Apologies for the dumb question - I'm not a computer guy.

Recently installed a wireless router - I use two desktops - no laptop. The wirelss is strictly to access the internet on the second computer, nothing more.

This thing drives me nuts! It's very temperamental, and fails on a regular basis, prompting about a one hour phone call to Linksys to reconfigure the router each time. Uggghhhh.

I was wondering if it's possible to just hard wire the computers to the DSL modem without using the router. Some sort of ethernet cable splitter after the modem, with an ethernet cable going to each computer?

It sounds too simple, so I'm pretty sure it won't work.

Thanks, guys.

Al

I think you should be able to do this. Take the linksys back and trade it for a netwrok router(non-wireless). We do it at the shop all the time....

your wireless router may have ethernet connections on the back?

you really want that/any router between your modem and your network because it acts as a firewall to keep out the bad guys.

your wireless router will have 4 ethernet connections on the back, so you could use those to hardwire it if you choose, but...

I'm assuming you are connected like this:

phoneline to dsl modem

dsl modem to WAN port on router

1 PC hardwired to one of the LAN ports on the router

Wireless adapter on second PC.

Correct me where I'm wrong (are both PC's on wireless?), and tell me, is it only the computer on wireless that is losing it's connection? Or is it both of them?

If it's only the one on wireless, you might try getting an updated driver for the wireless adapter in that computer. I've found these things to be kinda "hinky" sometimes.

yes. hinky. my wireless will drop if the microwave is used. also, one of my neighbors got something for christmas that they use in the morning that causes my wireless to drop. I tried every freq, to no avail. As more and more people are getting wireless devices, the spectrum is becoming very noisy. The further you are from your antennae, the more troubling it is...
I understand the desire to hardwire to the router.

Jim - you are correct in the wiring. Phone line to modem, modem to router, one PC hardwired from router, the other is wireless. The router DOES have 4 ethernet connections on the back of it.

The problem is that when the router has a hiccup, NEITHER PC will access the internet. The hardwired one will work if I bypass the router, but that sucks when I hafta disconnect cables and all.

Don't loose the router Al! As others have said it should have several hard wire connections in the back. Get yourself 2 rj45 jacks and enough cat-5 cable to get from the router to the second computer. Run the cat-5 cable along baseboards and through walls and terminate each end with an rj45 jack. You can also go into the Attic or under the floor for a cleaner install... Keep it under 300 feet and your good to go. Now get 2 pre-terminated cat-5 cables, one for the pc to the jack and teh other from the router to the jack. This way you don't need any special crimpers and as long as you wire each jack the same you are good to go, you don't need to know any more about the cabling...

Don't forget you will need a LAN card in the second PC and don't forget to disable the wifi from your router...

You could buy a hub and do the same thing but the router provides a hardware firewall that you don't want to be without... Also your router acts as a dhcp host and assigns IP addresses to the PC's. If you choose to run a hub instead of a router you will have to pay your provider for additional ip addresses most likely.

If by chance your router doesn't have more than one lan drop you can still use it and buy an inexpensive hub and feed the hub from the router. Then connect the pc's to the hub.

hows does the hiccup manifest?

Is your computer, modem, router all on and working fine...and then they don't? Do you leave your computer (the one wired to the router) on all the time? Do you have a software firewall? How frequently does this occur?

Routers can be bad, but it seems unusual. Is it new? Has it always done this?
If you've been online with linksys, you've probably done a firmware update, but if not, here is the link:
http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Content_C1&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1115416835852&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

Scott

Thanks for the replies. I like your idea Dennis - I could do that easily running the cable through the attic.

Scott - The first time the router goofed was during a power outage. When the juice came back on, the router needed to be reconfigured. Yesterday, it just quit for no apparent reason. Funny thing is, it started working again about an hour later for no apparent reason. I'm fairly sure it was the router, because when I bypassed it on the hardwired PC, I had internet access.

Regarding the LAN card - the PC that is currently wireless has an R45 jack in the back. Should I assume I'm good to go?

Oh yeah - how do I "disable" the wireless in the router?

Thanks again.

I went back and read some of your other networking posts to refresh my memory. Is one of these computers still ME...which one?

Good memory, Scott. Yes - the wireless PC has the dreaded ME.

