Help Setting Up Wired and Wireless Network

[KennyD]

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure this has been asked 1000 times but since I'm new here I'll ask again. (I did search the forums but didn't find what I needed)

I have an old Belkin wireless G router connected to a Comcast modem. Like everyone else I've run out of ports for all of the wired and wireless devices in the house. Constant IP address conflicts, rebooting router, and rebooting computers. What a pain in the butt! I have 3 wireless laptops, 1 wireless xbox 360, 1 wired computer, and another wired xbox 360. Not to mention 4 wifi cell phones, although I don't know if they matter. I'm also adding a new Vizio internet ready TV and a Panasonic BluRay Player that need ports too. I asked at BestBuy but just couldn't trust what the 16 y/o kid was trying to sell me, so here I am. At a minimum I believe I'll need 4 wired ports and 4 wireless ports, but I want to be ready for any additional devices that we may purchase. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thank you in advance,

Ken D

 

[stevech]

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure this has been asked 1000 times but since I'm new here I'll ask again. (I did search the forums but didn't find what I needed)

I have an old Belkin wireless G router connected to a Comcast modem. Like everyone else I've run out of ports for all of the wired and wireless devices in the house. Constant IP address conflicts, rebooting router, and rebooting computers. What a pain in the butt! I have 3 wireless laptops, 1 wireless xbox 360, 1 wired computer, and another wired xbox 360. Not to mention 4 wifi cell phones, although I don't know if they matter. I'm also adding a new Vizio internet ready TV and a Panasonic BluRay Player that need ports too. I asked at BestBuy but just couldn't trust what the 16 y/o kid was trying to sell me, so here I am. At a minimum I believe I'll need 4 wired ports and 4 wireless ports, but I want to be ready for any additional devices that we may purchase. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thank you in advance,

Ken D

Your expectation should be tht none of this happens. It doesn't here, and in many other techie homes.

To get more ports (LAN RJ45 enthernet connections) simply buy ethernet switches, $30, as needed. They are kind of like USB hubs. There's no limit on these, as they unto themselves have no IP addresses.
For example: run one cat5 cable to room x, and put a switch there. Now you have 4 or 8 or whatever ports and a single cat5 going back to the router.

IP address conflicts: This may be due to certain client devices of yours set to not use DHCP.

WiFi: Don't stream video like Netflix on WiFi. It will work, mostly, but it's wireless and subject to interference and thus unreliable. Devices/TVs that take video from the Internet--- connect via ethernet CAT5 to the WiFi router or to a switch which in turn connects to the router.

The old 11g Belkin router, if configured correctly, should be OK for PCs and smart phones with WiFi, so long as they don't stream video. Though a smart phone viewing youTube is not a heavy load as is true streaming video.

Let us help you work though this. Need to check the Belkin's config and the DHCP issue. There should not be any IP conflicts at all - this is cockpit trouble.

And in my opinion: Don't Spend Any Money at Best Buy. They're unethical and have a rotten returns policy.

 

[KennyD]

Home Network Help

Hi Stevech and thanks for the response. Let me expand a little bit on what I'm trying to achieve. I have a wireless router on the first floor with 1 computer, and 1 xbox wired to it. Then I have a laptop wirelessly connected to the router as well. Now for the other stuff. I have 2 other wireless laptops and another wireless connected xbox upstairs. That's a total of 6 devices trying to use a 4 port router. I also have a new vizio tv coming that requires an internet connection and that will be wired to the downstairs router. I also just got my son a new BluRay player the will be upstairs. That makes 3 wired connections and 1 wireless connection downstairs and 4 wireless connections upstairs. Total of 8 connections, 3 wired and 5 wireless. As you can probably tell, I'm no techie. As for the IP address conflicts, I can't figure it out. It seems that when my kids use their laptops that the conflicts start. We have Comcast Cable here and I believe they use a Dynamic IP address setup. Could that be the issue?

The router is a Belkin 54G.

Here are the LAN Settings:

IP Address > . . . 192.168.2.1
Subnet Mask > . . .255.255.255.0
DHCP server > . . . On
IP Pool Starting Address > . . . 192.168.2.2
IP Pool Ending Address > . . . 192.168.2.100
Lease Time > Forever



This is what the DHCP list looks like:

IP Address Host Name MAC Address
192.168.2.2 Inspiron-530 00:1d:09:9d:9c:6d
192.168.2.3 Inspiron-E1705 00:13:e8:0a:13:f3
192.168.2.4 (null) 00:01:36:51:54:ea
192.168.2.5 Daves-iPod 00:26:bb:d5:fd:15
192.168.2.6 (null) 00:12:5a:6d:fb:18

Crap... I didn't know my sons IPod was connected to it!

