Tech Support Guy banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Solved: wireless okay; can't connect ethernet to dsl

2K views 13 replies 3 participants last post by  Fanis 
#1 ·
My brother has called me for help! Sadly, I'm the closest thing my family has to a computer tech - which ain't much!

Anyway, let me start by saying that I won't be able to get to his house and give you his specs until tomorrow. Still, was hoping this might be an easy fix for some of you computer geniuses on this forum.

He has had repeated problems with his Internet on his laptop being slow and/or not connecting. He has dsl from a small rural phone company - no other options in his area. His provider finally set him up with a static IP address and that helped for about six months. Then, he started having problems again a couple of weeks ago. I went out and decided his wireless network adapter, because it wouldn't work on my network either and when I plugged in a borrowed nic, it worked fine. So, I set it up at his house configuring it to his wep wireless network.

Unfortunately, while I was out of town the last few days, he's his network began slowing down again (still using the borrowed network adapter). So, he tried to connect directly into the dsl through the ethernet cord, which he was able to do just fine before I switched the network adapters. IT WOULDN'T CONNECT!

I verified that he just unplugged the ethernet cord from the back of the router and plugged it into his laptop. So, the cord and the dsl modem are both working fine. Therefore, I'm wondering if when I set up the wep on the borrowed nic, if I might have disabled something. I've never seen a situation where a computer doesn't automatically recognize a lan connection from a direct ethernet cord.

Any ideas?
 
See less See more
#2 ·
We really do need to have some details.

Please supply the following info.

The name of your ISP and country of residence.
Make/model of the broadband modem.
Make/model of the router (if any).
Connection type, wired, wireless.
Make/model of network card or wireless adapter.
Make/model of your computer (motherboard if home-built).
Version and patch level of Windows, i.e. XP-Home SP2.

When connected with the direct cord, please do the following.

Turn off the modem and the computer.

Turn on the modem, wait for a steady connect light.

Boot the computer.

Start, Run, CMD to open a command prompt:

Type the following command:

IPCONFIG /ALL

Right click in the command window and choose Select All, then hit Enter.
Paste the results in a message here.

If you are on a machine with no network connection, use a floppy, USB disk, or a CD-RW disk to transfer a text file with the information to allow pasting it here.
 
#3 ·
Thanks! It will be at least a couple of hours before I can get out to his place. However, he brought the laptop by this morning, so I could do some troubleshooting here - overlapping with my real work.

The settings look fine to me (for what that is worth) -
WIRED: "never dial a connection"; LAN - "auto detect settings"
WIRELESS: "Obtain IP automatically"; "Obtain DNS automatically"

IT IS CONNECTING FINE WIRED AND WIRELESSLY ON MY NETWORK!

Until I can get out there, I can't give you the modem model or the IPCONFIG, but let me give you what I can and ask a few questions:

The name of your ISP and country of residence.
South Plains Telephone Cooperative, USA

Make/model of the broadband modem.
?​

Make/model of the router (if any).
Netgear MA521

Connection type, wired, wireless.
The connection desired is MIXED - wired and wireless.

Make/model of network card or wireless adapter.
Currently, it is a Linksys Wireless B - WPC11 ver. 4

Make/model of your computer (motherboard if home-built).
Compaq Presario 3000

Version and patch level of Windows, i.e. XP-Home SP2.
Windows XP-Home SP2 (good guess in the i.e.:D )

Obviously I still don't understand networking and have never dealt with a static IP address (his ISP said it would help keep their connections from slowing down, but...:down: ). Anyway, with the laptop working fine both wired and wirelessly here, it must be something in the router or modem settings, right?:confused:

So, now I'm wondering:

1.) Does the static IP address "sit" on the modem and should I check the router settings to see if I unknowingly used the static IP on it?
or
2.) Does he need two static IP addresses - one for the wireless network (router) and one for the ethernet port?


Am I making any sense? Your instructions on IPCONFIG may answer some of this once I can get out there, but was hoping you might could enlighten me in the meantime.

Thanks again!
 
#4 ·
If his ISP assigned him a static public IP that should be used by whatever (router or computer) is connected to the modem. I don't know if it is necessary with static IPs, but it wouldn't hurt to power cycle (unplug for 15 seconds) the modem when switching devices.

Question--if the wireless is the first suspect for the slowing, why not just connect via ethernet to the router?
 
#5 ·
Thanks for the reply TerryNet. Yes, where the slow-down is coming from is one of the things I'm going to be checking. I think I once had him try the direct modem-to-laptop ethernet connection, bypassing the router, in order to see if the router was the source of the slow-down - since they complained about it being slow wirelessly and wired. He just forgot that you can connect via ethernet from the router to the modem as well.

I am here at his house now and I can connect fine via ethernet through the router. Doesn't seem slow to me at all. I will double check the wireless connection, as well, and see if I have trouble connecting directly from modem-to-laptop. Then, I'll get back to post the results of the ipconfig and any findings.
 
#6 ·
When connected via the ethernet cord through the netgear router, it works and here are the ipconfig results:

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : compaq-vdhfeuva
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-08-02-D3-31-05
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.3
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, July 11, 2007 1:37:08 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, July 14, 2007 1:37:08 PM

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When connected directly to the modem, I cannot connect to the Internet and here are the results from the ipconfig:

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : compaq-vdhfeuva
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-08-02-D3-31-05
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.217.217
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The static IP settings used on the netgear router are:

IP address………63.99.92.100
IP submask….….255.255.255.224
Gateway…….….63.99.92.97
Primary DNS…..63.99.92.34
Second.DNS…...63.99.92.35
 
#8 ·
Sorry, I sent before I finished.

Is the answer that if he doesn't go through the router, then the wired LAN connection setting must be set up manually using the static IP like I did on the router?

Otherwise, he can just connect through the router, whether wired or wireless, right?

If so, I'll just try to investigate the slow-down if it happens again, because today it is working fine!
 
#11 ·
"The static IP settings used on the netgear router are:"

Those are the settings that must be used on any computer connected directly to the modem. Maybe you'll make a liar out of me when you properly power cycle the modem, but I'm guessing you'll still get a Windows assigned APIPA of the form 169.254.x.y, meaning no Dhcp server.

Suggest using some kind of speedtest to compare ethernet and wireless speeds; e.g., http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

One possibility for wireless working well sometimes and not so great at others is wireless interference. Thinking particularly of a neighbor's not-always-on network on the same channel. Of course, if wired connections are slow at the same time, the ISP or lines are suspect.
 
#12 ·
Yes, still had the same problem with no server found when power-cycled again. (And thanks JohnWill, I went back and disconnected the old device.) However, I didn't have time to get back to you guys. Had an appointment and had to leave again.

I've come back out and just went into the router manager software; reset the router and verified/added the IP settings on both the wired and wireless network settings. I can now connect wired and wirelessly just fine as long as I am going through the router!

So, I just gave him an extra ethernet cord and told him to continue going through the router (not to disconnect and try to go directly from modem to laptop). If he has more problems I will get back out here when I don't have so many irons in the fire! So, you may hear back from me, but hopefully it is fixed.

Thanks again for all of the help!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top