Wireless/wired router setup problem

bombidol

howdy , i havent much of a clue about networking but ill give it a lash here. I bought a 3Com officeconnect wireless 11g cable/dsl router today along with a usb wireless dongle. Im using a ZyXel Prestige 600 modem that came with my IOL broadband connection.
Now im trying to hook up all this junk and im falling flat on my face. I have a cable coming out of the modem into the DSL port on the back of the router, then a cable coming out of the router into my machine. I run through the setup wizard but theres absolutlely nothing happening. Im not too worried about the wireless end of things yet (its for another machine in the house)
The router and modem and main PC are all in the same room so its no problem having them all wired up there.

when im setting up it asks if i want

PPPOE
DHCP
PPTP
L2TP

ive just been picking DHCP , im on iolbb what should i be picking?

All the settings seem to be right but theres still nothing happening. I know this is a wide vague problem but can anyone help shed some light on this?

gar

Endurance Man

Well ill tell you how i have mine setup and perhaps that will help . I have my modem plugged direclty into the pc, as if there was no wireless router. There should then be a second port on the back of the modem, i plugged my router in via this port. So basically the only connection to the router is to the modem. I then have the pci card in the other pc with XP SP2 and it does the rest.

You could try this, as u say u have it from modem - router - pc.

bombidol

theres a usb connection and a RJ45 Connection on the modem. im reluctant to use the USB connection because its not as stable as the RJ45 but ill try it and see what happens .

Endurance Man

Well my eircom modem has 1 ethernet port and 1 usb. I use the USB to go into the computer, and the ethernet to go into the router .

andy1249

I have the same equipment , 3com hub and USB dongle , you need to go through the setup for pppoe , connecting by dhcp will not work , you will need the connection details from your ISP , these should be available from the homepage of the isp and what you need is listed in the setup routine ,
Try that and post how you got on .

Endurance Man

I have the same equipment , 3com hub and USB dongle , you need to go through the setup for pppoe , connecting by dhcp will not work , you will need the connection details from your ISP , these should be available from the homepage of the isp and what you need is listed in the setup routine ,
Try that and post how you got on .

I must be the luckiest guy alive when it comes to these wireless bits and bobs . I set mine up as listed above and it just worked, no software, no fiddling with network tcp, isp.................blah blah blah . Wonder why they dont make them all as simple as mine ??

bombidol

ok its asking me for an isp username and password in the pppoe setup wizard for the router. i dont know my isp usr/pswrd so ill have to figure that out tomorrow , ill call them and get it. I wrote down anything i could find to do with pppoe on the esatbt page, but if some kind soul would be nice enough to have a look too and post up the results so i could verify my stuff i would be gratfull. I dont understand why the router needs my username and password but ill give it a shot.

bombidol

anyone else any ideas?

Idleater

bombidol wrote:

anyone else any ideas?

Hi,

I spent a while messing about with a similar setup at the weekend (Linksys 54gs instead of your 3Com but same port names etc). The Modem ip address is set to 192.168.1.1 and the wireless router is set to 192.168.1.2.

The first step I did was to connect the PC to the Modem with the ethernet cable and followed the Wizard setup a la instruction booklet.
I use the username/password that I set up when I first registered with BT on their web page.
In the wizard it is of the form "myname@IOLBB"
I think I clicked LAN Settings and put in the DNS Servers 194.125.2.240 and 194.125.2.241. clicked next and did the test. My "ping default gateway" test failed but that is probably because I pings/snmp are disallowed in the security section by default.

When I verified that the internet was working, I plugged the ethernet cable out of the modem and into the wireless router (one of the router switch ports not the WAN) and set up the router as a simple DHCP only. I then checked that the wireless connection to it was working. I then turned off the DHCP server on the Wireless router. (I am almost certain this is the setup anyway, I can check later when I get home)

Then I plugged the ethernet cable from the modem to one of the switch ports on the router (not the WAN) and switched everything back on.
Hey presto, the router got the ip address from the modem, and the pc(s) talked to the wireless router and got their ip's from the modem DHCP server.

Now that I think of it, I may have had to do some configuration in the routing tab to tell it that the default gateway of the 192 network was 192.168.1.1 (the BT Modem).

The next step that I will be going through is to move the DHCP server off the modem and onto the wireless router, basically so that the modem is just that, a modem not a router.

I have read in places that "just setting the modem to Bridge mode" works but I have not had success with this, probably because my settings on the wireless router are not set up right to talk to the BT side of the DSL line.

Anyhow, hope a little of this makes sense, as I said, I can clarify any of this later on in the day.

L.

bombidol

some of it makes sense. i was told about bridging before. but i cant find where to switch the bridging on in the router or the modem.

