[Synotic]

OK I just recently purchased a Linksys wireless router (802.11b) and was unsuccessful in getting it to work. It seems that all the pieces are in place and that everything should be working... but it doesn't. So here's the brief story:

I got tired of having to drag around this particular Ethernet cable always with me which is at least 10 feet long and both clips are broken, so rather than get a new Ethernet cable which I'd continue to dislike I decided to get my wireless internet set up. So I got the router and took my ethernet cable and plugged it into my computer and put the other end into the 1st of four ethernet ports in the router. Then I connected the router itself to the wall. I then powered up the router. The little lights for "Wireless B", "Internet", "Power", and "Ethernet 1" all light up. I connect to the IP it tells me via Safari, 192.168.1.1 I believe. The thing is, there's some bug in the JavaScript, so it won't proceed with clicking the "Save settings" button. IE seems to get around it, but at the page it refuses my password. So I launch VPC and the page loads fairly quickly, it reports a JavaScript error but lets me proceed and enter in my settings, it also saves them fine.

Anyways, so I enter the settings, I disconnect my computer for the router, and turn on airport... it detects my router. I try to connect, and it seems to work. It takes about 2 and half minutes for me to start any connection... airport or wired, it always says "Is connected... but has no IP". Doesn't happen to anyone else, but that's a separate problem... So I wait for 2 and a half minutes and the little indicator in the Network preferences pane turns from yellow to green... it has an IP. I open up Safari, it doesn't immediately bring up "blah.com was not found"... instead tries for about 15 seconds and then can't make the connection.

So something's up and I'm not sure what it is. Although I'm sure that on my computer's end I have properly set up everything... this is because I use my computer normally wired and I can use someone else's Airport base station. I can't completely use theirs though because its too far away for where I want to use it... damn PowerBook. So anyways, it's my reasoning that the router is somehow improperly setup and that my computer can access the router wirelessly, but the router can't get anything from the internet.

Just something that'll probably help... Because of the whole virus scare, DHCP was turned off, so there's no chance of everything just "working". When they gave me a static IP, they asked if I had a wireless card and they gave me a second IP just for wireless. I figure that I can just use the same IP for both wired and wireless on my computer... and take that IP that they gave me for wireless and use it for the router, correct? Anyways, that's what I did but still, it doesn't seem to work. Another question, by default, the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, but in my settings, it's 255.255.0.0, I tried both of them and it didn't fix anything anyways... but should I use the 255.255.0.0 that shows up in the TCP/IP tab of Panther's Network pane?

Well that's my problem right now, I suppose, unless it's evident what my problem is, that I want advice on what I can check and confirm and all that... Anyways, thanks for any help and sorry for rambling

[ghporter]

Try just manually setting your computer's IP to something like:
192.168.1.100

I'd also (once everything is connecting and running fine) set up WEP encryption on both the router and your computer. You think viruses from the Internet are scary? Wait until you find out that somebody in a car outside has hijacked your Internet connection for something illegal! (Yes, I'm paranoid, but that's kept me out of trouble for some time now...)

[car1son]

Oddly, 192.168.1.100 is the first IP address LinkSys's LAN DHCP will automatically assign (with default settings), so 192.168.1.2 might be a better choice for a static IP address.

And 255.255.255.0 is definitely the right value for your subnetmask.

FWIW, my linkSys setup info is here, and my Powerbook's static IP config is here .

[ghporter]

Since Synotic said he hsd DHCP shut off, I intentionally suggested the default first address most Linksys routers will assign. If the machine connected with that, it would indicate that everything was fine with the router. I wonder if he ever tried that...

[car1son]

Ah - I wasn't sure if he'd turned off DHCP in the LinkSys's LAN settings (Advanced/DHCP tab in LinkSys config screen) or whether his ISP (cable, I presume) had turned off their DHCP server and given him a static IP (in which case he should have the static IP in the LinkSys's Setup screen / WAN connection set to Static IP, and could use DHCP on his LAN.) There are three places he could invoke DHCP (2 in the LinkSys WAN client & LAN server, one in the Mac client) and I'm not taking bets which "setting" he used or whether it's the Mac or the LinkSys that says "is connected... but has no IP" (I'm used to seeing a 169.* IP address, not a message. Does 10.3 say that?)