Setting up new router

CathJ

CathJ

Expert Member
Joined
Nov 2, 2005
Messages
3,878
Reaction score
10
Location
Cape Town
My dad got a new adsl router/modem for work last week, since the old one stopped working, and asked me to help him set it up. Which should be really easy, right? But no....

The lights on the modem are all correct; it's connecting to his ISP (Telkom) and authenticating just fine. So it seems like the link from the modem to the ISP is fine; but there's something not right between the modem and the PC because he can't browse anywhere. I tried to ping a couple of sites, but it syas "Could not find host ...". So it seems like it's not connecting to the DNS server.

I know it's difficult to diagnose these things remotely, but is this symptomatic of something obvious that I've forgotten to set up? I'd imagine something to do with the DHCP or DNS settings? It's a DLink DL-2500U. (It's definitely something related to this modem - I've got him set up on my old Telkom Mega200 in the meantime, and that works just fine).
 
Last edited:
Set everything to DHCP and see what happens. It sounds like you have missing or wrong DNS entries there (I presume you can access the router's web interface). Or alternatively find out the correct DNS settings from your ISP.
 
Last edited:
ruan567 said:
Set everything to DHCP and see what happens. It sounds like you have missing or wrong DNS entries there (I presume you can access the router's web interface). Or alternatively find out the correct DNS settings from your ISP.
Click to expand...

I have enabled DHCP; I haven't tried setting the DNS entries manually (I had them set to auto-assigned), but I'll try that this evening.

ChillGirl said:
How did the router stop working? Old Lightening?
Click to expand...
Not sure - suddenly all the lan port lights started acting strange and it wouldn't sync. We haven't had lightning lately, so it couldn't have been that, but could have been a power surge, I guess.

ClockSpeed said:
Reset the router and re-enter the username and password...
Click to expand...
Done that. Many times :)
 
1. Can you ping the router from the pc?
2. Try these DNS settings on the PC 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220
 
ponder said:
1. Can you ping the router from the pc?
2. Try these DNS settings on the PC 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220
Click to expand...

I haven't tried pinging the router, but can access it's web interface at 192.168.1.1, so I assume pinging would work. I'll try that and the DNS settings this evening.
 
Upgrading the firmware of the DSL-2500U would also be worth while! Before I upgraded my friend's DSL-2500U's firmware, it didn't have DynDNS capabilities and a few other features was missing too!

You can also try using 'nslookup <hostname> (<DNS server>)' from within Command Prompt to try and sort out your DNS server issues.
eg. nslookup www.google.co.za 8.8.8.8, where www.google.co.za is the <hostname> you're trying to resolve to an IP address and 8.8.8.8 is Google's <DNS server>

If you leave out the <DNS server> field, then it would use your PC's configured DNS server (which should be 192.168.1.1 in your case)
eg. nslookup www.google.co.za

Just note that using international DNS servers (like Google / OpenDNS) might result in the web browsing being slower than usual AND it would result in CDN (content distribution network) sites not working correctly, since it won't provide local mirrors.
 
I'm using a DSL-2560U and also had similar issues when I swopped out my old Marconi POTS modem - I eventually manually added my ISP's DNS settings (switched off the auto DNS on the D-Link) and then disabled the DHCP temporarily and manually allocated IP addresses to all my connected PC's - worked perfectly after that.

I have 2 PC's connected permanently, with the following settings:
Router/Modem:
192.168.1.1 (default gateway)
Sub Mask 255.255.255.0
DNS: as per ISP

PC 1:
IP: 192.168.1.2
Sub Mask: 255.255.255.0
DNS: set to auto

PC 2: 192.168.1.3
other settings the same

DHCP range was then changed to 192.168.1.5 to 192.168.1.7
This is for my laptops (mine and wife's) to connect when needed.
 
Also make sure the ADSL settings is on LLC-Based, VPI 8 and VCI 35. Have seen it a few times where off the shelf routers don't have those values as standard.
 
Thanks for all the advice - still haven't gotten it working, but I've given up for today because I'm just too irritated with it to carry on now! How the ordinary non-techie person is supposed to get this to work, I don't know...


So here's a summary of what I've tried, based on the suggestions above:
- I can ping the router at 192.168.1.1 successfully
- I have set the LLC/VPC/VPI correctly
- I've established that it's not the LAN card or the PC, since the router isn't working on my PC either, and my router is working on my dad's PC
- I've set the DNS servers to the openDNS settings, but that didn't help; neither can I ping those servers successfully
- I've tried howardb's solution, which seemed the most promising since he had the same problem on the same router! I've disabled automatic DNS address on the router, and set them manually to the openDNS values; and I've disabled DHCP on the router; and set both the router IP address and the default gateway on the router to 192.168.1.1 Then on the PC, I've disabled the auto DNS and set them to the open DNS settings; I've also disabled auto IP addresses and assigned an IP address of 192.168.1.2 to the PC, with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and a default gateway of 192.168.1.1 This still doesn't seem to work, so I'm not sure if it's the wrong solution or if I've just set something up wrong.

I assume Telkom doesn't use the Seacom cable? Because I was having trouble with my normal afrihost connection today as well, so I'm wondering if my tests failing were maybe due to a complete lack of access due to the repairs on seacom?
 
Hard reset the router with a needle/something, set to 8/35 and use telkom guest account as credentials via PPPoE. Then ping the Telkom website IPs.

Pinging telkom.co.za [196.43.22.222] with 32 bytes of data:
Pinging telkom.net [125.160.17.26] with 32 bytes of data:

If that doesn't work then disconnect all the phones in the house and remove the pots filters & repeat. If its still no good & works with your modem then go shout at telkom to fix the line.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X