Thank you,

Kenny

 

[stevech]

On DHCP- just make sure that none of the wired or wireless devices have DHCP disabled when using the home network. It can be hard to find this in the settings but they are there somewhere.

Make sure your WiFi router has no "DHCP Reservations" also called "static DHCP" or some such. With this, the router will use a 192.168.2.xxx fixed for a certain incoming MAC address for a device. There would be none in your router unless someone with the password to your router's admin put it there. (Be sure that only you know that password so control can be had!)

Can you get a cat5 cable from the router's location to upstairs area? It may be a hassle, but it's worth it.

Re comcast dynamic IP - yes, but that's your Public Internet address. The local area network (LAN) addresses are 192.168.2.xxx as you see, and those too are dynamic (DHCP), but unrelated to the Comcast-assigned public IP address. Your router's main page should show your current public IP address - which you don't care about unless you run a server at home. Forbid your kids from running file sharing programs on their PCs - where friends put and get files from their PCs. And vice-versa. This is the classic PC virus spreading method. Esp. peer to peer shared music/video.

And I wanted to confirm: you have ONE home router, right? Not two in cascade or some such.

 

[KennyD]

Morning Stevech,

You are correct. I have one router. I've been looking through the computers here and find nothing regarding DHCP. I've looked in the device settings for the wireless adapters and there's no mention of it. I'm running Vista on all 4 machines and really don't know where to look.

Kenny

 

[stevech]

I have XP and Win 7 and these are slightly different than Vista (by the way, Microsoft I think has a free upgrade from Vista to Windows 7; it's advised).

If no one has fiddled, it's likely that the computers are all set for DHCP enabled which is what you want (rather than disabled). The choice is found on the configuration setup for the wired or wireless network interface controller (NIC), in the TCP/IP Protocol choices.

Here's a quick shortcut to checking.
Open a command window, usually Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt. This should give you ye ole DOS black window. From there type:
ipconfig /all
And in the scrolling window, you should see for the wired and/or wireless NICs some configuration items. One is "DHCP Enabled"; look for "Yes". If not, we need to change it.
Look also at "IPv4 Address" and you should see 192.168.x.y where x is probably either 0, 1 or 2 depending on your router manufacturer and y is some number other than 0, 1 or 255. It's probably 100-200. Every one of your computers should have DHCP Yes and the same "y" value and a unique "x" value. No two computers should have the same x value. The router's DHCP server assigns the IPv4 Address on request of the user PC or smart phone or Xbox, etc.

The XBox isn't a PC. I don't know how you get it to display its IPv4 address (I don't own one), but there probably is a way. Or you can look on the Router's DHCP active lease list for your XBox and confirm that its IPv4 address is properly coordinated - not duplicating an x value. If the XBox was setup with DHCP disabled (using a static IP instead of DHCP), it could cause a conflict. The same applies to any PC. There are easy ways to correct this.

Check too that each PC/device has a subnet mask assigned by the router as 255.255.255.0 - meaning the router is properly configured.

On windows PCs you can see/alter the DHCP setting for a wired or wireless NIC. One way, in windows 7 (vista will be similar), is:
Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center
on left of display, click Change adapter settings
left-button double-click on the NIC (Local Area Connection icon)
click Properties button
click to select Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4)
click Properties
Check option button for Obtain Address Automatically.
If no change, cancel out of all these windows.
If change, click apply/accept/OK to effect the change.

Now do the Command Prompt, above, with ipconfig /all

A'int it fun?

 

[merc]

Change the DHCP lease time to something like a day to see if that helps.

The number of physical ports on your router should be no issue unless you have devices plugged into them and have more things to plug in (in which case buying a switch should solve that problem). The number of wireless devices shouldn't be a problem unless you're getting into the teens and beyond.

When the IP conflict occurs, does it happen when the laptop wakes from sleep? Or perhaps when another device gets turned on? Any sort of pattern you can discern? When it happens, do the kids tell you right away or do they just tell you in passing that it was acting up the other day?

 

[SurferLu]

And in my opinion: Don't Spend Any Money at Best Buy. They're unethical and have a rotten returns policy.

I can't agree.
I was staying at a condo in Miami Beach and the internet situation was a disaster and I was trying to fix it.
I went through 4 routers before finding a setup that actually worked.
I went to Best Buy and bought all four routers over two days and each time I was able to return the item and get a full refund without any questions asked.
I don't know about any ethics issues, but I can attest that their returns policy is simple and considerate.