satellite connection problems

Ladies and Gents

I need your assistance on this one. I have a client who literally lives out in the sticks and the only high speed internet connection they can get is through Starband a satallite company.

Client has 4 windows xp pro machines
starband box needs a cross over cable to connect into the router that they have purchased ( microsoft router ). Router will only use straight patch cable. Starband box will except usb though.

How can we get these machines connected ??? The lady has 9 kids believe it or not and they need this connection for their schooling. So any advise would be greatly appreciated. My brain cannot see this one through.

Thanks ahead of time.

 

starband box needs a cross over cable to connect into the router that they have purchased ( microsoft router ). Router will only use straight patch cable.

It would be nice to know specifics on the make/model of the router (router/switch?) but in general, what the SOHO router/switch folks have done to make things simple for non-tech users is to hardwire a port with the Receive (Rx) and the Transmit (Tx) wires swapped and called it a WAN port or an Uplink port. In effect, they have set a port to do what a crossover cable normally does.

You will see instructions telling you that you can either use the uplink port or the port next to it but not both since they share resources. The reality is that they do and are just wired differently so that if you run a crossover cable to the "normal" port next to the uplink port, you've done the same thing.

Since the physical RJ-45 ends are the same regardless of how the patch cable is wired, my guess is that you can do fine with either a normal patch cable from the Starband box to the router's uplink port or a crossover cable from the Starband box to the router port next to the uplink port.

The newer and better quality router/switch devices have avoided this whole mess by building some logic into the port so it will deal with whatever sort of connection is needed.

 

Newt

A little more to list here.

Okay main machine is XP Pro and it has 2 ethernet cards in it because this is what Starband apparently needs. The crossover cable that comes from the Starband modem is hocked into one nic and she has connection to Starband. The other nic is plugged into the Dlink DI-604 WAN port and then machine 2 another XP home machine is plugged into port 1 with a straight through cable. Unable to get machine 2 connected to the Starband. I have never really worked with 2 nics in one machine before but I know we have to get them to think together.

So how do we nic 2 in main machine to be recognized by nic 1 in main machine so the dlink router is recognized by the Starband satallite system ???

Again you knowledge is always helpful and appreciated.

Greg

 

First thing I'd try is

Starband to the router WAN port - probably with a regular cable but maybe with a crossover. Depends on how the devices are wired. The WAN port often is wired to cross the needed pins.

PCs to the router but maybe only 3 of them since the device claims to be a 4 port router but as noted above, the port next to the WAN port may not work if there is cable in the WAN port. You'd have to play with it and see.

Let the router set things up. Hopefully it will take care of passing traffic between the starband and the PC LAN.

If this works then she has two options for hooking up the 4th PC. Either buy another switch or hub or take the PC with two NICs and set it up to run ICS as a host (but not quite normally so post back and I'll give you specifics) and the 4th PC hooked to it with a crossover cable.

 

Newt

Appreciate your response but the first part hocking the Starband up to the WAN port of the router I dont think will work because Starband say it has to have a direct connect to the nic in the main machine with a crossover cable and from what I have read on the DI-604 router it does say the ports are crossover compatible but it doesnt specifically say the wan port is.

Have forwarded on your instructions to my friend and hopefully she will let me know the results.

This Starband is a weird system and extremely expensive to even get one machine to work. The hdw from them is over 500.00 pretty outrageous but I guess if your so far out in the sticks and this is the only choice you have no choice.

Have looked at a lot of stuff on the web about Starband but nothing is specific as how to do.

Thanks again.

Greg

 

I still think it'd be worth a try since with a router operated LAN, the router/switch IS the main machine.

Can't say for sure since some hardware makers so odd things but it is certainly possible that it will work regardless of what those folks say.

 

Newt

Nope it did not work. The main machine which has 2 nic's and one of them hocked directly to the starband modem with a crossover is working but unable to get the other machines to connect.

The second nic in the main machine is connected to the dlink router but they are not able to get the internet connection.

Strange system this Starband and not much help in the users forum in fact most of them are dead links.

Greg

 

OK. I haven't asked before but are firewalls running on any of the PCs? If so, that could cause the failure. Otherwise:

Next idea - and this one will almost certainly work if the PCs can "see" each other and map to shares and such like. If they can't, get them talking to each other before trying anything further.

- disable any router functions of the router/switch including DHCP and similar.

- set up the 2 NIC PC as an ICS host.

- set the others up as ICS clients.

Since there is a good internet connection on one of the NICs, this should do the trick for her.

 

Newt

When you detailed in you last posting was essentially the problem. This starband is not in anyway router compatible so what we ended up doing is treating the router as nothing more than a hub. Changed the ip address of the router to not conflict with ics, disabled dhcp and the rest of what you mentioned and the thing started to work.

So I thank you for your assistance and the mother of 9 also thanks you.

Greg

 

Well, from a father of 9 (but thankfully all grown and gone) to a mother of 9, glad it helped.