Router Support

[7603petec]

New member so bear with me if this is old news to any of you guys!

Firstly I'm on 20 meg virginmedia broadband in the South West which has been exceptionally reliable for many years.

About a week ago when firing up my laptop I found I couldn't access the internet. I unplugged my Freecom wireless router and plugged my laptop staight into the cable modem (7 or 8 year old Webstar thing that has never failed me) and still no internet access. No manner of reseting made any difference.

Rang brodband support who were very helpful. Via the Dos command prompt they made me type in a few things and reboot etc. etc. and got me back up and running via the modem.

However no matter what I do when I plug in my Freecom router (or another Belkin one I have) it will no longer connect to the internet. I stress that I haven't changed anything on any of them ever! It has all worked fine for many years. The belkin one even says it is connect but will not let me access the internet at all.

Of course the broadand support people do not support these routers so they offered no assistance other than to contact the router manufacturers to get them to reconfigure them??

This is basically my long winded way of asking if Virginmedia have changed anything (i.e. settings etc.) that would stop two routers from different manufacturers working? The fact that broadband support said they need to be reconfigured makes me suspect this is the case.

Any thoughts would be welcome

Thanks
Pete

[Stabhappy]

You need to reboot the modem by unplugging it and plugging it back in while it is connected to the other device; the ambit modems release IP information via DHCP which is held in short term memory and will not give another adress to another device without a reboot.

[7603petec]

Thanks. Must admit that I didn't do that. I'm at work at the moment so will try that when I get home later.

Cheers

[Raistlin]

Hi Pete, and

I'm assuming you've tried the following:

1. Power off and disconnect everything;
2. Connect all devices together via Ethernet;
3. Power on the modem;
4. Wait 5 minutes;
5. Power on the router;
6. Wait 5 minutes;
7. Power on the computer.

When you're swapping from a direct connection to the modem to putting a router in between it and the PC you need to be sure to power cycle everything in the right order.

Can't be sure this is going to work, but it's worth a try.

If this doesn't work I'd suggest borrowing a router from a friend to see if you can get that to work, it could be that your router's just died.

[Stabhappy]

I'm quite amazed you were told how to recieve the necessary information via your laptop, but not to simply reboot the modem. Normally a modem reboot is the first port of call to customers looking for support.

[7603petec]

Just to confirm that they did get me to re-boot modem first but it didn't work.

Anyway just to say the powering up of the devices in order did the trick. Not the first time as I wasn't patient and only waited a minute or so!! But when I actually followed the instructions it all fired up fine.

Thanks for the help. Strange how in the past when I've had power cuts or occasionally switched things off I've never had to power things back up in order?? But there is no doubt it worked so that is what I will do from now on.

Thanks again, I now have a happy household

[Raistlin]

Hi

You only need to follow those instructions when you're moving from a direct connection to the modem to a connection with a different device in between modem and PC (or when you change that device).

Once the devices are all talking to each other it doesn't normallymatter what order they come up in.

Glad you're sorted though, and thanks for letting us know how you got on