Networking Problems With Multiple Routers

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mdk30

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 29, 2004
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My brother recently moved away to go to dental school, and on my last visit to help him move in to his new apartment, I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to get him setup with a wireless Internet connection.

Right now he has three devices that he'd like to all have networked and hooked up to the internet:

A desktop computer: wired
A laptop computer: wireless (preferrably)
And an XBox 360: wired

Now on my first visit I set him up with an older wired router I wasn't using. That worked fine with his Adelphia cable modem (dynamic IP) and he is able to get on XBox Live and surf the Internet at full speed (about 3Mbps) from his desktop or laptop.

On my last visit however, I brought my newer D-Link wireless router and expected that to work for him since I had it working both wired and wirelessly at my place, although the last time I tried using it wirelessly was over a year ago. So I disconnected the old router that I'd installed previously, and replaced it with the new one, only to have it not allow me to get on the Internet AT ALL, and I'm not even talking about wirelessly, it wouldn't even get me on the Internet from the wired desktop. I tried pretty much everything, from resetting the router and modem, to flashing the firmware (after swapping it out with the older router to get on the internet and download the latest version), and spending HOURS on the phone with D-Link "tech support" trying things I'd already tried, with no resolution other than that they finally told me that the router was "faulty " and gave me an RMA number. The funny thing is that I took the thing home and it's working FINE for me again right now.

So after giving up on the D-Link, I went out to Best Buy and bought a Linksys WRT54G wireless G router and figured that would do the trick. Unfortunately I was wrong again, as the Linksys would allow me to get on the Internet, and sporadically provided a wireless connection to the laptop, but it SEVERELY limited the speed of the Internet. By severe, I mean less than 100kbps and usually so slow that pages wouldn't load at all. Again this is on a 3Mbps cable modem connection, and I was using a wired connection to the desktop just to get things up and running. Again I tried everything I could think of, flashed the firmware to the latest version, and spent even more time on the phone with Linksys "tech support" this time. The lady I talked to was incompetent as hell, and couldn't understand why getting Internet speeds 30 times slower than what I should've been getting was unacceptable. Her answer was that "you shouldn't expect to get full speed since you're sharing your Internet to multiple devices." Oh that's right, because I have 30 computers hooked up to my 4 port router and they're ALL downloading the complete collection of Teddy Ruxpin episodes which limits my download speed to 100kbps per device. DAMN, how could I not have realized that!?! Silly me!

After wasting most of the weekend at my brother's listening to incompetent tech support people I finally gave up and just plugged in the old router I had brought him originally and "magically" the Internet worked at full speed again. Of course I couldn't get him wireless, but at least he could get by.

Now after ALL that, if anyone has any ideas as to what could be the problem, I'd love to hear your ideas. I'm not ruling out that I could've just gotten a faulty router from Best Buy, but since my D-Link seemed to be faulty before trying the WRT54G, and then all of a sudden worked like a charm again when I got back home, it makes me think something else is to blame here. Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
#1 What wireless channel do you have the router set on? Did you check the area with netstumbler before you put your radio up?

#2 did you flash the Dlink and Linksys with the latest firmware? (Note the new wrt54G's are not what they used to be. v5 and newer are crippled compared to the old ones.

#3 You could still use the wrt54g just as a wireless AP instead of a router (note See #1)
 
morpheus6d9 said:
who is ur isp ?
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My brother's provider is Adelphia, although they were JUST switching over to something else at the time because Adelphia got bought out. They use Motorola Surfboard modems if that is what you wanted to know.
 
moetop said:
#1 What wireless channel do you have the router set on? Did you check the area with netstumbler before you put your radio up?

#2 did you flash the Dlink and Linksys with the latest firmware? (Note the new wrt54G's are not what they used to be. v5 and newer are crippled compared to the old ones.

#3 You could still use the wrt54g just as a wireless AP instead of a router (note See #1)
Click to expand...

