Trouble with my home network.

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Synomenon

Supreme [H]ardness
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Feb 10, 2007
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We just moved into a new home. It has a networking closet and almost all the rooms are wired with an ethernet port.

Cox technician setup the ethernet cables in the networking closet and tested the connection in each room to make sure they were working and they all do work.

Now, I've put the cable modem and a Cisco E4200 in the closet.

It's wired like this:
E4200 (192.168.1.1) - DHCP and NAT enabled
- Port 1: bedroom 1 - a Cisco SE2500 5-port gigabit switch with a PC and networked printer attached to it

- Port 2: bedroom 2 - a PC

- Port 3: bedroom 3 - a second Cisco E4200 set to bridge mode (192.168.1.2), gateway set to 192.168.1.1, NAT and DHCP server disabled

- Port 4: Cisco SE2500 5-port gigabit switch - two other rooms connected to this switch



I've set the SSID, WPA2 + AES encryption and all other wireless settings in both E4200s identically. Same SSIDs, same passwords, but different channels.
E4200 #1: 5GHz - channel 161, 2.4GHz - channel 11
E4200 #2: 5GHz - channel 149, 2.4GHz - channel 1

To the wireless network I have a Cisco WET610N w/ an attached SE2500 as well. This SE2500 has a PS3, XBOX360 and Smart TV attached to it.

The problem is that the internet connection and connection to the local network on every PC and networked device works erratically. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We've called Cox to monitor our cable modem for problems and in the past week, there haven't been any problems with the connection from Cox to the cable modem.

I've tried removing that second E4200 in bedroom 3 entirely and it didn't fix the problem.

Anyone have any ideas on what's going on?
 
Did a Linksys delivery truck crash in your living room and you got to keep whatever he was carrying? :)

If it's the internet AND local network being affected, it's not your internet connection. It could be the router, or a wiring loop anywhere in the overly-confusing wire hell you've created for yourself.

I'd say strip it down until everything works, then add all the toys again. Start by taking out the WAPs and second router.
 
Haha, I get discounts at work on Linksys / Cisco stuff.

Anyway, the Cox technician came today and replaced our modem with a new Cisco DOCSIS 3.0 modem and voila. Everything just magically started to work.
 
thats a pretty eloborate home setup..

glad you got it working though....however its always best to dumb it down as much as possible...
 
I would if I could. I need at least six connections on the main router in the closet, but the E4200 only has 4 so I had to put a 5-port switch in. Each room has only one ethernet jack so in the rooms with more than one device that needs a connection I had to place a swtich too.

Then there's the wifi signal. The E4200 in the closet doesn't get much signal out since that closet is made of metal. So I had to connect the second E4200 to the ethernet jack closest to the center of the house (in the bedroom it is in now).
 
having a "metal" closet isnt exactly the norm...I'm guessing its fire-proof of you have a saferoom.
 
Ok, spoke too soon. Still having intermittent connection problems.

Don't know what to do now.
 
Get rid of the stock linksys firmware and replace it with Tomato or DD-WRT would be my first suggestion.
 
Ok, I installed the latest available version of DD-WRT on my E4200 and now both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks are running at 54Mbps only.

Both are set to N-only w/ WPA2+AES.
 
Have you tried plugging a PC or laptop directly into the modem and seeing if the problems continue? Have you tried different ethernet cables from the modem to router or the router to everywhere else?
 
Set it to 40MHz for both radios (2.4GHz AND 5GHz)?

I've already replaced all of the cables. I tried connecting a laptop directly to the modem. The connection directly to the modem seems to work.
 
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