Recommendations for wireless routers?

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

Thanks for all the suggestions and support, rpg.

Yes! I did get the cable installation finished yesterday--and I have a rant about the whole thing which I may post at the end of this reply, so those not interested can just skip it.

The Time Warner guy left after verifying that the cable modem had a good, strong signal AND he was nice enough to wait while I checked several computers. Oh, I should add that right now the cable modem is plugged into my old router and it's still working. Yay! So I simply unplugged the Ethernet cable from the DSL modem, stuck it in the cable modem, and was happily connected to a FAST, new cable Internet connection.

After the guy left I Googled how to find the cable modem's address; it's 192.168.100.1. Its config page shows basic info about it, but has nothing that I can edit; its main page, System, shows stuff like its MAC address and 'receive power level' and so on. Its other pages, Signal, Status, and Log, show the following:

This feature is not enabled.

This feature has not been enabled in your cable modem.

Please contact your data services provider for more information about this feature and its availability on the network.

Today--after taking some deep breaths --I'm going to reset the new router again, then proceed with trying to get it to work. If I cannot, I think I'll return it and get the newer version of my LinkSys router.

<begin rant about Time Warner>

So last Wednesday, they came, they ran the cable, then--supposedly--couldn't finish the installation because they needed to access my neighbor's yard and "no one was home so we couldn't get permission to enter their backyard." I waited a whole BLEEPING extra week to get it done. In the meantime, I did what TW told me was necessary--got permission from my neighbor and arranged a time when she'd be home while TW was in her yard. Guess what I found out when I talked to her? Well, here's what she told me: "But...last week, Time Warner came to my door and said they needed to climb up to access the cable in my yard, and I told them the gate was unlocked and they could go right in and do it." I said, "WHAT? Are you kidding me?!" She said, "No, that's why I don't understand why they told you no one was home." Then I asked if she happened to recall which day that was and she said "I'm pretty sure it was Wednesday." So she knew the correct day, the exact issue, and the company who was doing it--none of which I'd told her--so unless she has a crystal ball, she couldn't have known any of this unless her version really happened. When the installation guy came out yesterday he was completely baffled as to why the original tech hadn't finished the installation--especially after I told him that the guy LIED to me about not getting permission. All he could figure was that the other guy simply didn't WANT to do it, so made up a BLEEPING story and left.

</end rant>

[rpg_poser]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

I find it odd that your cable modem's IP address is 192.168.1.100. I am concerned that you are getting the modem (which is supplied by time/warner) and your router (Asus) mixed up. Regardless, as long as their IP addresses are different, yet in the same subnet (should be), there won't be a conflict. So, my instructions should still work. You really shouldn't change modem settings unless instructed by someone at time/warner, but your router settings can easily be changed.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

So DYK, looks like you're all set now?

IP addressing info
I see from earlier posts that one of the sources of trouble was two devices sharing the same address -- 192.168.1.1. Changing one of them to 192.168.2.1 didn't help, as you saw, and oshunluvr mentioned instead to use 192.168.1.2. In case you're curious why...consumer networking gear is almost always set up with a subnet of 255.255.255.0. This means that the first three "octets" indicate the network, while the last one indicates the host. Using 192.168.2.1 for your other device essentially means that you're putting on a separate "logical" network, even though physically everything's connected together.

Cable modem status info
Good search skills there, figuring out how to get to your cable modem's config page. Every cable modem I've ever had (and I've burned through a lot) uses that same address, 192.168.100.1. It's up to the provider to decide whether to allow you to see the status info and logs, though. Comcast does, and I check mine periodically. It could be that TW has disabled that feature on their modems. Maybe they don't want you to see how crappy their service can be -- logs riddled with errors are never good signs

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

I find it odd that your cable modem's IP address is 192.168.1.100.

No, it's 192.168.100.1

I am concerned that you are getting the modem (which is supplied by time/warner) and your router (Asus) mixed up.

No. (Besides, I'm still using the LinkSys router, and its IP address remains the same, 192.168.2.1)

Regardless, as long as their IP addresses are different, yet in the same subnet (should be), there won't be a conflict. So, my instructions should still work. You really shouldn't change modem settings unless instructed by someone at time/warner, but your router settings can easily be changed.

Yes, I'm looking forward to giving it another whirl today. I have a feeling it's all going to work now, but we'll see!

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

So DYK, looks like you're all set now?

