No internet on 2nd computer

[devilmyarse]

I'm running a wireless network. Using a Safecom Swamr-54108 wireless router. This router has been running flawlessly, constantly for several months now. The all of a sudden the internet in the other room (connected wirelessly) gives up. Cannot connect to the internet at all, just says no response, it said there's a connection there and even allowed me to access the routers config settings (on 192.168.1.1) but no internet sites, not a sausage, not even AOA or Google.

I thought that maybe i've messed the config up while playing around with port forwarding so i restored the router back to factory defaults and just for good measure re-installed XP on the other computer. I reinstall the drivers for the wireless nic. Which is the wireless nic made by safecom and is in the same range of devices as the router is, hell they even have the exact same disc apart from the disk cover says wireless network card instead of wireless router :P (to be precise it's the SWLPT-54125 125Mbps Wireless PCI LAN Adapter 802.11g+)

Now the pc will find the connection, it will connect to it, say its a good signal with 5 bars and be connected at 54mps. But the IP is some random numbers and the subnet mask is 255.255.0.0 which is odd... I'm thinkin that it's something to do with this. But i don't know enough about routers or networking to figure out why it's not working... Could it be the DNS on the router is not assigning ip addresses correctly? if so how do i rectify this? I checked in the router config and the DNS is set to give out ip addresses automatically...

Can anyone give me a reason why it's doing this. It worked straight away before and then it suddenly stopped...

So if it worked on factory defaults before, then why isn't it working now?

The computer that is wired to the router (this one) is working 100% perfectly with the internet, obviously otherwise i couldn't be posting this :P

[Áedán]

What, like 169.254.74.123? At least, they might well start 169.254.x.x. If that's the case then Windows has given up waiting to get an IP address, and has created it's own address.

A DHCP server is the bit that hands out IP addresses - not to be confused with DNS, who's job it is to take a name and turn it into an address. It sounds like the Windows system isn't talking to the router properly at all - check to see that the wireless settings are correct, and if need be, re-enter them.

[devilmyarse]

Ah right, yes it's giving it a similar address to the one you said above. So do i have to alter settings on the router or the other pc?

[Áedán]

If the PC that works fine is still working, then I suspect the router is probably working just fine. However, you can make sure just by rebooting the router.

Once that's happened, make sure the internet still works for you, and then check the settings on the PC that isn't working right. Having said that, I have one PC that never manages to get an address via DHCP over wireless for some reason that I just can't figure out. I found if I set the machine to a static IP address, it worked fine. Go figure!

[devilmyarse]

Hmm i'll go and set it to use a static ip address. It worked before but it's just stopped working and i can't figure why!

[devilmyarse]

How the heck do i set a static ip address for the other computer on xp pro?!

I've tried looking in the properties for the wireless nic, also in the wireless network utility and the wzc tool and i can't find it anywhere... HELP!

I also tried adding 192.168.1.3 and the mac address of the other computer into the lan clients page on the router. It just says the following:

http://img279.imageshack.us/img279/7...ings3ry.th.gif

I've taken the hostname and the mac address from ipconfig -all on the other computer...

[Áedán]

right click network places -> properties. Choose the network adapter, and right click properties. Scroll down the list until you find TCP/IP, click on it, and select properties.

[devilmyarse]

I've done that now, set the IP to 192.168.1.3, the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0 and default gateway to 192.168.1.1. Still not working....

[devilmyarse]

**bump**

C'mon guys i need some help with this. I'm completely stumped!!

[danrok]

How is the port forwarding set-up on the router?

[devilmyarse]

I've fixed it, i disabled WZC from the services in ms config. Works perfectly now!

[Áedán]

Should have guessed that zero config would screw things up...

[devilmyarse]

Should i make a FAQ on how to disable it for future people having the same problem with network setup as me?

[Áedán]

Yeah - that's a very good idea!

[devilmyarse]

I've done that now. If you see anything that needs amending feel free to edit it. Just let me know what you've edited in the edit reason. Ta very much.