Need Router help.

[bigbluestem]

Hey ladies and gents. I am pretty much a noob so please be patient.

Here is the deal. I am having problems with a Linksys WRT54G router. I cannot get it to work at all when I plug the ethernet cord into the WAN port but it does work when I plug the ethernet into one of the 4 LAN ports....but then it constantly drops the computers in the house and then I have to power cycle the router or reset it for the computers to be able to access the internet.

I should elaborate on my network configuration since this most likely is causing the problem. This router is in a guest home several hundred yards away from the home where the internet comes through a satellite modem so I have bridged the internet over to the guest house wirelessly. Order of setup is Satellite Modem>>>Linsys WRT54G router>>>Engenius Access point>>>Engenius bridge>> another Linksys WRT54G router.

Let me mention a couple of more things. When I hook up to the bridge via ethernet cable the internet is always coming in strong, I am just having problems with the router. Also I have given all the hardware pieces in the network seperate IP addresses. The router has no security setup on it and is running on all the default settings except for the given IP address.

What should I do to fix the problem? Thx in advance

I am pretty clueless here

 

[riser]

First things first. When you connect the modem to the switch (not the wan) it will lock the first MAC address it finds. This is typically done by most ISPs.

Connect your modem to your router's WAN port. Contact your ISP, have them release your MAC address. Tell them you replaced your network card.

ISPs tend to give only 1 IP. Connecting into the switch it will connect to one computer. Turning that computer off and leaving another on, the IP will switch and be locked, but won't work because the MAC address is different. This would cause connection issues.

 

[bigbluestem]

Thanks for the response riser. I have a few more questions to try and figure this out.

So why doesn't the router work when the ethernet cable is plugged from the bridge over to the Wan connection on the router? (The internet light on the router does come on) Does it have to do with the fact that there is another router plugged into the network before the internet signal is wirelessly transmitted from one house to the other? And is there a configuration change I can make to the first router in the network that would allow this setup to work better. Or maybe...could I use a hub at the first house to split the internet signal straight into the Engenius Access Point so that the internet signal would not have to go through the first router before it gets over to the guest house and has to go through another router.....does that make sense.

I don't mind having the router in the guest house setup as a switch so I will try what you suggested....I am just trying to clarify in my noob head what is going on here.

Thanks for the help

 

[riser]

What is the distance that the bridge is able to transfer the signal?

I'm not sure how the bridge is configured to work but generally you would need to configure the router in the guest house to know where to forward the info to send it out. If it is acting as a router, you'll most likely need to configure a static WAN setting on it.

I would imagine the signal isn't making it to the router - you can check by determining what the IP is of the guest house router. Is the signal getting that far? If it is, that router should hand out DHCP and the router should forward to the bridge.

 

[bigbluestem]

The internet signal is good at the bridge. When I plug the ethernet cable from the bridge straight into my computer the internet always works fine. And the internet works fine wirelessly after I reset the router or "repair" my connection in Windows several times. Once I establish a connection wirelessly with the router it never boots me off, it is just every time after I shut down my computer and try to log back on I have to spend about 5 minutes resetting the router or "repairing" my connection before I can reestablish a connection. (All that being said I cannot ever establish a connection wirelessly from the router when the bridge is connected to the WAN connection on the router.) So what you said in your first post about the fact that I have the router configured as a switch and that it is locking the first MAC address it finds and that causes the connection issues I am having when trying to reestablish a connection makes good sense.

So is there something I can reconfigure in the router so I can leave the router connection setup as a switch and not have it be so hard to reestablish a connection......Or should I try to go with using the bridge hooked up to the WAN connection on the router?,and try something different with the configuration?

Tks Riser