Yes and no. Yes, my cable connection is working--and it's blazing fast, especially compared to the piss-poor speed my DSL connection had been getting in the last few weeks (when it was working at all). But I'm using my old router (LinkSys) which, miraculously, resumed working perfectly. I haven't yet tried getting the new router (ASUS) up and running with the cable modem, but will shortly.

IP addressing info
I see from earlier posts that one of the sources of trouble was two devices sharing the same address -- 192.168.1.1. Changing one of them to 192.168.2.1 didn't help, as you saw, and oshunluvr mentioned instead to use 192.168.1.2. In case you're curious why...consumer networking gear is almost always set up with a subnet of 255.255.255.0. This means that the first three "octets" indicate the network, while the last one indicates the host. Using 192.168.2.1 for your other device essentially means that you're putting on a separate "logical" network, even though physically everything's connected together.

You know, it's been so long since I initially set up the DSL modem and the LinkSys router that I REALLY have no recollection of how/why the router had 192.168.2.1 as its IP address, but it did. I'm assuming that it and the modem had the same address, 192.168.1.1, and [somehow] I knew that I needed to change the router's address. How/why I changed it to 2.1 I have no idea. Maybe Earthlink told me to at the time. But, again, that was 5+ years ago--and I had brain surgery in the interim--and at this point I have no clue!

Cable modem status info
Good search skills there, figuring out how to get to your cable modem's config page. Every cable modem I've ever had (and I've burned through a lot) uses that same address, 192.168.100.1. It's up to the provider to decide whether to allow you to see the status info and logs, though. Comcast does, and I check mine periodically. It could be that TW has disabled that feature on their modems. Maybe they don't want you to see how crappy their service can be -- logs riddled with errors are never good signs

[SteveRiley]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

Yes and no. Yes, my cable connection is working--and it's blazing fast, especially compared to the piss-poor speed my DSL connection had been getting in the last few weeks (when it was working at all). But I'm using my old router (LinkSys) which, miraculously, resumed working perfectly. I haven't yet tried getting the new router (ASUS) up and running with the cable modem, but will shortly.

No. (Besides, I'm still using the LinkSys router, and its IP address remains the same, 192.168.2.1)

If I understand correctly, currently your setup is:

cable modem -> LinkSys router -> computers

And the local address of your LinkSys router is 192.168.2.1. Out of curiosity, what is your computer's IP address right now? Post the output of ifconfig from a shell prompt.

[wizard10000]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

I find it odd that your cable modem's IP address is 192.168.1.100.

I'm pretty sure the IP is 192.168.100.1 - that's pretty standard for cable modem configuration pages.

edit: I see now I got beat to this a couple times. Too bad I can't delete my own posts

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

If I understand correctly, currently your setup is:

cable modem -> LinkSys router -> computers

And the local address of your LinkSys router is 192.168.2.1.

Yes, precisely.

Out of curiosity, what is your computer's IP address right now?

It's 192.168.2.102 now--it was 192.168.2.112 from the time I got it [and it was connected via DSL] until yesterday when its connection changed to cable. All my other computers are now in the 192.168.2.10x range as well.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

Ah hah! So your home network is 192.168.2.0/24. Now the source of confusion is revealing itself.

It's 192.168.2.102 now--it was 192.168.2.112 from the time I got it [and it was connected via DSL] until yesterday when its connection changed to cable. All my other computers are now in the 192.168.2.10x range as well.

Ignore the fact that your computer changed from .112 to .102 -- it has nothing to do with changing from DSL to cable. Your router simply assigned a new IP address to your computer via a protocol called DHCP.

Your freshly factory-reset Asus router has a default local address of 192.168.1.1. Unfortunately, so did your DSL modem. Cable modems, unlike DSL modems, don't require a local address in the same subnet as your home network. That's why they typically come configured with the address of 192.168.100.1, virtually guaranteeing they won't collide with common home network address defaults.

When you swap out your old router with your new one, don't worry about making changes to its default addressing -- leave it at 192.168.1.1. I'd suggest shutting down all your PCs before you swap. Then after, when all the router's blinky lights seem happy, turn your computers on. They'll try to re-acquire their old addresses in 192.168.2.0/24, but that will fail, and your new router will issue new addresses in 192.168.1.0/24.

