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Does anyone want to educate me on IP address woes?

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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 5:51 pm    Post subject: Does anyone want to educate me on IP address woes? Reply with quote

I'm now in a state of dormant rest awaiting the next attack on the system i have tried for ten days to make work in my home.
So far (if you want a challenge I'm game) nobody in forums associated with the Three products I use to try to wirelessly connect has been able to suggest how to make it work. They all say it should work and if it doesn't you need a home visit from someone who can make it work. I don't know about that. I'd be delighted but not if it costs me a mortgage on my house to pay for it!

SUB HEADING "WHAT I'm TRYING TO DO AND WHAT I'VE BEEN ADVISED".
I need to connect a windows 98 SE laptop wirelessly to my current XP home SP2 system hard wired through a router to my broadband connection. I've already hardwired the laptop using just a straight ethernet cable (30 feet long) it works fine but as soon as I took advice on how to set it up wirelessly the rot set in!

TOLD I DIDN'T NEED A WIRELESS ROUTER
Fair enough so what I need the said was a USB Wireless adapter to suit USB 1 on the laptop and a single Wireless Access Point hard wired to the Router and then I should find the laptop will browse the internet and connect to mail servers on my broadband connection perfectly. Except the reality was a bit different.

WHAT I DID
I bought a WAP unit and a USB Wireless adapter installed it all and the USB device said found network called "any" (I'd renamed it that because the default IP of the WAP was outside the range of the DHCP of my router (currently enabled) and the WAP wouldn't let me change the IP's unless I renamed the SSID so I called it "any" and the USB said 70% signal strength and 70% link quality but NO INTERNET CONNECTION. Excuse the capitals Im not shouting I haven't any voice left this week !

NOW WE GET INTO IP details.
My router is three years old and it has an IP of 192.168.1.1 and a Start IP in DHCP of 192.168.1.10 and a pool count of 50.
I set the WAP unit to have an IP of 192.168.1.2 and default gateway of 192.168.1.1
There is no switch or setting within the WAP unit to turn off DHCP but I could turn it off on the router if I dared. But as I don't understand what the effect will be I haven't done that as I suspect the WAP is too crude cheap and inflexible to set.

IP CONFLICTS
I got masses of IP conflicts when trying all the settings I've been advised by about ten different people some of whom are experts and who unknowingly contradict each other on whether it should be out of the IP range of router or inside it or the same as it or just different from it.

MAKERS wash their hands of it.
All of them have given up. I don't know if I can mention makers names but at the risk of censorship here I'll tell you it's a Belkin USB adapter it's a Linksys WAP 11 access point; it's a DrayTek wired router.
Nobody can work out why there are still IP conflicts given the settings I've made and also now that I have no IP conflict but still no internet connection through the WAP to the router from the Laptop USB I have looked at the USB Belkin Adapter IP config and find it's being given the folowing values ENABLED DHCP current IP 0.0.0.0 Subnet mask 0.0.0.0 DNS server 194.106.56.6, 194,106,33,42
No profile set.
If I configure manually the laptop belkin usb adapter to Gateway 192.168.1.1 same as the router it won't accept it and has an IP conflict.
If I configure the WAP unit to IP 192.168.1.2 or 1.12 or 1.200 or 1.251 none of them work. In fact the WAP won't even let me change the IP to find one automatically - the configuration page gets stuck and I have to hard reset the WAP and let it go back to a 1.251 IP and the SSID of "linksys"
Of course it doesn't help if after many people have tried to explain to me what the IP is doing and who is giving IP's to which bit of the system and what rules they can't break - I just never seem to understand the first thing about it. To me it's just a Rubik cube that should find its own way of setting the colours the same on all six sides.

All the MAC numbers are different as they should be.
The last time I got an IP conflict it said No good against hardware of IP number 192.168.1.1 and Address MAC of 00-04-76-EB etc etc the usual 12 digit MAC that referred to the MAC of the 3Com Ethernet card in the main Windows XP machine that is connected to the router.