The first time the router goofed was during a power outage. When the juice came back on, the router needed to be reconfigured.
This could be bad. If you got a power spike and internally damaged the equipment. If it had to be reconfigured, something happened to cause it to do a "hard reset"...
Yesterday, it just quit for no apparent reason. Funny thing is, it started working again about an hour later for no apparent reason.
By quit, you mean you lost internet access, or the box lost power?


Regarding the LAN card - the PC that is currently wireless has an R45 jack in the back. Should I assume I'm good to go?
yes
Oh yeah - how do I "disable" the wireless in the router?
In your browser, type in 192.168.1.1 for the internet address. This will access the internals of the box. On the wireless tab, you will see an enable or disable select bubble. On the Administration tab, there is a firmware upgrade subtab...this is where you go once you have uploaded the latest firmware file to your desktop or wherever you downloaded it to.

If there is an rj45 in the back of the PC it's a LAN card. If it's a modem it will be a smaller jack (rj11). You access and control the router through a web browser window. You connect to the router by it's internal IP address... To find that open a command prompt (dos) window and type "ipconfig" from the PC that is working on the hard wire already. The default gateway is the routers internal IP address. Mines 192.168.0.1

Scott - the power outage was about a month ago. The problem yesterday was loss of internet, not loss of power to the box.

On the 192.168.1.1 - which PC do I do that from? The hardwired or the wireless?

Thanks - and sorry again for my ignorance.

technically it doesnt matter. but do it from the hardwired one in case you get dropped in the interim or if someone is watching your traffic...
I forgot, you will get a login box.
Unless you changed it, just hit ok and you should get in.
Or try username: admin and leave the password blank
Scott

Scott - PM'ed you back. Thanks guys - when I get back from vac I'll hardwire it and I'm sure we'll be talking!

Al

you can access the router from either PC. You should get a login prompt when you type that address in and hit enter (http://196.169.1.1)

If you don't get the login prompt, the address is wrong. open a dos window and type ipconfig and hit enter, what shows as the "gateway" address is the one you want.

Once you get the login prompt, the default user id for a linksys is "admin" and there is no password.

All that said, if you lose both the wireless and the hardwared PC, going to all hardwire ain't gonna help, not one lil bit.

You have a wounded router. Do the firmware upgrade. If that doesn't work, call linksys and get them to replace it. If it's out of warantee, buy a new one.

In the meantime, unplugging the power from the router, counting to ten, and pluging it back in should get you going again.

Everyone has posted some great advice. I've been out of town all weekend or I would have replied earlier. I just want to make sure that you aren't jumping the gun with going the hardwired route too soon. Like Jim said in his last post, if both PCs are failing, going to hardwired on them both isn't going to make one bit of difference for the problem you're having. You need to either try a firmware upgrade on the router and see if that helps it, or get that router returned for a new one. What model is your linksys router? I've installed 40-50 wireless routers and 99% of the time they work great. In only the rarest case do I run into severe interference where wireless just won't work for a location; and again, it's only the wireless part of the router that is affected by that, not any hard-wired connections. Let's get your router fixed or replaced before you start running new cables around your house.

Christropher
(Network Engineer - Exxon/Mobil)

My old Linxsys router had a tiny button inside a hole in the back that I had to use once when the cable company upgraded lines to the house. Things didnt work right after they were here, dropping signals on hardwire lines and locking up... called Linxsys and the guy had me disconnect all wires, remove power lead, wait 5 minutes, then connect power cord, then push that imbeded button inside that hole with a paper clip or small nail. That reset ALL the settings in the unit. Then plugged in ONE of my PC's and ran the admin setup again. Poof all the gremlins were gone, plugged in other PC and activated my laptop wireless and it all worked again. Something about that router holding settings or bugs I guess. JimM and Chris helped me thru that a few years ago now. :) Still humming along.

I had one of the linksys routers as well. white one.. dont know the model number off hand.. tried to upgrade firmware, reset and such.. in the end it ended up in the trash becuase it would drop my connection at least once a day needing a reset. Got myself a u.s. robotics and havnt had a problem since.

Router is Linksys WRT54GS. Thanks again for all of the help.

