I can't believe that this works?

Yesterday, I was trying to help a friend setup a home office with sharing to the Internet. He has a DSL connection to the Internet. He had had a Belkin router that he said had died. He then purchased a Netgear router, which he claimed did not work, either. When I got to his house, he had one of his two PCs connect directly to the DSL modem, and that was working OK.

Just for the heck of it I connected that PC to the "switch portion" of the Netgear router, and also connected the DSL modem to the "switch portion" of the router. He could still connect to the Internet as if he was still directly connected to the DSL modem.

Then, I tried connecting everything the way I thought it should be connected: the DSL modem to the "Internet" port of the router, and the two PCs to the "switch portion" of the router. I was not yet able to connect to the Internet. I got into the Netgear router via 192.168.1.1. I ran the setup wizard, and it "figured out" what type of Internet connection existed (it did not at that point say what type of connetion it was, but later I saw some where in the Netgear screens that it is a PPPoE type connection). I proceeded through the wizard. I noticed that what he had for username and password was not the same as what he was using when his PC was directly conected to the DSL modem. I enter that info into the Netgear setup wizard, continued on, and was able to connect to the Internet with both PCs. OK, that is not the part I can't believe. I'll get to that, but first...

I wondered what might happen if something "broke ". I unplugged the power to the Netgear router, and plugged it back in. The connection to the Internet was broken (as I assumed it might be). So, how to fix that? Well, I went back into the Netgear router, and noticed "Router Status ". I click that, and saw "Connection Status ". I obsevered that the was no dymanic IP address. There was a "Connect" button which I click, and the connect to the Internet was reestablished. I did that a few more times over the period of about an hour and a half (unplugged the power to the Netgear router, and then reestablished the connection by clicking "Connect" in a Netgear screen), all successfully.

Then, my friend and I went out to lunch. When he came back, and later after his wife got home, I was going to show her what I had done to "break and fix" the Internet connection. Now, naturally, it would not work. I could not reestablish a connection to the router. I tried and tired. Then, my friend's wife said, "how 'bout if we do this ": and before I could stop her she had unplugged the cable from the DSL modem that was going Internet port of the Netgear router, and plugged it into one of the switch ports. I told I had done that, and was able to connect one PC to the Internet that way. NOW is comes the part I can't believe. She went, and connected one PC to the Internet the way I had done. Then, she connected the other PC to the Internet the same way! I was too tired by then to do any further investingating (won't be able to 'til next Tuesday).

But, it occurs to me that each PC must have established it's own individual connection to the Internet through the DSL modem. Is that what happened? ( I suspect when I go back to my friend's house, and do "ipconfig "s on each of the two PCs, I will see two different dynamic IP addresses that came down from the ISP) Even though it seems to work, I can't help feeling that there is something bad about this.

Any thoughts regarding this "craziness ", and what I should try to get it to work again "the right way "? Thanks.

 

What she(your friend's wife) did is just take the router as a switch. As long as the ISP permits they use two IP addresses, It would be fine for connecting to Internet. But some router functions could not be used, such as firewall.

The thing that happed after your lunch was weird. Are you sure you did not change anything?(I am kidding). So, could you give the model of that net gear box ? Maybe someone could make some suggestions.

 

I can't get you the model for a while. Won't be back to assist my friend 'til next Tues. Probably be too tired (he lives 80 miles from me) to post back until Wed.

Not being behind the router firewall concerns me. I hope I can convey that to my friend. He's not technical, and he does not like to listen to technical stuff. I'm pretty sure I saw Norton firewall on both PCs, but I'd still rather have them behind the router, and in a 192.168.... "environment ".

You want weird (well, just slightly): I had broken the Internet connection (by unplugging the power to the router), and then we left for lunch. I was going to "fix" it when I got back, but it had already fixed itself. I wasn't too surprised, really. I would have liked to have known how long it took for the connection to fix itself, but we were gone over an hour.

I'll post back with the Netgear model # in a few days.

Thanks again

 

Probably about 5 seconds. I have had my DSL Service people tell me to unplug the modem and plug it right back in and the next one will tell me to wait at least 60 seconds. Some are even between plug it right back in and 60 seconds. Same goes for my Linksys router. If I do it my self, I usually just unplug it and plug it right back in and it works fine.

 

The model of the Netgear router is WGR614. But, I did get it to work (connect to the ISP) went I went back to help my friend on Tuesday. I did the same thing I did the first time I got it to work: Ran the "SmartWizard "; entered my friend's ISP username and password, and took defaults for everything else. (Of course, that is also the same thing I did when I couldn't get it to connect to the ISP)