At 10:28 08/17/01, Ira Wallin wrote:
>I have a cable modem going just fine.  I purchased a Linksys
>4-port Etherfast Cable/DSL router today in order to run a
>couple of PCs off the one cable modem.  So far, it does not
>work....


Hi Ira

First suggestion here...unplug the router's power cable for a
few minutes and then power it up again. Then reboot the computer.
Sometimes that's all it takes.

Assuming that didn't help...

If you can enter http://192.168.1.1/ into Internet Explorer's
address window and access the router's web configuration screens,
then your wiring is okay. (The ethernet cable from your modem
should go to the router's WAN port and you want a cable to run
from the computer's network card to one of the router's WAN ports.
(Not the uplink port though. Avoid the end ports for now.) Use
straight through ethernet patch cables.

Maybe your Internet provider validates your connection by the
MAC address of the NIC in your computer. The router has two
MAC addresses, one it presents to the Internet and one it
presents to your home LAN. The MAC address that the router has
on its WAN side (Internet side) is now seen by your Internet
provider instead of (as before) the MAC address of your
computer's network card.

Fortunately, your router lets you change its WAN side MAC
address. You should change it to be the same as the MAC address
of your computer's NIC. This is called cloning the MAC address.

Where in the router's web setup pages you do this depends on
the router's firmware revision (the revision number is given
on the router's Setup page). With firmware 1.39, you click
the Advanced tab, then go to the "MAC Address Clone" screen
and enter a different MAC address.

     The "user-defined WAN MAC address setting" was first added
     with firmware revision 1.30.5. Until version 1.37, the
     setting was on the Setup page. (Clicking on the words "MAC
     Address..." sent you to a screen where it could be changed.)
     If I'm wrong about it having been on the Setup screen, then
     it was on the Status screen.

To find the MAC address of your computer's NIC, run Winipcfg
from the Start, Run menu. (You didn't say whether you use Win9x
or WinNT or Win2k. For the later, the command is Ipconfig.) Be
sure your network card is selected on the Winipcfg screen and
not your dial up adaptor). The Adaptor address shown is the MAC
address. It's a 12 digit alphanumeric string. Copy this 12 digit
string to the router's "MAC Address Clone" screen and "Apply" it.

Now your router will look the same to your Internet Provider
as your computer. Sometimes it helps if you enter your computer's
name (it's network name) in the appropriate space at the top of
the Setup screen of the router. (Leave the Domain space blank
unless you know what to put there.)

At this point, go to the router's Status screen and see if you
have automatically gotten an IP address, subnet mask, default
gateway, and DNS server addresses from your Internet Provider. If
not, click the DHCP Release button and then click the DHCP Renew
button. (If those buttons are not there then you really should
update your firmware. Anyway, you can get the same effect
by powering down the router and then powering it up again.)

Go to the router's DHCP screen and be sure "DHCP Server" is
enabled and that you have entries in the "Starting IP address"
and "Number of DHCP users" spaces. Default values are
192.168.1.100 and some number (20?) which I forget. These
default numbers should be okay for now.

I assume your computer's TCP/IP settings are the default "Obtain
an IP address automatically" and "Obtain DNS server address
automatically" ...or words to that effect. (I'm using Win2k
now...but I recall that the Win98 default TCP/IP settings that
you want.)

If your router gets an IP address but your computer doesn't
get an address something like 192.168.1.100, reboot or run
Winipcfg and do a "release" and then "renew" from there. (Your
computer gets its IP address from the router in a similar way
to how your router gets its IP address from the Internet
Provider's DHCP server.)

Mail the list or email me if you are not sure how to update
your router's firmware. For me, version 1.39 has been by far
the best version released. (I had problems with every version
between 1.21 and 1.38...but all is working fine now.) Flashing
the router's BIOS is surprisingly easy.

Note: Sometimes you have to "refresh" the router's setup
screens in Internet Explorer to see changes made. (The older
screens can keep showing because they're "cached", instead of
the changed screens.) Something to be aware of.

Regards,
Bill

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