Computer Network Problem

[thewoahna]

Ok, here is a problem that I have. We just moved into our new house where every room is wired for a network connection. Down in the control room, we have the cable modem hooked up to a linksys router. From there we have 3 of the ports used for my sister and brother's computers, and the 4th port goes to me and my fiance's place above the garage (a considerable distance away). Now the hookup for our internet is in the kitchen (the kitchen was an afterthougt). I have the laptop with a wireless nic in it, and I wanted to go wireless so I co go around our little appartment without wires (like I am now), so I bought a wireless router and hooked it up to our port in the kitchen. The thing is, I have access to the internet, but I am unable to view the other computers on the "house" network, and they cant see me. I know there are a lot of suggestions, so keep em coming. I am going to get back to work on it myself and see if I can find the problem.

[Accord R33]

are they all in the same workgroup?

EDIT: in case you dont know where to check.

assuming you have XP:
right click "my computer"
click properties
go to the "computer name" tab
about halfway down you will see what workgroup the computer is in. if they are not all the same, click the "change" button and make them all the same

[Dirty Harry]

Your problem is inherent in using that wireless router on the LAN. It wont forward the traffic required to "browse" to other computers and use their SMB shares. What you should do is take that Cat5 cable you have plugged into the wall in the kitchen, and plug it into one of the ports on the LAN side of the wireless router, not the WAN or Internet jack. That way, the router will be using the wireless interface to join your laptop's wireless NIC to the rest of the LAN, but it wont be doing it by routing it across 2 disparate IP networks. It will be operating like an access point this way. Let me know how this works.

[accordaffair]

^^First do that, make sure they are all part of the same workgroup, my group is called MSHOME. Next, if you have firewall software, you need to allow those computers to talk. For me and all the computers in the house that I administer, we use Zonealarm Free version. I configure the firewall to allow....

1. 192.168.1.1 - the router's IP
2. 192.168.1.100-192.168.1.110 - the range of the network in the house, which is 10 allowable IP's. 192.168.1.100 being the starting IP and 192.168.1.110 being the last allowable. Since ususally only 3-4 computers are on at any given time, I only allowed 10 Ip's. It's more than enough. When I was setting up my network this puzzle had me stumped for a good week. It wasn't until I shut off all the firewalls that I realized they were the problem.

So, in closing, shut off Windows' firewall first (which is a piece anyway...) then any subsequent firewall you may have installed yourself.

Also, if you are using a linksys router, check the router config....it can be accessed by opening pointing your browser to 192.168.1.1, the user name is blank and the password defaults to "admin". It should have a list under "local network" of which computers have been assigned an IP through DHCP.

Let me know if the problem persists.

Oh and by the way....

[thewoahna]

when you normally run a hub/switch off of a router, dont you have to run the cable from a port on the router to an "uplink" port on the hub?

[Dirty Harry]

when you normally run a hub/switch off of a router, dont you have to run the cable from a port on the router to an "uplink" port on the hub?

With old ones, yes. Usually these days hubs/switches are Auto MDI/X meaning that you don't need to have an uplink port...the device figures out automatically if the TX/RX pairs are straight through or reversed. If you get no link when plugging that patch into one of the LAN ports in the kitchen, then swap out that cable for a Cat5 Crossover cable. That'll then work.

And accordaffair is right, but you don't have to check to see if Windows Firewall is enabled until you've tried moving that cable to the LAN port first. If it works, you're in the clear. If you don't move that cable, it will never work (unless you go ahead and try and mapping all the ports needed for windows networking... which = the hard and stupid way. Just move the cable instead so you're not using a router in the middle of your LAN, lol... You only want one router, the one connected to the cable modem performing NAT).

[thewoahna]

well, i tried last night some more and still no success

well, i tried last night some more and still no success

[Dirty Harry]

well, i tried last night some more and still no success

...what did you try?

If you tried my suggestion about using the wireless router as an access point and that didn't work, something else isn't right. It can and DOES work. The real right way to do what you want, is by returning that router and getting just a plain access point, but it's fine either way. Let us know exactly what you did.

[thewoahna]

I used the "router as an access point" idea. I will try it again later tonight to see if it will work. I was soo tired last night... The only reason I got the router over an actual access point was because it was a lot cheaper.

[accordaffair]

Using the router, you should be able to get the IP's of the other boxes on the network. Using those you can ping them and see whether you get a response. For me having firewalls in place, I could get a ping response from the computers, but windows would not/could not see them.

[Dirty Harry]

I used the "router as an access point" idea. I will try it again later tonight to see if it will work. I was soo tired last night... The only reason I got the router over an actual access point was because it was a lot cheaper.

Please tell me I'm not the only one that finds this weird. The wireless router costing MORE than the access point alone? WTF lol...

Anyway, I forgot to tell you to do something else. MAKE SURE you disable the DHCP server in the wireless router you have in the kitchen. You only want one DHCP server on your network obviously; this would be the one connected to your cable modem.

[thewoahna]

Yeah, I got the netgear router and a wireless pc card (now on ebay because I didnt need it) for 23.00 (shipped and after rebate).

[thewoahna]

Well, I fixed it. I did end up using the router as an access point by removinng the cable from the wan/uplink port and pluggin it into one of the switch/hub ports. What I had to get this to work was turn off DHCP server option on the router. Once I did this, I was able to see the other PC on the house network allong with having internet access. Thanks for the help yall.