Router difficulties: suggestions

arkamw

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 5, 2004
Messages
1,391
I have a BEFW11S4 ver 4 Wireless-B router with both my desktop and laptop connected to it wirelessly. The router is connected to a cable modem and is flashed with the latest firmware update (Apr05).

The problem that I am having is that, behind the router, I can't get to two FTP sites and 1 website (1 FTP site and the website are the same) or the laptop or desktop. I can't ping via domain name or IP address. Can't get to the website using IE or FF, can't FTP via IE, FF, or SmartFTP. Each time I will get timeout errors. I can get to any other website or FTP without issue.

If I remove the router from the equation, I can get to the website or either FTP without issue.

History: the laptop HDD crashed so the drive was replaced and WinXP installed (previously 2k). This shouldn't have any bearing on it as my machine has been XP for the last 2.5 years and it can't get to the sites either. The router had to be hard-reset to factory defaults (via reset button for 5 sec) once, and soft-reset (by pulling power for 30 sec) a few times because of power flickering in the neighborhood. Conicedentally, the HDD and router reset happened at the same time but completely unrelated to each other.

Things I have tried: HOSTS file, double-checking settings, putting either laptop or desktop in DMZ via router, watching traffic across the router via Logview (which comes up alternatively as connected to the website and not appearing in the log at all). The IP remains the same whether the cable modem is connected to the router or directly to the laptop.

I'm lost. The only thing I can think of at the moment is to replace the router. The sites that I need to get to are work-related and it's a pain to have to do this everytime.

Suggestions anyone?
 
umm... if your pc is getting the same ip connected to the modem as it is on the 'router', you do not have a router at all. you sir, have yourself a switch. when you are behind this 'router', do an 'ipconfig' and see what your ip address is. if it is a private IP (192.168.x.x), then i am confused by your statements, and in fact you do have a router. However, if it is a public IP, then you do not have a router. if your ip is 169.x.x.x, then MS has assigned you an ip, which will NOT work.

need more info on your network topology to help out any more.
 
Sorry, should have clarified that more.

When the router is connected to the cable modem, the router is assigned IP say 69.15.34.15. This almost never changes. The IP for the laptop behind the modem is 192.168.1.100, desktop is 192.168.1.101. IP's inside the router use DHCP for IP assignment.

When I remove the router from the equation and connect the laptop directly to the cable modem, the IP is still 69.15.34.15, same as what the router gets assigned. I guess what I was trying to get at here is to preclude any type of IP range blocking on the FTP server end. However, since the IP remains the same, with or without router, and I can access the FTP site while I am not behind the router, the FTP server isn't blocking my IP range.

I'm looking for any suggestions, really, however wild they may be. The only thing that I haven't yet tried is to reset router to factory defaults using the built-in router software. I've never even heard of a router arbitrarily blocking a website before.

Thanks for any suggestion you might give.
 
It may be something with the DNS server... check to see what DNS server the router grabs and what DNS the laptop gets when connected directly. Not sure if you've tried this, but you can also try to get the ip adress of the server with your laptop connected directly, and then try to use the ip to connect through the router instead of the domain. That would rule out any dns issues.
 
did you clone your mac address to the router? if not, a lot of times the cable modem will not work correctly when a different mac is found behind it, until it is powered off and rebooted. have you tried power cycling the modem?

also check your router's config. you should be able to go to http://192.168.1.1 and configure the router. make sure there are is no firewall stuff turned on to rule out that issue. do you have the same issues going wireless vs wired? are there any other sites you have seen this problem with?

seems like an odd problem. just throwing stuff out there.
 
Good stuff to throw out there. I'll try to answer these in order.

Have not cloned the MAC address to the router. It's an idea, I'll give it a shot and see what happens. What's interesting to me, though, is that it worked a few weeks ago (3?) before I did a hard-reset on the router.

I have tried power cycling the router (about 4 times since the hard-reset, actually; it keeps losing the wireless connection to the two PC's). Each time, I still can't connect to these 3 sites.

Have double- and triple-checked the router settings just to make sure. Nothing in terms of port blocking, forwarding, etc. setup. Nothing anywhere, as a matter of fact, that I can find. What's strange is that I don't have this problem with any other websites or FTP sites... just these.

I haven't tried wired through the router, only wireless (the router is in my daughter's room, so it's tough to get in there for any length of time). But it's worth a shot.

Thanks to everyone that's given thoughts. It may just be the router giving out finally. Might be time to upgrade into G territory, which needs to happen anyway. This B stuff is too slow.
 
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