Linksys router issues
so i just bought a Linksys wireless-B router today, and i've been trying to hook up my G3 iMac and my brother's compaq notebook. My iMac is a 450mhz G3 slot-load with 512mb RAM and 10.3.9. my brother has a compaq presario 1200 notebook with Windows XP. So this afternoon, i plugged my modem to the router and the router to the ethernet on the iMac, and it worked fine. got i fine connection, everything.
then later this evening, my brother supposedly came up and tried to use the internet, but there wasn't an active connection. i don't know why, but something went wrong. he then tried connecting his laptop i guess and the router completely didn't work. neither computer was registering a signal, but the router and modem still said that the computers were connected and the internet was sending a signal.
if i completely reconfigure the router with the compaq, that computer will work. but every time i try to attach the mac, the router goes kaput and i have to completely reconfigure again. the linksys support site says the router supports cross-platform connections, so i can't figure out why it won't work with my iMac. the installation cd that also came with the router is windows only, so thats not an option either. is there a reason that the router was plug-and-play at first, but now isn't? why is it that it needs to be configured every 5 minutes? i can't figure it out, anyone got any ideas? thanks in advance!
then later this evening, my brother supposedly came up and tried to use the internet, but there wasn't an active connection. i don't know why, but something went wrong. he then tried connecting his laptop i guess and the router completely didn't work. neither computer was registering a signal, but the router and modem still said that the computers were connected and the internet was sending a signal.
if i completely reconfigure the router with the compaq, that computer will work. but every time i try to attach the mac, the router goes kaput and i have to completely reconfigure again. the linksys support site says the router supports cross-platform connections, so i can't figure out why it won't work with my iMac. the installation cd that also came with the router is windows only, so thats not an option either. is there a reason that the router was plug-and-play at first, but now isn't? why is it that it needs to be configured every 5 minutes? i can't figure it out, anyone got any ideas? thanks in advance!
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Originally posted by exhibit_13
so i just bought a Linksys wireless-B router today, and i've been trying to hook up my G3 iMac and my brother's compaq notebook. My iMac is a 450mhz G3 slot-load with 512mb RAM and 10.3.9. my brother has a compaq presario 1200 notebook with Windows XP. So this afternoon, i plugged my modem to the router and the router to the ethernet on the iMac, and it worked fine. got i fine connection, everything.
then later this evening, my brother supposedly came up and tried to use the internet, but there wasn't an active connection. i don't know why, but something went wrong. he then tried connecting his laptop i guess and the router completely didn't work. neither computer was registering a signal, but the router and modem still said that the computers were connected and the internet was sending a signal.
if i completely reconfigure the router with the compaq, that computer will work. but every time i try to attach the mac, the router goes kaput and i have to completely reconfigure again. the linksys support site says the router supports cross-platform connections, so i can't figure out why it won't work with my iMac. the installation cd that also came with the router is windows only, so thats not an option either. is there a reason that the router was plug-and-play at first, but now isn't? why is it that it needs to be configured every 5 minutes? i can't figure it out, anyone got any ideas? thanks in advance!
Yea. Networking is basically cross-platform. You really don't even need the 'install cd' because most of the config is through the web interface which is also cross-platform. So when you plug in the iMac the router stops working on the Compaq too?
Edit: You might have a bad router. You could try and return it and see if the one that you exchange it for works better.
firmware upgrades may work.
just an idea, try upgrading your router to the latest firmware available for it. then see if problem still persists.
remember you can use your windows computer to fiddle with/install router firmware etc... because think of the router as 'having its own little internal operating system' that deals with windows or mac machines etc...
Originally posted by sunilraman
router demon slaying tip #22394
firmware upgrades may work.
just an idea, try upgrading your router to the latest firmware available for it. then see if problem still persists.
remember you can use your windows computer to fiddle with/install router firmware etc... because think of the router as 'having its own little internal operating system' that deals with windows or mac machines etc...
Since it's a Linksys it's probably running Linux (not a consumer distro mind you). That's why the WRT54G has all kinds of websites with alternative firmware upgrades to mod it out.
Originally posted by tomj
it could also be that you need to clone the mac address from one of those machines to the router. Some isps set up your connection to work with a specific MAC address and then it won't work with others. since both you and your brother have use it before you added the router, that may not be it, but it still may. I'd suggest removing the router and seeing if the connection works again, and then go to the isps website and search in support and just see what comes up for routers etc.
That wouldn't be the case. The router is already using a different MAC address. If it was a MAC address problem then it wouldn't work at all. When you only hook one computer up to the router it doesn't use that computer's MAC address, it uses the MAC address of the WAN port on the router. If the internet is working at all (through the router), that means that his router is getting an IP from his ISP's DHCP server. If his ISP was requiring a certain MAC address, then his router would have to be reporting that MAC address to obtain an IP.
The only possible deviation here would be if he accidently swapped it between router and gateway mode. But if that was that case, it would only mean that one computer would work and the other wouldn't. Adding the that didn't work to the switch wouldn't shut down the other computer from working, but that's what he says is going on.