

 

[Outsider]

What info do you get when u use ipconfig /all? Is it on the same subnet as the router?

 

[jayosu1]

Sorry about the delay. the IP addresses and subnet all look fine.

 

[JohnWill]

"all look fine" conveys no useful information. How about actually posting what you see?

Open a DOS window and type:

IPCONFIG /ALL >C:RESULT.TXT

Open C:\RESULT.TXT with Notepad and copy/paste the entire results here.

 

[jayosu1]

Sorry about that. Here are the settings:

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Brenda

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : Belkin



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Belkin

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-11-11-90-11-9F

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.2

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1

 

[JohnWill]

Why is DHCP disabled? I suggest you enable it and allow the router to assign the IP addresses.

 

[Bob Cerelli]

A lot of times, if you are going to manually enter in the IP address information for whatever reason, you might need to put in the actual DNS IP addresses of your ISP rather than your router's IP address.

It's easy to tell if you have DNS problem. If you can ping and external site by IP but not Name, you typically have a DNS issue.

For some ideas on troubleshooting Internet connection problems see:
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/networking/troubleshoot_internet.htm

 

[redcivic]

I bet DHCP is your problem. Are you typing in the right IP for the router? make the PC pull the IP from the router.

 

[Bob Cerelli]

jayosu1,

From your earlier post, you are not using DHCP. Is that correct?
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

If so, have you either tried using the actual DNS server IP addresses your ISP uses or turning DHCP on.

 

[jayosu1]

DHCP is enabled in the router and the 2 wireless connections are using it. But the wired connection is a static IP address because she uses Earthlink TotalAccess. When using DHCP, Earthlink will not connect but I can get on the internet, so I must use a static IP address in order for Earthlink to connect.

I've got almost everything in working order now. I used the netsh command to reset the TCP/IP and winsock settings on both the trouble computers. But I still have 2 problems: when I enable WPA the wireless desktop will not connect but the wireless laptop works just fine with it enabled. And the wireless desktop still has a weak signal. The Belkin Wireless Utility shows the signal and noise levels: the Noise fluctuates between -85 dBm to -95 dBm. The Signal fluctuates between -80 dBm to -85 dBm.

 

[jayosu1]

I just got a phone call saying there is another problem. It's the same problem as before where the connection (on the wired desktop) is established and Earthlink TotalAccess can connect but Internet Explorer cannot and I can't ping websites. I know this is a Windows Sockets problem and, as before, can be fixed with that small program winsockxpfix. But when the computer is restarted the problem is back again. When I was working on that computer Saturday I restarted it 5 times just to make sure everyting worked, and when I left everything did work. She said her son shut her computer down and when she booted it up it wouldn't connect to the internet. What keeps corrupting winsock? or is it the TCP/IP stack?

Also, could somebody tell me exactly what Windows Sockets is?

 

[jayosu1]

bump

 

[redcivic]

What exactly is total access and why does she need to use it? and why would it require a static IP.

 

[jayosu1]

It's Earthlink's software package that comes with her DSL service. She says she needs it for Email. It requires the IP address, default gateway and DNS address to be manually typed in order for it to connect. When I tried to use DHCP Earthlink would not connect, but IE was able to connect to the internet. I personally don't like Earthlink TotalAccess because it's a resource hog but she says she needs it.

 

[redcivic]

Have you called earthlink or serached their site? because I have a friend that I set up a three sytem network for on alinksys router and he has earthlink. I slightly remember the software but I don't remember having a problem with DHCP. Have you tried making all of the computers static and disabling teh DHCP server in the router?