Problem with WiFi

December 14, 2005 4:05 PM

How come when my laptop is jacked into an Ethernet cable (going to a regular router then to DSL) my Internet connection works fine, but when I jack my Linksys WRT54G Wifi Router into the same cable and connect through my wireless card, I don't have an Internet connection? The Linksys front-end shows a good connection to the WiFi.

I don't know if this helps but here is what ipconfig reports.

For the WiFi (good connection to WiFi device but nothing to the Internet):

Windows 2000 IP Configuration
Ethernet adapter WiFi:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.101
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

For the Ethernet cable (good data):

Ethernet adapter Ethernet:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : hsd1.tx.comcast.net.
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 71.56.[deleted].[deleted]
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.254.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 71.56.178.1

Thanks!

posted by shannymara to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

reset the cable modem, give it a few minutes, the new MAC probably needs to be accepted on their end to get an IP for the router WAN interface.
posted by kcm at 4:09 PM on December 14, 2005

I have the same router. And I had the same problem. It ended up just taking the cablemodem a long time to get "synched" with the wireless router.

If that doesn't work, (waiting, I mean) I'd connect everything up and try running the config software that came with the Linksys again.
posted by TeamBilly at 4:11 PM on December 14, 2005

I used to have some grief along these lines. The box worked fine on cable, but I moved house and had trouble with DSL. I found that connecting the DSL modem to a LAN port, rather than the WAN port fixed it.

Of course, this will make the firewall on the WRT a bit pointless.

That's the simple version. OpenWRT is the beginning of the complicated version.
posted by pompomtom at 4:43 PM on December 14, 2005

Actually, ignore my post. On re-reading, they're not the same symptoms.
posted by pompomtom at 4:44 PM on December 14, 2005

I bought a WRT54G a few weeks ago, and had a lot of trouble getting it to work with my SBC Yahoo DSL in Madison, CT. It all started working just fine after I cloned the MAC from my PC into the WRT54G.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:36 PM on December 14, 2005

Response by poster: We reset the main router (between the cablemodem and the WiFi router) and suddenly it's all working. I guess we can say this is solved, but it would be educational to know perhaps why the router had to be reset to accept the new device. Before that, I had waited about 20 min with no success.
posted by shannymara at 5:37 PM on December 14, 2005

Response by poster: Also FWIW, I tried doing the MAC clone before the router reset... it didn't work. The MAC clone has been disabled since we reset the router and all is working ok, so MAC clone probably wasn't necessary in this instance.
posted by shannymara at 5:38 PM on December 14, 2005

From what I can tell, the WRT54G is just a piece of crap. Friend of mine had one and had very similar results to you - he returned it and picked up a random Netgear router, and has had no problems with it at all.

I have also had bad experiences with Linksys products. I currently have a WAP54G that will drop all of the wireless connections at seemingly random times.

Sometimes powering everything off, counting to 20, and turning it all back on works. Gotta love it. :-)
posted by drstein at 6:09 PM on December 14, 2005

Response by poster: drstein -- It was on sale, $45 at MicroCenter, with a $15 rebate making it $30. So there's got to be a grain of truth in what you say.
posted by shannymara at 7:07 PM on December 14, 2005

I've had terrible luck with Netgear, and know people with terrible luck with D-Link. There are no ultra-solid wireless router brands.
posted by Ryvar at 8:04 PM on December 14, 2005

Yeah there are.. shell out the dough and buy a rock solid Cisco unit! :-)
posted by drstein at 7:40 PM on December 18, 2005

Would that be the rock solid router made by Linksys, a division of Cisco?
posted by FredsinPa at 10:13 PM on December 19, 2005

Nope!

The commercial Cisco stuff is usually solid. Even though Cisco owns Linksys, the quality hasn't rolled downhill...
posted by drstein at 11:22 AM on December 22, 2005