CONCLUSION - Sorry this is so long but I think it is important to describe just what went wrong and why it can't be solved so far. I think I was wrongly advised and that a Belkin USB Wireless adapter needs to talk to the Internet through only a Belkin or closely matched wireless router and not through a cheap and cheerful Linksys WAP with no DHCP adjustment and no way of adjusting anything about NAT (another area I know nothing about) and no way of adjusting DNS etc etc.

In desperation I reverted to plugging the laptop back in by a long wire and it worked instantly down the same connection that the WAP was previously in P2 on the Router. And the laptop has been taken back to work where it is used on a LAN in an office until it is brought home next week end.

SO there is the story. I have tried a different network cable and tried even to get help from my ISP who have done their utmost but had to give up. What would you do next? I'm open to do anything but remember I'm a painting by numbers guy, I copy what people tell me to do and try to simulate their skill but I can't invent any understanding on my own. My skills lie in a different direction - I was a piano technician dealing with something a very long way from IP addresses but very closely concerned with specific mathematics.

Ganok
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AdamV
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 6:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

right, some basics for you first:
DHCP will give out addresses to devices it is connected to, but only when they ask for them (typically when they start up, or after a preset interval, often days).

You can assign static IP addresses to everything, but this means you have to make sure you don't create conflicts. It also makes it a pain to use kit elsewhere (eg laptop back at office). Ideally, use DHCP of your router.

If your USB wireless card thingy and the AP you have both say "WiFi certified" they will work together as far as wireless communications are concerned, that's what that certification is all about - interoperability.

What I think may have happened:
Your AP had an IP address conflicting with either the router or the laptop. You can't have two addresses the same, so things stopped working. You changed it's IP (good), but did not get the other devices to get a new address so they still did not work.

Steps to take:
Change the IP of the AP to something which will never be given out by the DHCP of your router (you say it has start address .2 and pool of 50, so 254 would be far enough away, I would think). You should only need this address to actually connect to your AP itself, for example to configure it.

Now, your laptop may need to get a new IP address (it seems to have become confused and does not have one).
Turn it off, disconnect ethernet cable (so it uses the wireless connection) and turn it on
Find out what Ip information it now has (at a command prompt, do ipconfig /all)
Try internet connection.

let us know if this gets you anywhere, or if you get any error messages etc.
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 7:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So far I've had more clarity from you on what is happening than anyone in just your one reply. So I'm going to take a few things piecemeal if you'll bear with me on this?

I think I may have misled you on one or two values.
The Start IP of the Router isn't 1.2 it's 1.10 and the WAP default IP is 1.251 specified when you hard reset it (SSID of linksys) Linksys themselves advised I reset the WAP to 1.200 and call the ID any.

I did try a refresh and renew IP on the Main PC router and on the laptop and I was in such a state of confusion I don't know how it sorted out anything after that. I do know it didn't have connection when i first set it up with the default 1.251 and the Laptop was set to find it's own IP and of course the USB wireless thing said 70% connection link quality and signal strength but No Internet Connection.

I think the issue of the Laptop being used on a LAN at work is a very interesting point. We wondered whether it being set to find IP automatically when at work and when hard wire plugging it in by Ethernet cable was causing the trouble. It used to have to be set to a specific manual IP at work and Automatic finding at home but now the work LAN has altered and it has to find it automatically hard wired at work and at home.

Now, when you say
>Turn it off, disconnect ethernet cable (so it uses the wireless >connection) and turn it on
>Find out what Ip information it now has (at a command prompt, do >ipconfig /all)
>Try internet connection.
Do you mean without the USB wireless adapter running as well ?

I could do the test by phone this evening as I have access to the laptop where it resides during the week. I could just do a reboot and find the figures out then post them back here later tonight.