#1 I changed the wireless channel from the default (6) to 8 I believe. The laptop DID get a signal with that configuration and was on the network for a while.

#2 Yes. That was one of the first things I did with both of them. Even being crippled, I don't see how a new router would limit the Internet to less than 30 times the speed it should be. That's what I'm MOST concerned about.

#3 The whole point of going wireless is just to have wireless Internet on the laptop. Considering that I couldn't even get a WIRED Internet speed of more than 100kbps though, wireless became a secondary issue until I can get that resolved.
 
illumina315 said:
perhaps the ISP is checking MAC addresses on the routers?
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I've never heard of that... is that something you've run into before? How do you resolve it?
 
illumina315 said:
perhaps the ISP is checking MAC addresses on the routers?
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that was my first thought as well. the ISP may have the MAC address of the old router and not letting it go. i would call them up and see "what is up?!"
 
protias said:
that was my first thought as well. the ISP may have the MAC address of the old router and not letting it go. i would call them up and see "what is up?!"
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I thought that would get taken care of by resetting the modem followed by the router. Maybe not though? I guess I could have my bro call and ask, although from the times I've talked to his ISP's "tech support" I wasn't real impressed...
 
mdk30 said:
#1 I changed the wireless channel from the default (6) to 8 I believe. The laptop DID get a signal with that configuration and was on the network for a while.

#2 Yes. That was one of the first things I did with both of them. Even being crippled, I don't see how a new router would limit the Internet to less than 30 times the speed it should be. That's what I'm MOST concerned about.

#3 The whole point of going wireless is just to have wireless Internet on the laptop. Considering that I couldn't even get a WIRED Internet speed of more than 100kbps though, wireless became a secondary issue until I can get that resolved.
Click to expand...

#1 You should only use channels 1, 6, or 11, everything between overlaps it's neighbor . (Note some people can get away with a little overlap and use 4 channels, but you dont know what type of radio your neighbor has.) reference here

#2 and #3 The router may have a compatability issue with your provider, but if you put it on the inside of the router that is working and set it up as an access point it wont have to deal with the provider.
 
moetop said:
#1 You should only use channels 1, 6, or 11, everything between overlaps it's neighbor . (Note some people can get away with a little overlap and use 4 channels, but you dont know what type of radio your neighbor has.) reference here

#2 and #3 The router may have a compatability issue with your provider, but if you put it on the inside of the router that is working and set it up as an access point it wont have to deal with the provider.
Click to expand...

#1 Alright, I'll just set it to one of those channels then.

#2 I did try running the Linksys off the older router as an AP but it still didn't want to work right. I may have had some settings messed up though but that was one of the last things I tried and I wasn't able to deal with much more by then. How do you access the router configuration page when you have two routers like that though? Isn't the second (AP) router getting assigned an IP by the first?
 
mdk30 said:
#1 Alright, I'll just set it to one of those channels then.

#2 I did try running the Linksys off the older router as an AP but it still didn't want to work right. I may have had some settings messed up though but that was one of the last things I tried and I wasn't able to deal with much more by then. How do you access the router configuration page when you have two routers like that though? Isn't the second (AP) router getting assigned an IP by the first?
Click to expand...

#1 Just trying different channels MAY work, but you should use something to scan the AIR first, hence the suggestion of netstumbler.

#2 Yes it is getting one assigned (you could define it static though (outside of the DHCP range)), and you can turn on the ability of the second router to allow access through it's WAN port (Administration remote router access). Or you could set it up to be a real router and not NAT everything (under advanced routing) Instead of gateway you can choose router and turn off the firewall. If you do open it up and turn routing on you will need to make sure they are 2 different networks defined, which you should do anyways) i.e. router 1 had 192.168.1.x defined as it's network and router 2 has 192.168.5.x defined as it's network.
 
Alright. Thanks man, I'll definitely try that out the next time I'm over there.
 
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