Router won't assign IP address over wireless

[loic2003]

Hello, I have a Linksys WAG54G router and it's playing up quite badly.

There are 4 computers on the wireless network: 2 PC's running XP SP2, an apple iBook G4 and an iMac G5 and are all showing the same problem. signal strength to the router is fine (4/5) and everything on the router is set up ok too. the problem is the router does not provide IP addresses on the LAN using DHCP for some reason. However, when I plug the iBook in manually into the ethernet, it gets an IP through the ethernet and also the wireless. I can then unplug it from the router and it works perfectly through the wireless with a proper IP address.

Unless I physically plug in each computer, however, no IP is assigned and so macOS or windows has to assign some random IP thus preventing the computers accessing the net.

I have tried to disable DHCP and manually assign IP's to each machine; they connect to the network just fine, and the apples claim they are connected to the net, but no traffic gets through and the net isn't actually accessible.

All drivers, operating systems and firmware are completely up to date. I've tried factory resets, and rebooting, etc.

Any help on this irritating problem would be very greatly appreciated!

 

[InlineFive]

I was just skimming the manual and it said something about establishing a IPSec tunnel between WiFi clients and the gateway. Does your router use a VPN tunnel for encryption? Maybe you can't get an IP address because you need to setup a VPN connection.

 

[loic2003]

My knowledge of networking is pretty limited I'm afraid...

The strange thing is, the router used to work quite well and seemed to assign IP's but it's been getting worse and worse seemingly. It used to connect fine with a decent IP, and then occasionally drop the connection, and when looking at the network settings it would state the lack of IP as a problem. These days I can't even connect once automatically(maybe it's the newer firmware? I phoned the support people to confirm I was was installing the correct version).

Looking at the settings (and they're all factory default apart from ADSL and WEP settings) I have these (i;ve listed relevant ones only):

MTU: automatic
Local DHCP Server: Enabled
Start IP: 192.168.1.100
no. of addressed: 50
Lease time: 1440 mins

DDNS: Disabled

NAT: Enabled
RIP: Disabled

Wireless Channel: 11
Wireless SSID Broadcast: Enabled
Wireless network access: Allow all
WDS: Disabled

IPSec Pass through: Enabled
PPTP Pass-Through: Enabled
IPSec VPN Tunnel: Disabled

Encription: DES
Authentication: MD5

Key Management: Auto.(IKE)
PFS: disabled

How do I go about setting up a VPN connection?

A friend of mine has the same model of router and put in the same settings as me (VPI for ADSL, encapsulation, ADSL username/pass, WEP encription, timezone) and his system has worked seemelessly since...


Thanks for your help!

 

[loic2003]

also, looking at it, it seems the problem could be that the computers are not finding the address of the actual router, could it be this somehow? it's set to the default 192.168.1.1 address.

 

[imported_rhfactor]

When you set the static IP did you set the gateway IP's? You have to set them up to go through your router to get to the internet.

 

[loic2003]

I set a static IP address, subnet mask and router (gateway) address.

 

[loic2003]

Could a weak or unstable signal(eg electromagnetic interference/neighbours using wireless phones) cause this loss in IP assignment? Signal strength is never shown as being low on any of the computers, however...

 

[Abix]

Originally posted by: loic2003
Could a weak or unstable signal(eg electromagnetic interference/neighbours using wireless phones) cause this loss in IP assignment? Signal strength is never shown as being low on any of the computers, however...

If that was happening on one machine, maybe, but its happening on four machines and all of them arent working correctly, so the chances are that its something else.

Could you do me a favor and statically assign one of those machines an IP address? Then try and go on the internet.

If it works by manually assigning an IP address, then the problem is more than likely with the router. If it has been steadily getting worse, than it may be that the router is on its way out. Shed a tear, check for a firmware update, double double double check the settings, and if you get this far, get a new one.

If it doesnt work by manually assigning an IP address, then the problem is more than likely with the invidivual machines. Double double check that the wireless settings on the router match the settings you have on the individual machine.

Also, where I work, weve got a pretty flaky Cable router that will for no apparent reason stop assigning IP addresses. If we reboot the server, and renew the IP, it gets its IP perfectly fine. You might wanna try that as a last ditch effort.

 

[loic2003]

It doesn't actually connect if I manually assign IP addresses for some reason. It's very strange indeed. Interestingly, I read in this article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6522314/site/newsweek/

that someone else had a similar problem and managed to fix it with the help of a hacker apparently.

It really is frustrating, this problem. I tried putting the router about 3cm away from the antenna and it still didn't work so I'm quite sure it's nothing to do with the actual signal level.
Any suggestions will be very welcome!

 

[IEC]

*cringes at the mention of Linksys*

I've had bad experiences with dropped connections and IP problems... good luck with it!

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: ariafrost
*cringes at the mention of Linksys*

I've had bad experiences with dropped connections and IP problems... good luck with it!

Any known fixes?

 

[loic2003]

Hmmm.... I'm not the only one:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19944