Telewest, DHCP, DNS and a wireless access point

calvinf · 21-02-2006, 12:05

Hi, new here - I've had a browse around the forum and can't find an answer to my question.

I have a Motorola SB5100 for my Blueyonder broadband and would like to access the web from my Xbox and my PDA over Wi-Fi. However, I am in what I'm guessing is a rare situation whereby I need to use a wireless access point and not a wireless router...

Current set up is 2 ethernet NICs on my main PC - one connected to modem, one connected to access point.

Problem is, when using ICS, the Xbox can only get on line with manually configured IP address, gateway, DNS etc - it can see Windows shared folders but not get online when DHCP is used. I'm presuming the problem here is the DNS details aren't getting passed through. The same goes for the PDA - I can see shares, but not the web. However, on the PDA I have no option to manually input DNS servers, hence I have no way of getting online...

I think the problem is that the external IP address (82.xx.xx.xx) is getting assigned to my main PC - I presume this is why the problems?? Is there a way around this?

I've just bought a switch to connect to the modem (and the main PC and access point) which I haven't tried yet, but I'm guessing this isn't going to resolve my problem...?

Any help would be great - I've been looking into using alternative Internet connection sharing software to Microsoft's - is this likely to help?

Many thanks for reading my long question!!

brundles · 21-02-2006, 13:17

There is other software around to do what you want (I've used Wingate before - be careful upgrading it though as it likes to re-activate all it's servers and re-open the ports

), but why not just use a wireless router?

Most wireless routers will act as an access point for an infrastructure based wireless network providing the clients with access to the net without the need for the PC to be turned on.

calvinf · 21-02-2006, 16:49

Thanks for the reply - I was having problems with the NAT table filling up (I think), which was resulting in very slow internet browsing speeds, so thought I'd stop the router doing the routing! (sounds stupid I know!)

Thanks, I'm going to try some software routers tonight and hope that does the job - will be taking the switch back since I doubt it's going to help me...if that doesn't solve it I guess I've either got to find a way of dealing with the NAT table, or no web access on my PDA...?!