Suffice it to say I did at one point last Friday get the USB device to show that there was a connection to the internet right through beyond the WAP to the router but the moment I tried to fetch a web page with the Internet Browser it refused and also it couldn't fetch any email from the server. So I was doubly mystified having a kind of Ghost connection to the server.

Some considerable confusion came when going into Network Neighbourhood on the Laptop and trying to see properties of various adapters and there were SisNIC adapter settings and USB Belkin Adapter settings and Ethernet Card TCP IP settings and etc etc etc so many settings and you probably wont be surprised when I tell you I had A4 sheets of paper on my desk smothered with IP values that I'd been desperately scribbling down to tell people what it's doing.

I got in too big a mess to know where I was. So I then put this all in the hands of the help desks at Linksys Belkin and my ISP but it still got me nowhere and that was when depression set in!! :-((
I can appreciate that by remote control from a distance it's very hard to discover what's going on. But people sympathize with me because there is no way this should have been necessary. You know what I'm saying here? Plug and Play might as well be Pistachios and Penguins for all the success it has had. Yet I'm afraid to buy a wireless router instead because if the problem is at the laptop end, I won't acheive anything least of all success ! I'm relying on you now to interpret the figures I give you later tonight.

It's very interesting to see from you that I can leave the WAP set to 192.168.1.251 and the Default Gateway to blank ie 0.0.0.0 I think the subnet mask was the usual 255.255.255.0 Again there's no setting for DHCP on the WAP allowed and the only other adjustment window is for MAC filtering - I haven't set any encryption at all yet as I thought it best get the thing talking first and worry about that later.

Unless from the above you have some fresh instructions or modifications I will do the reboot on the laptop in about 3 hours from now and report back. Thank you very much for your interest in trying to solve this. I think it bodes very well.
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AdamV
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 7:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

some further clarification:

the subnet mask on every device should be 255.255.255.0 for your purposes.
the gateway should be the router's IP ie 192.168.1.1
Your laptop should get these two values automatically as "extra information" when it is given an IP address by the router.

the AP can be at 254 or at 251, as long as it is outside (ideally higher than) the 1.10 + pool of 50 = 1.60. This is just to avoid a conflict with any other devices, don't forget this is only used to connect to the AP, not through it.

for now, to keep things simple, use whatever SSID you like other than the original default (to be sure it is yours), and don't ask it to be hidden by the AP (just to make life easier for now - later you should get it to not broadcast this as a small security measure).

yes, I meant using the belkin wireless connected and on when you reboot the laptop

Can you still connect to the AP at all (eg to the config page at it's IP address you gave it)? (if not via wireless, you may have to do this by connecting laptop or PC to the router - some AP's are setup to disallow config via a wireless connection deliberately, although most SOHO market ones are not, I have found, so you should be OK). If so, is there an option in there to test connection to the outside world eg ping an address? this might determine whether the problem lies between the laptop and AP or the AP and router.

good luck - let us know how you are getting on later
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 7:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry you've just lost me again.
Let me take this in closer detail.

>and don't ask it to be hidden by the AP (just to make life easier for >now - later you should get it to not broadcast this as a small security >measure).
It has no setting to hide the ID as far as I am aware anyway.
I got the USB Belkin device to recognise and find the WAP whether it was called linksys or any so it never had trouble seeing the WAP. There is a little graphic thing on the Belkin software that showed numbers 0s and 1's flowing to the WAP and then beyond the WAP to the router was a big flashing red X showing no connection to the Internet. Even when once it showed connection to the internet the browser wouldn't send a URL request through to fetch a page nor would it talk to the server. Yet it talks through to the router and server when hard wired.

Another problem here...
>yes, I meant using the belkin wireless connected and on when you >reboot the laptop
The USB dongle thingie is here at home, and the Laptop is 200 miles away with the Belkin software installed but not active. So I don't think I can fetch the numbers you're looking for under that configuration until Friday when it comes home.