If your modem is an Siemens/Efficient modem from ATT and is the small black model it is probably a router already. If it holds the username and password for your account then it is a router. Does it give out an address of 192.168.1.64? If it does then you can assign a static address to one pc and let the modem give out it's one DHCP address to the other pc. Just put 192.168.1.65 in for the static address with the modems address which I think is 192.168.0.1 as the gateway. You can also use the 192.168.0.1 as the DNS server address.
Now you go from the modem to a 4 port hub and plug your 2 pcs into the hub. You need to make sure that the hub you use has an uplink button or you would need a crossover cable. With this setup you can verify if your router is the problem or the modem. A 4 port hub/ switch can be purchased very cheaply.
I have done this before and it worked fine. As soon as I saw the 192.xxx.xxx.xxx address from the modem, I put statics on the other pcs and the newtork worked fine.

Just a couple of things from a partial geek, wireless routers often have a power setting that can be changed. For example, 2-Wire makes a DSL router/modem that has a default of 4, but you can change it to 10 and improve your coverage dramatically. The trick with them is that when you do some of their firmware updates you lose the option to change that setting. You just have to read the notes first. I changed a customer that went from having trouble getting across the house to being able to access it from their neighbor's driveway.

The other thing is that with routers you can't always access them from all machines, some have a proprietary port, like 1 or 4, that only allow access. Mine at home allows me to select the IP addresses that I allow to enter the router setup, which keeps my kids from screwing with it from their machines. The access differs, but many are 192.168.0.1, or is it 168.192.0.1? lol

(use the first one)

It's always easier to spend other people's money, but I find that it is usually easier to just buy a new product than to hassle with embedded equipment that is failing. So many headaches are not worth the money, and you often are taking advantage of newer technology that improves service over what it was before. DSL modems are a perfect example of that.

-shoe

I forgot one important thing, common Wi-Fi is 802.11b,g using bandwidth in the 2.4 Ghz frequency, the same as MANY cordless phones. Changing the channel will help, but you have to avoid the "overlapping" freqencies. For example, several channels have freq that overlap into the adjacent one, so a router on 1 and a phone on 2 could have conflicts. If a microwave oven is directly between you and your base station, you might not like the results either.

Remember another thing, hardwired correctly can result in faster speed over wireless, so I use hardwired connections for my main PC's, then wireless for my PDA, the laptop, and my kids Wi-Fi games. Wired LAN is usually 100meg full duplex, wireless is usually 54meg half duplex. I think.

Be sure your wireless is encrypted, and a simple WEP and SSID is not difficult to set up. That will allow you to exclude other users from accessing your network.

-shoe

I have the same problem with my computers, I have one on wireless and one hardwired into the wirless router, and yes, there is 4 hardwire ports on the back of it. I am having no problems staying connected to the internet on either computer but it absolutely refuses to let me network, I am going to get a 100 foot ethernet cable and hardwire the second computer in, and then I will retry to network them in. I personally hate using the wireless, it is nothing but problems, and it is slower then being hardwired in............007

If you only have 1 machine to connect to the network/internet the couldn't you just plug that machine into your cable/dsl modem and forget the LINKSYS box all together.

Wireless has it's issues but you should not have this many problems. It's something in your configuration or hardware.

If you only have 1 machine to connect to the network/internet the couldn't you just plug that machine into your cable/dsl modem and forget the LINKSYS box all together.

Wireless has it's issues but you should not have this many problems. It's something in your configuration or hardware.


You could but that router (Linksys) has a firewall built in which helps protect you. Every little bit helps in today's crazy world.

Just thought I'd update this one.

Several months ago I gave up on the Linksys router and just did without internet on the other computer. A few weeks ago, my DSL modem died, so I bought a new one with wireless capability. Thinking all of my problems were solved, I hooked up the USB adapter and was ready to use the web on the second computer.....

I came real close to smashing the whole thing - computer, adapter and all with a hammer. It would connect about 10% of the time.

Yesterday, I went to the local electric supply store and bought a bunch of cat-5 cable and 2 RJ45 jacks. I ran the wire up and through the attic and into the room with computer #2. Plugged one end into the back of the modem and the other end into the back of the computer.

Guess what? It works!! Flawlessly!! No more wirelss for this kid - although my wife's laptop connects to the wirelss network just fine every time.

Thanks again for all of the help!

Al

Ya, it was like that for me too, bought a bunch of stupid wireless BS, it all worked but for that to happen I think that the planets needed to be aligned or something like that. Finally I just hardwired it and 'WHALLA! works awsome! you know what they say-"If it aint broke........dont fix it" lol, glad to see I wasn't the only one that went through that.......007