Wife and I have been using wired internet for a while but with a couple of laptops now we're looking to set up a wireless network. We've had a Belkin wireless router for some time but never used it.

I unplugged the wire that was going from our internet router into the laptop and put it in the back of the Belkin. My laptop and also my wife's show the wireless network and pick up a good signal strength but our browsers fail to connect to the internet through it.

The 'Connected' light on it doesn't light up which seems a bit odd as the phone line goes from the wall into the internet router thing and then straight into the wireless router.

We called Belkin technical help and they said it must be a browser problem...unlikely since my wife's Mac has been very happy with other wireless networks we've used and this Windows 2000 laptop is connected to other flaky wi-fi signals in our neighbourhood.

I suspect the router is on the way out. Any confirmation if my suspicions sound correct based on the above would be most welcome.

Thanks

Sounds like you need to configure the router.

First of all; does your PC get an IP address from the router?

(Click Start, then RUN, then CMD, then at the prompt, enter ipconfig. For your Ethernet adapter, you should see an IP address like 192.168.1.2 (or similar).

Then, in your browser, try and surf to 192.168.2.1 (which I think is the I for all Belkin router config pages). You should find a config wizard somewhere there.

Do you get wireless from a cable modem? If so, you need to power off the cable modem and then plug it back in. That should help the wireless router get the connection to the cable modem.

You'll still need to configure it and make sure it is online, which ScottC provides good suggestions for the initial testing of. Another thing to try is if the wireless router has a wired port you can plug the laptop in to it directly. That will tell you if it is a router configuration issue or a wireless issue.

Are you using DSL (hence INTERNET from the Phone Company) or CABLE?

Is the "Internet Router" the modem or another router in between the Belkin and modem?

If it is another Router than you have to ensure (as ScottC wrote) to setup the Belkin otherwise it will not work. Also make sure that you have plugged the wire from the "Internet Router" into the WAN port of the Belkin.

Dan

And failing all that ... there's a long-shot possibility that the 8-wire, network jumper-cable between the modem & router is the wrong configuration.

Seems there's 'straight-thru' & 'cross-over' wiring configs, and if what you have isn't what it wants... you get nada.

Won't even try to explain ... just sayin' ~ BTDT.
/.

It sounds like you have not configured the router to connect to the internet (assuming you are using DSL from the telephone company). You probably need to tell it what your log in and password are so it can connect.


Also, if it's DSL (or even cable) you don't want a "phone line" cable connecting the modem to the wireless router, you want a network cable for that.

I have never had trouble in initial setup, right out of the box, with Belkin routers with both DSL and cable.

If you haven't done so, be sure to reset the router to factory defaults. There should be a little pinhole on the router. Use a paper clip and hold it in for several seconds. Then power off for a minute.

Has this router ever worked? Which specific model number is it?

OP said:

-David

It must've been really bad...the OP hasn't managed to get it back online yet.

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it but we're back to wired internet for the moment

To answer the questions we are using a Motorola cable modem.

I managed to get onto the Belkin router config page from my laptop, as per ScottC's advice but there didn't seem to be a configure wizard or some such and it asked for a password to do anything...which we didn't have. It appears my father-in-law did use the router a few years back but the usual passwords he told us on the phone didn't seem to work.

We poked around online and set the thing up like their instructions suggested. We put the network cable (from laptop to wireless router) into the back of the router but the corresponding LAN port light didn't show up and we weren't getting anywhere following the instructions. My wife called Belkin and they said to reset the router (using the method SoLittleMiles-SoLittleTime suggested) but then we never seemed to get connected again. The 'Connected' light would come on for a few seconds but would then go out, I tried to get the browser to work in the short time whilst it was on but with no luck. Belkin have said they'll get back to us and send a new router, they haven't got back to us yet.

I was almost waiting for the 'You're too stupid to own a computer' comment from the guy on the phone

That's not a problem. Just do a reset of the device. There should be a pinhole in the back for resetting. With the router on, use a paperclip to press and hold that button in. The password will be set to the default. On the Belkins I have used, that is a blank password...just click enter when the password screen comes up.

Ahhhh...didn't realise the password would be reset too.

The good news is I've managed, some how, get it working and I'm wirelessly connected as we speak, as is my wife. Thanks for your help and useful comments, I really appreciate all your input with my rather dumb questions ^

Despite Google and the Belkin website we haven't figured out how to secure the wireless network with a password, though I was able to get the MAC numbers for each of our laptops and only allowed those which is just as good by the sounds of things.

On my Belkin config page, the security settings are in the 'Security' tab underneath 'Wireless' on the lefthand column.

MAC Address filtering will stop the casual surfer, and in all honesty there's nothing you can do on a cheap, home-grade 802.11 access point to stop a truly determined expert, so that's probably good enough.

In addition, if you keep your computers turned off when not using them, and/or don't have any shared network services on them, the only thing a casual attacker is likely to do is borrow some of your Internet bandwidth, and you probably don't care about that anyway.


Bob

MAC filtering isn't really that secure. The best bet is WPA encryption, which should be an option with your router. Following that, WEP encryption is marginally acceptable.