Going back to the bit I'm confused about.
>Can you still connect to the AP at all (eg to the config page at it's IP address you gave it)?
Yes I can still plug in the WAP to P2 on the router and I can go into the setup page which currently is http://192.168.1.251 and I log in using a password set by Linksys to access the setup directly from my PC to which the WAP is connected. Though I've removed it in the last day for security reasons, I can just as easily plug it back in and I get that address shown above and mentioned in last posting.

(if not via wireless,
I've never been able to connect to the WAP setup page wirelessly but then I've never had to try. I've always been into the setup page directly from the main PC and that stalls if I do something the WAP doesn't like such as try to change it to find the IP automatically or set it to a silly range like I was told to by my ISP who said "try 192.168.2.1" this stopped access to the page completely and I had to Hard Reset the WAP and then I could get back in on 1.251 as before.

> you may have to do this by connecting laptop or PC to the router - >some AP's are setup to disallow config via a wireless connection
Now here's where I don't know what you mean. The PC is connected to the router. The laptop is connected to the router when we normally connect it with a 30 feet long cable to upstairs. The Ethernet cable plugs into P2 on the router and that's the cable I remove when I plug in the WAP unit instead to try to do what we've been defeated by all along.
The only thing I see this as trying to do is replace the hard cable with a wireless link. A kind of Cordless extension cable to quote Stephen Wright!
But I never would have believed the arithmetic involved would be so messy to sort yet so simple in concept.

Sorry I'm almost reverting to ranting again now. I'll shut up and see if you think getting the IP address without the USB Wireless network plugged in will be of any use tonight. Don't want to do un necessary work.

There's no option in the WAP setup to ping anything.
I have done pings on the laptop to see if it talks to anything and every ping I tried timed out. This was where Linksys and Belkin both gave up and told me it was an issue to take up with DrayTek my router people and at that point I lost the will to live !
I have disabled Ping from the internet for security on my Router just to back up the hardware firewall. The firewall is just Firewall filtering and can be turned off. Windows XP Firewall is ON but turning off all firewalls and the incoming Ping answering didn't cure the problem anyway so I set them all back to their original settings of Ping not allowed from internet (achieves full stealth) and Firewalls all in the ON mode.

If it's any help I have sometimes been unable to send files or receive them Peer to Peer using ICQ as a result of not being able to configure the firewall or the way Ports talk to each other. Again another area where I'm all at sea. So I'll get a winipcfg tonight unless you say don't and you need the dongle plugged in and seeing the network called "any" or "linksys" which will have to be next friday sadly. I'm almost enjoying this session !
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AdamV
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

sounds OK. I think you have understood more than you think!
my understanding so far:
The PC is connected to the router.
The AP is connected to the router
You can configure the AP from the PC when setup like this.
The PC can connect to the internet like this.

I assume the router has a third connection ie to internet eg DSL

The laptop works when hardwired to the port the AP is in?

If all the above is true then the AP should be acting exactly as you describe - to replace the cable - and nothing more nor less.

I am a bit stumped for more ideas without knowing if you can get the laptop to work now. Post back on Friday.
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 10:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you very much for that. You're absolutely spot-on there with that assessment of what is going on. Kind of you to think I've grasped it. Well I'm a good actor at least !
As we know it's pointless to fetch the IP config info just now without the dongle plugged in and reading the Network. So I'll do this on Friday and I'll do it properly too.

I do have information that the AP gave to the Laptop when it was last talking to the AP. I get a box in the Belkin application showing that it had found and recognised the AP as "any" and a box full of configuration as follows:-
DHCP Enabled
IP address 192.168.1.11
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway 192.168.1.1
DNS Server (can't remember what that said)

Also I can't remember what the circumstances were when it showed Current IP in that same window as 0.0.0.0 and the No profile set but DNS double set of values mentioned earlier in my posting.

So I think we will need to clarify this when I set it up on Friday.
Before I go - I must just confirm to you that your list of assumptions is absolutely right.