Rollo Tamasi

there should be no need to bridge a router connection

the username and password, are the username and passwords for your domain which would have been given to you by your ISP. Everyone gets one while on Broadband. As you said, you will need to contact IOL to get it. You will also need to put in your VCI and VPI numbers into the wizard (if asked of course, some routers pick up on it automatically) VCI =35 VPI=8.

bombidol

yeah that seems to be what a few people have told me. some are telling me not to use pppoe at all. but it seems logical to me i think

Anyone else had a similar problem setting something like this up?

Rollo Tamasi

as far i am aware the Irish network for routers is still on the PPPoA over ATM network for routers. Thats what i'm on anyway.

Granted there has been a migration to the PPPoE network but as far as i'm aware we are still on PPPoA, correct me if i'm wrong or if i should be on the oE network?

bombidol

Ok i talked to Esat and they said to use PPPoE got my username and password and set up the modem as 192.168.1.1 and the router as 192.168.2.1 addd in my username and password and still nothing. Anything else i can try?

Rollo Tamasi

is the router you have an adsl one? if it is then you dont need to have the modem going thru the router. You can just use the router in that case.

should the router not be 192.168.1.2 instead of 192.168.2.1 ?

bombidol

just tried it with 1.2 there a minute ago too, no luck. damn it , this is annoying.

Rollo Tamasi

Have you tried posting in the Broadband Forum in Boards?
(http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=259), its probable that some one over there has the same exact setup as yourself!

Also is your router an adsl router, if it is then get rid of the modem and just use the router.

What happens when you try to ping the following address "192.168.0.1" (to ping it, just click on start, go to run, type in cmd, click ok, type "ping 192.168.0.1")

(make sure you have your firewall disabled also)

bombidol

its not an ASDL router, have to use the modem unfortunatly. HAve the router disconnected at the moment as nothing works when its plugged in. tried pinging that ip there but it timed out

paddy

What's the 3C number of that router e.g. 3c856, 3c857,3Cxxx it should be on the front.

Rollo Tamasi

jasaus! i dont know whats up so!

are you running the configuration with just the router plugged directly into your pc?

Make sure your using a dynamic IP also (right click Local Area Connection, properities, highlight tcp/ip click properties, and make sure your dynamically obtaining an IP address and a DNS address.) once you have that done, reboot your modem and your router.

Give the wizard another blast, and post up any of the settings on boards that you are not sure of.

---

username + password
VCI =35 VPI=8.
PPPoE network
MTU = 1400

---

thats all the info i need for my router anyway!

bombidol

im running the configs with everything wired up as if it was working, with the modem and the router all wired up correct etc. yeah Auto IP is on and stuff. its baffling this. makes no sense

Idleater

Hi,

Right, I have been messing about with the configuration settings on both the modem and the wireless router.
The settings that I have are very basic,
I just did the wizard on the BT Modem accepting all the defaults (including the LAN settings - as in I did not click the button, I left them on DHCP on, lan addresses starting at 192.168.1.33 etc), and all the tests passed when I did them (apart from the ping Gateway as explained before).

Next the wireless router was set up also with very basic settings. My default is "Automatic configuration - DHCP" and all I have set is the IP address which is 192.168.1.2. I turned off the DHCP server on this device. No other settings are set.

As for the wiring, I have both my PC and Laptop connecting wirelessly and the Modem is wired into one of the switch ports (not the WAN port) on the router.

I would suggest the following checklist to resolve your connection problems:

1) verify that the modem is working (and giving you a connection to BT) across the DSL line. Basically connect the modem to a pc directly via the ethernet cable and do the wizard setup.
2) verify that you can connect to the wireless router by wired connection and also wireless connection. This is independant of the modem - I switched mine off.
3) once both of these are working independantly you have to try to get the wireless router to "see" the modem.

Post back where you get stuck on any of these and I will try to figure it out further.

L.

bombidol

still no luck, tried everything there but no luck. The little ACT light that that lights up when you have access online is lit up now that the modem is straight into the PC (using it now) but when i wire it up into the router the light is gone. tried everything you said there but nothing.

bombidol

we have movement. im typing this from my laptop connected via wireless.

Idleater

I cant find anything on the 3com knowledge base but there is a link for the linksys about how to set up a pppoe connection here.

I will try this tomorrow but I see you have a wireless connection up so hopefully you are on the way to getting it sorted.

L.

bombidol

ok the wireless and wired connections seem to be working now, thanks a million man. however the wired computers internet is slow as hell

vibe666

that will most likely be down to the router not 'routing' as well as it should.

might be worth checking with 3com to see if there's a firmware fix or other work around for it.

if you're connected and able to surf with all the equipment you are using then it should be fine all round.

quite often people experience slowdown on wireless connections if they have wired equipment plugged in, but i've not heard of it the other way round before. likelyhood is though that it's a pre-exisitng issue that's either been addressed or is at least known to the vendor.

99% of the time you'll never be the first or only one with any particular problem. the wonders of the internet age.