Problems with wired connection to router...

[Ed2020]

If anyone can help me with this I shall be eternally grateful!

I've recently switched out my ageing WRT54GS with an Apple Airport Extreme. Everything was set up and working fine - my main Windows Vista desktop is wired to the router, everything else is wireless.

Yesterday I realised I had a malware infection on my Vista desktop so, rather than attempting to clean it up, I decided to reinstall Windows. After reinstalling the OS my wired connection was still working perfectly and I was busy reinstalling applications and OS updates. Part way through my Internet connection died and I realised my connection said it was an unidentified network and had local access only.

ipconfig /all showed I have a 169.* IP address. ipconfig /release followed by ipconfig /renew results in the following error messages:

An error occurred while releasing interface Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1 : The system cannot find the file specified

and

An error occurred while renewing interface Local Area Connection : unable to contact your DHCP server. Request has timed out.

After much messing around I decided to reinstall Windows again but the problem persists. I have also tried installing Ubuntu on my desktop that won't connect to the wired network either.

I have also tried the following:

• Connecting my Ubuntu laptop to router, wired - the laptop's network connection works perfectly.
• Connecting my Windows XP laptop to the router, wired - this also works perfectly.
• Connecting my desktop to the router wirelessly - this works perfectly.
• Connecting my PC directly to the modem with a different ethernet cable. I still get a 169.* IP address however the light next to the ethernet port is green (when connected to the Airport Extreme's gigabit LAN it's orange).
• Power cycling all equipment and restoring the router - no difference made.

So my questions are:

1. Can this be anything other than a dead NIC in my desktop?
2. If so, is there any possibility that it's the Airport Extreme that's damaged the NIC (it's worked perfectly for years with my old router and failed very shortly after setting up my Airport Extreme)?
3. Why is the ethernet light on my NIC green when attached to the modem but orange when attached to the Airport Extreme?

I've installed Windows three times and Ubuntu once over the past 24 hours and, whilst I have got rid of my malware, my set up is working less well than before I started! Any help would be very much appreciated!

Ed.

[Dai]

Could you please post the full text output from 'ipconfig /all'

[Mick Fisher]

That's probably just Vista playing up.

I installed a new router the other day. Two wired PC's, a NAS and on wifi an iPad and a Phone all found their connections straight away. The only failure was a laptop running Vista which was connected to an unknown network and was stuck on identifying.

I'd been there before so knew what to do. Disconnect and delete the network. Reconnect and enter your passphrase and the chances are that Vista will connect but will give the network a new name. Go into custom and rename it to it's proper name and you should be good to go.

HTH.

[Ed2020]

So after many hours of messing around with this problem I decide I've had enough and go downstairs to watch TV. I come back up half an hour later because I am unable to leave things like this unresolved and everything's mysteriously started working again. My PC is now successfully getting an IP address assigned rather than defaulting to 169.*

Somehow I find this more frustrating than if it was still broken. If the fault was with my PC why didn't reinstalling Windows (or Ubuntu, for that matter!) resolve it? If the problem was with the router's DHCP server why didn't restoring factory defaults fix the issue? And why was there no problem with other machines when connecting to the same ethernet cable?

If anyone can shed any light on this I'd appreciate it. I hate not getting to the bottom of things like this, especially when they mysteriously fix themselves so there's nothing to investigate!

Also maybe worth mentioning I also dug out my old router and had the same symptoms. The only difference was the Ethernet port LED was green again (it's still showing orange when connected to my Airport Extreme, even now things are working again).

Ed.

[Dai]

Originally Posted by Ed2020

Also maybe worth mentioning I also dug out my old router and had the same symptoms. The only difference was the Ethernet port LED was green again (it's still showing orange when connected to my Airport Extreme, even now things are working again).

Ed.

The different LED colours normally represent different connection speeds. Orange usually indicates gigabit, green 100mbps.

[Ed2020]

Originally Posted by Dai

The different LED colours normally represent different connection speeds. Orange usually indicates gigabit, green 100mbps.

Thanks Dai, that clears one mystery up.

[bomber_g]

Just to clear things up - a Orange light on it's own indicates electrical connectivity, as in it can see a cable plugged in and power is going down it, if the Green doesn't go on, it means the port is not able to negotiate correctly with the port its plugged in to.

Green and Orange on solidly indicates it has negotiated with whatever is on the other end and can pass traffic.

Green Solid Flashing Orange indicates traffic is passing.

In simple terms if the green light is off, the port is down. Could mean a dodgy cable or that you need to configure both ports to a speed (100 FD, 1gig, FD etc) to get them to talk to each other rather than relying on Autonegotiate.

DhcpConnEnableBcastFlagToggle

Look it up! Actually - here you go - have a read of this.

[bomber_g]

That's one to remember! I come from a networking background so I tend to think of the simplest thing to be wrong first