The PC is connected to the router. YES cable in P1 from 3com ethernet card

The AP is connected to the router - Yes in P2 socket taking the place of the long cable that formerly hard wired the laptop to the Internet down through the router.

You can configure the AP from the PC when setup like this. YES I can pull up the http://192.168.1.251 linksys setup page and the little amber link light on the AP is showing permanently on with the red power light. But the green Link light only sometimes blinks like it's still alive but unconscious!

The PC can connect to the internet like this. Yes and I have full broadband connection without interruption. ADSL Alcatel speed touch modem connected to the DrayTek Vigor 2200 USB router.

I assume the router has a third connection ie to internet eg DSL
Um...... I don't quite follow you there. Think you mean the modem. Yes the router is always on, and remains on when I turn off the PC at night. Alcatel modem still has both lights glowing and the router still shows connection and so forth. So I have a good connection with a single telephone ADSL Filter so I can run my voice line phones through the twisted pair type connection to the BT line. It's also tweaked up in power to clean the phone line connection and give me the best connection I can get for the money.

The laptop works when hardwired to the port the AP is in? Yes indeed. Laptop connects and uses the Internet in Tandem with me so that my wife and I can both browse doing independent work down the same home Broadband connection.

OK all I can say now is....
Please come back here Friday and try not to go on holiday or I'll jump off my wireless bridge and end it all !

Ganok. No longer dreaming IP addresses and not having to count MAC numbers to get to sleep - but give me four days I'll be back!
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 10:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes Please let us know how it all worked out. This is a relatively easy configuration but it can get a bit hairy because its not common.

Cheers Very Happy
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 10:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I will indeed. Just a quick post script
I think I know what will happen - It will return to the heart-stopping configuration it made when I first unpacked the Belkin and the Linksys units and tried them.

I've never tried connecting it to thewireless setup when the hard wired cable was plugged in. I thought that was a silly thing to do since I'd never know if the wireless was doing the connecting or the wired connection was. Would only confuse the whole setup.
So I always unplugged the network cable and plugged the AP into the socket it occupied on the router instead.

The Linksys was set to default at first (SSID linksys) and the figures I gave earlier of 1.251 on the IP and 255 255 etc on the mask and 0000 on the Default gateway were the settings we first tried.
The software of the Belkin showed it had found the network instantly but that there was no connection to the internet. I tried rebooting the laptop at this point but still no connection.

Obviously I haven't got the exact IP figures from the laptop and this is what I will furnish you with on Friday.
What worries me is that everyone has said so far "There's nothing we can see that can be stopping the system connecting to the internet now so we're sorry we're out of ideas".

However someone did say they found a Google reference to DrayTek routers not letting a wireless connection talk to the internet but it was a very vague reference concerning Hardware firewalls and NAT addresses that I didn't understand. DrayTek themselves are flummoxed by this so if you can solve the problem here on this one you're a genius with a rather special gift. I would consider buying a Wireless Router instead and taking the place of my Draytek but I don't want to waste the sum I spent on the AP just yet. Got to explore every known route first.

More on Friday. And thanks again for being brave enough to take this one on!
Ganok.
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2005 11:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sorry I've got one more question on this. Earlier you said
>the subnet mask on every device should be 255.255.255.0 for your >purposes.
>the gateway should be the router's IP ie 192.168.1.1

Should I manually make the Default Gateway of the AP 192.168.1.1 ?
Or should I leave it 0.0.0.0 considering the AP won't allow me to ask it to find the IP automatically?

I only ask because the AP refuses to let me reset or edit any values at all unless I first change it's SSID from "linksys" to "anything I choose" as an alternative name. This is where I think you said to use any name as long as it's one I can identify when the USB recognises it?

This means that when I test it on Friday I think I will have to reset the AP to the name "any" without the commas. Leave the IP alone as 1.251 in the last two octets and change the Default Gateway to 192.168.1.1 the IP of the Router which I think is the IP of the Ethernet card in the main PC.
Subnet to be 255.255.255.0

There was a confusion in my mind about setting the Default Gateway to the same in all devices because someone frightened me off by saying that no two IP's can be the same or you get an IP conflict but they were not being specific enough. My goodness this is tricky if you let it get that bad isn't it?

