Modem Connecting to Router Problem

[jmeuphonium]

So this morning I must have lost power for a bit because both of my pc's that were in standby took forever to wake and my connection is all screwed up now. I have two pc's that I use. One is wired to the router, the other is an htpc that runs on wifi. I've done as many combinations of turning off, unplugging, rebooting, trying different orders, that I can think of for the router, modem and wired pc, but no combination gets them all working together. The modem seems fine because the internet works great if i bypass the router and run it straight to the pc. The router seems to work fine for the network, because I can stream video files from the pc to the htpc over wifi even though neither has a working internet connection. I just can't get the router to talk to the modem for what ever reason. I've also tried switching out the ethernet cables and that doesn't work. Any one have any other suggestions for me to try?

Thanks!

Sorry if this is a stupid, easily fixed problem.

 

[skaz]

Do you have DSL or Cable? I don't have DSL, but don't some people need to enter in log in credentials when using DSL? Not sure if that might be your situation.

Either way, try this.

Disconnect (or power down) all computers. Unplug both the router and the modem. Don't just turn them off, as some "power buttons" are actually just standby buttons, so make sure to actually unplug their power source.

Wait at least a minute and make sure the router and modem are connected, the router should have a WAN port specifically for connecting to your modem.

Now first power on the modem, then wait (roughly a minute). LEDs on the modem should indicate if it's received it's IP from your ISP. Now power on the router. Go ahead and test your connection.

 

[jmeuphonium]

Do you have DSL or Cable? I don't have DSL, but don't some people need to enter in log in credentials when using DSL? Not sure if that might be your situation.

Either way, try this.

Disconnect (or power down) all computers. Unplug both the router and the modem. Don't just turn them off, as some "power buttons" are actually just standby buttons, so make sure to actually unplug their power source.

Wait at least a minute and make sure the router and modem are connected, the router should have a WAN port specifically for connecting to your modem.

Now first power on the modem, then wait (roughly a minute). LEDs on the modem should indicate if it's received it's IP from your ISP. Now power on the router. Go ahead and test your connection.

Thanks for the reply. I had already done all that you suggested. I have cable. I pulled my old Linksys router out of storage to test whether the modem would "talk" to another router and it worked just fine, so I've come to the conclusion that it my router that's screwed up. I did a factory reset 3 different times on the router and that didn't help either.

So, just to restate what I've found out, all of the cables are working because I switched them around and the only time each cable doesn't work it when it's connecting the modem to the router. The modem works fine when hooked up directly to my desktop pc and when hooked up to my old Linksys router. The newer router's wifi works fine because I can stream video files over wifi from my wired desktop pc to my wireless htpc. The only thing that's not working the the internet connection when using the newer router.

So, after all of the trial and error, I'm assuming that the ethernet port on the router that receives the internet connection from the modem has gone bad. Does this sound like the most likely culprit? Is there anything else anyone would suggest trying? Is there any way to actually test the ethernet port itself on the router?

Thanks!

 

[Valdred]

Since you have cable, your modem is most likely broadcasting dhcp to your router's ethernet port. From my experience, mileage may vary - on how well SOHO routers play with modems. Sometimes all it takes is some patience for it to grab the lease from the modem. This really can solve an issue like this. Try giving it about 15 minutes to populate after restarting the cable modem.

If this doesnt work, then all i can think of, from the incident you have described, seems indicative of a hardware malfunction.