[rpg_poser]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

In order to minimize confusion, I won't type in any more IP addresses. For the record, it was my mistake for transposing the IP of her cable modem.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

In order to minimize confusion, I won't type in any more IP addresses. For the record, it was my mistake for transposing the IP of her cable modem.

It's okay. Don't worry about it--it was an easy mistake to make.

Steve, thanks for the info. I'm going to do exactly what you suggested and--hopefully!--report back with great news.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

One question... have you manually configured network settings on any of your PCs? Or are you relying on DHCP through either NetworkManager or Wicd to automatically configure your network interfaces?

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

Would anyone like to venture a guess as to how I'm connected right now? Go ahead...I'll wait.

IT WORKS!! I did what Steve suggested (turning off all computers, etc.), plus I hard reset the router as well as resetting it to its factory state via its configurator. I unplugged the cable modem, too. Then I brought up the modem and the router, and connected this laptop to the router via cable. It took several failed attempts, but eventually its auto-discovery tool actually worked. First I had a wired connection (to the Internet) then...up came wireless!

After that I went from computer to computer, bringing each one up and verifying its connectivity; some are wired, some are wireless, they're all working.

One thing: I could *NOT* get it to work using any WPA-related security; I had to fall back on WEP, which I wanted to get away from, but that's what ultimately got it working so, for now, I'm okay with that. I'd prefer WPA but at this moment I'm thrilled everything's working.

I can't thank you all enough for the great support, advice, suggestions, etc. You're the best.

[wizard10000]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

...One thing: I could *NOT* get it to work using any WPA-related security; I had to fall back on WEP, which I wanted to get away from, but that's what ultimately got it working so, for now, I'm okay with that. I'd prefer WPA but at this moment I'm thrilled everything's working.

Oh, we can help you get WPA working too

The manual was completely useless. Basically the protocol should be WPA2-PSK and the encryption type should be AES. Your workstations need to reflect this as well, as Windows XP workstations (not sure about Vista) can be set to use either AES or TKIP as an encryption protocol and they don't autodetect. Also, TKIP (which ain't the default encryption protocol for WPA2) has been cracked while AES hasn't and probably won't be in our lifetime.

The encryption key is case sensitive. That should give you enough information to get things connected

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Recommendations for wireless routers?

...One thing: I could *NOT* get it to work using any WPA-related security; I had to fall back on WEP, which I wanted to get away from, but that's what ultimately got it working so, for now, I'm okay with that. I'd prefer WPA but at this moment I'm thrilled everything's working.

Oh, we can help you get WPA working too

I'm banking on it.

The manual was completely useless. Basically the protocol should be WPA2-PSK and the encryption type should be AES. Your workstations need to reflect this as well, as Windows XP workstations (not sure about Vista) can be set to use either AES or TKIP as an encryption protocol and they don't autodetect. Also, TKIP (which ain't the default encryption protocol for WPA2) has been cracked while AES hasn't and probably won't be in our lifetime.

The encryption key is case sensitive. That should give you enough information to get things connected

This is a windoze-free woman. Everything I use is Linux based (computers, DVRs, smartphones, etc.). Anyway, I already have the encryption type set to AES, and as for case sensitivity, I grew up on UNIX, so case sensitivity is just ingrained in me. (I remember LAUGHING when windoze 95 (or some such) introduced upper/lowercase file names...but there really was no difference, IOW, you couldn't have two files named "FileName" and "filename"; it was purely cosmetic, not REAL. I also laughed when windoze introduced a login screen--but by hitting 'cancel' you could go straight to having full access of the computer.)

Where was I?

Oh, maybe I'm misunderstanding how WPA is supposed to work. When I set up my DSL modem and router 5+ years ago, I entered a password and the router's configurator generated 4 WEP keys. With this router, I enter a password into the "WPA-PSK key" field--and a tooltip pops up saying "This field requires a password of 8 to 63 characters to start the encryption process. If you leave the field blank, the default [00000000] will be assigned as your password." When I click 'apply' it cranks through a process, complete with percentages showing its progress, but when it's done there's nothing in any of the key fields. Am I misunderstanding what's supposed to happen here? If I try using the password I entered in the "WPA-PSK key" field, that doesn't work. And if I try leaving the field blank and supplying 00000000 as the password...it doesn't work. In contrast, when I enter a password in the "ASUS passphrase" field, it automatically, without even having to 'apply' anything, generates 4 WEP keys.