Sorry to yak on about this, but I really do want to get this correctly done before I give up on it for ever.
Thanks
Ganok
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2005 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ganok wrote:

Should I manually make the Default Gateway of the AP 192.168.1.1 ?
Or should I leave it 0.0.0.0 considering the AP won't allow me to ask it to find the IP automatically?

This means that when I test it on Friday I think I will have to reset the AP to the name "any" without the commas. Leave the IP alone as 1.251 in the last two octets and change the Default Gateway to 192.168.1.1 the IP of the Router which I think is the IP of the Ethernet card in the main PC.
Subnet to be 255.255.255.0

There was a confusion in my mind about setting the Default Gateway to the same in all devices because someone frightened me off by saying that no two IP's can be the same or you get an IP conflict but they were not being specific enough.

in order:
yes set it, no don't leave it at 0000

that's correct except the IP of the router and the IP of the PC network card also can't be the same. I suspect this is correct for the router and you just forgot what the PC has (probably between 10 and 60)

the default gateway is extra info telling devices where the router is, and is not the same as the IP address. In simple networks, it will be the same on all devices, as will the subnet mask.

The way it works is this:
I want to connect from my address A to another machine at B. I work out whether we are on the same network (using the two addresses and the subnet mask to do this). If it is, I send the data over the wire to B. If it is not, I send it instead to the gateway C. It is then the gateway's job to work out where B really is and how to get the traffic there (for example it may be a web server somewhere in the world, so your gateway sends it to your ISP who send it on and so forth, then B responds (eg sends you a web page) back to your gateway C, which passes it back to A (I have simplified the last bit).

Analogy:
I work at Acme Corp and send an envelope marked "Bob, Accounts". The mail room can guess from this that since there is no city, this is for someone in the same building (network) so it just passes it along in the internal mail system.

If I put "Bob, Accounts, New York" they can still figure that this is not a street address, but we are not on the same network. They then make a routing decision to send it to Acme NY office so they put it in the outgoing mail pile. This is then sorted into stuff for other Acme offices and other stuff for external. The mailroom in NY identify that this is for someone there and pass it along internally. Bob replies to me as Eliza, Acme, London and so on. (so this is like routing across a WAN within a company)

If I put a full street address in Kuala Lumpur, this must be in the outside world. My mailroom does not know the flight schedules to KL nor the roads there, so they don't try to deliver it themselves. Having put it in the out pile, it gets sorted as external and passed to the next link in the chain for outside stuff - the postman. He takes it to a sorting office, who send it to the airport. It arrives in KL and gets sorted to a district etc until it gets in the hands of a postman on the beat who actually knows where that building is. Internet routers work similarly in that they may not know exactly where the target address it, but they can send traffic in the right direction to a router nearer to the target until eventually it gets delivered.

In the analogy above, my mail room is acting as my network connection, and either routing things internally or sending them to the external gateway (the outpile).
The people sorting the out pile act as a router to decide whether to send things to a known internal address or to the outside world.

So to repeat: the default gateway is extra info, not the same as the IP address. Just like no two houses in a street can have the same door number (IP), but they all share the same postbox at the end of the street to send outgoing stuff (their gateway).
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2005 1:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No sorry I can't follow that or the analogy - way beyond me. Much too complicated for me to know where I am in the procedings.

Going to have to back track here and keep it simple. The method of routing from one to the other doesn't help me understand it because I can't do algebra. Algebra takes several items gives them new names and letters and then tells you this is what they represent, then someone comes and jumbles them all up and I haven't a clue what is doing what.

Let me take your first explanation.
QUOTE
that's correct except the IP of the router and the IP of the PC network card also can't be the same. I suspect this is correct for the router and you just forgot what the PC has (probably between 10 and 60)
UNQUOTE
The IP of the router ? Which IP is that? The router has a LAN IP and a DHCP Ip and a Default Gateway IP - If I do an IPCONFIG ALL on the XP machine I get 3Com Network card IP 192.168.1.10 Default Gateway 192.168.1.1 DHCP Server 192.168.1.1 Mask is 255 etc.

OK now If I open up the Router log site I see LAN IP
192.168.1.1 ( I assume it's just telling me the value of the 3Com card if that's what LAN means Local Area Network but I don't know)
DHCP Server IP 192.168.1.1 (we have a duplicate there for starters)
DNS Server are differently quoted in IPCONFIG - I won't say what they are as I don't know if that's secure info I shouldn't give out. But again I don't know what a DNS is. Dynamic Node Sweetener probably!

So the IP of the Router and the PC can't be the same. Yet there are same IP's quoted in both those configurations. So is this where we have the problem do you think?

I'm fine over making sure the Default Gateway is the same everywhere and I will make sure all devices say 192.168.1.1 though I haven't seen whether the AP gives a new Default Gateway value to the Belkin USB adapter when it talks to it. The Belkin comes up with no profile set. I have no idea if I'm supposed to set a profile. The Belkin booklet isn't clear on that. Very poor instructions for a layman like me.

Router IP
When I do a check on my security with Shields UP to test my Vulnerability on the Router, it shows my IP given me I presume by the ISP is a different one again and starts 83.67. and then two more values I won't go into as that too is private I think.

What I am understanding at the moment is this. On Friday I'll set up the AP to have the usual .251 on the IP and 1.1 on the gateway and 255 on the mask and name it eliza just so I know what I'm doing.
Then I'll close the AP setup window updated with the new settings.
I'll get the Laptop beside me in the room not connected by wire to the router. I'll plug in the USB wireless adapter and then boot it up. I'll see what it says talking to eliza and showing No Internet connection. Then I'll close the laptop down and reboot it. Then do winipcfg and note all the values. I won't do a refresh or renew IP at this stage until I get instructions from you.
I'll note any error messages or IP conflicts and their MAC numbers and come back to you.

Sorry that your analogy didn't work but I just got more confused than without them. Thank you for trying it was very good of you to devote time to explain it - I just don't get stories like that. I'm the same with movies and plays. If there are more than three characters I get lost. It's just my brain or my age not sure which.

My wife could understand it - she's from Morley near Leeds. Bright lot from Yorkshire!
Cheers
Ganok
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AdamV
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2005 3:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

well 'ecky thump to that!

you've confused yourself a bit in how you describe this but it actually sounds right to me. I've tried to break this down into small bits, but basically read it slowly and you will see most of what you have so far is fine.

Your router IP is 192.168.1.1. Good. It sits on your LAN but also has other connections (ie the internet) so it has to tell you which of these connections it is talking about, so it describes this as the "LAN IP". It does not have anything to do

On your PC, the IP address of the 3com card is .1.10 (which is fine) and the gateway address should be the address of the router, ie 1.1. and it seems that it is, so that's good.

DHCP is a service which you happen to have running on your router (it could be on a server or whatever instead, but the router is fine, mines on my DSL router too at the moment). So the IP address of the DHCP server is the same as the router because it's the same piece of kit (so what I said still holds - two different devices can't have the same IP, but this is actually the same device)

The AP does not give any IP information to the belkin from itself - it is passing on the request and the reply between the belkin and your DHCP server (in your router). Don't forget, the AP is just a wireless replacement for a cable in this sense.

DNS stands for Domain Name Server (or services). The IP addresses you have for these will be for servers on the internet which can provide IP addresses for names such as website URLs (like phoning directory enquiries). It's good to have more than one in case one is down, as you have. It is likely that the addresses you are using are for servers operated by your ISP, and these addresses probably get given to your router automatically when you connect to the wire and switch on, or you may have put them in by hand when you first set the router up.

The IP you can see on your router (83.67.x.x) will indeed be the one your ISP gives you. This is associated with the DSL side of the router. It's good that you did not include it all. The gateway and subnet mask on this side will determine how it passes traffic to your ISP. It may have the same DNS servers listed as you have on your PC's too.

your proposed test method sounds fine - hang in there!!

Eliza (TM)
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2005 4:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

>
The AP does not give any IP information to the belkin from itself - it is passing on the request and the reply between the belkin and your DHCP server (in your router). Don't forget, the AP is just a wireless replacement for a cable in this sense.
>
Ah this has caused some confusion before I came here as I was told the AP did assign IP addresses to the thing trying to connect to it (Belkin)

And of course it isn't passing the request on as far as the Router DHCP server because it shows as not getting past seeing the name of the network on the AP and telling me how strong the signal is and how good the link is. The ultimate in disappointment!

Yes I know it's just a wireless replacement for a cable but to my brain that should mean it's a very simple device to set up. I bet that for other people it is simple - Yet as you can see, it is (for me), far from simple. It's an absolute mathematical nightmare.
Why? What has my system done to deserve this I wonder? Was my computer very naughty in its youth?

>The IP you can see on your router (83.67.x.x) will indeed be the one your ISP gives you. This is associated with the DSL side of the router. It's good that you did not include it all. The gateway and subnet mask on this side will determine how it passes traffic to your ISP. It may have the same DNS servers listed as you have on your PC's too.
>
Well I'm glad I'm understanding what bits are a bit dodgy to give out publicly. There are probably settings on my wife's laptop PC assigned to her at the office network that I mustn't reveal here as well so I think I have grasped that bit I'm very careful not to talk about any other IP's apart from default gateways and Masks and adaptors and so forth.

I'm greatly encouraged by your directives here and I think it bodes quite well for Friday but don't hold your breath.
I am jinxed with setups and have been since connecting to the Internet in DOS back in 1995 when I used Demon.co.uk's KA9Q software on a PC without windows! I bet there aren't many around here who did that? But I bet there are many who had they done so would have learned a lot more about the nuts and bolts than I have in 10 years of internet going through Windows 95 to XP -
I must have had the world record in IRQ interrupts conflicts on computers having only 4mb of RAM ! So you have to sympathize with me and I am sure you are already. But you'll need as much patience as you've shown so far to see this through. I'll need double what I've expended already in the last 11 days on it !

Yep I'll hang in and thanks for your explanations. They may help me to know what to leave alone on Friday when I'm frantically trying to explore all possibilities before I send off failure figures to you !!! I''m hopeful put it that way.
Cheers for now.
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2005 9:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

lots of people use all-in-one devices as a DSL router, wired switch and wireless AP with DHCP running on it.
This is why they might misadvise you that the AP gives out the IP information, because for them it is (sort of) true as it is the same device, but a different function of that device.
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PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2005 10:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's interesting and explains why so many helpers kept saying I must turn off the DHCP on the AP and I kept saying "It hasn't got any DHCP setting" but that left them scratching their heads. This would seem to be the reason.

I'm a little puzzled as to why this setup isn't really always done by substituting the wired router for a wireless one with a transmitter on the Ethernet card - especially as Belkin show on the box of their USB adapter that it can only be connected through a wireless router. They make no mention at all of using an Access Point.

I think it was the sales dept at broadbandstuff who advised me that I didn't need a wireless router and that since I have a wired router working perfectly with two computers (hard-wired) I only needed the adapter for the laptop and the AP unit. So I thought I'd got away with a very cheap wireless setup.

Of course I didn't know that just around the corner was a potential hell-on-earth with settings woes! Youch !
It shouldn't have surprised me as I remember that a year ago I had a similar nightmare trying to make my mobile phone talk to the email server using GPRS - and the phone network company gave me a double sheet of A4 paper with just the settings needed on the phone itself!
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