Absolute networking genius required

thor

I would be very grateful if someone could help me out with the following problem.
My main WinXP desktop is attached to a wireless Belkin router which was itself attached to a terayon cable modem(for ntl broadband internet). I have 2 other computers linked wirelessly to the router. My problem began when I read something about network bridges and how unneccessary they were for a network configuration like mine. I decided that I would disable it and see what happens as i could easily enough re-enable later. Well after I disabled I noticed that I had lost the link to the router so I immediately activated it again. To my dismay I discovered that I could not gain access to the net again therefore I decided to reboot the router and the modem. This did not work as the modem was not able to connect to the Internet even though the WAN link was good.
Feeling very worried I connected the modem directly to the PC and saw that there was still no internet connection so I began to get desperate and started to enable/disable everything in sight. Eventually I hit upon a non satisfactory solution by disabling and reenabling the network bridge and rebooting the modem I could at least get the internet connection back when the modem was connected to the PC directly. So this leaves me unable to get the router to connect to the internet and having to go through the temporary fix each time I boot up my PC. How could this happen as it was all working very well before I decided to disable the network bridge initially?
So does anyone have a clue? Do I need a network bridge for my situation of connecting the 3 pcs to the router for internet access and why when I re-enabled the bridge does it not work when it previously did?
This has got to be a toughie.
Oh and here are the 3 items in my 'Network Connections' area


1394 Connection
Network Bridge (Network Bridge) 2
Local Area Connection

banger9365

if you have your belkin on cable why don't you run the beklin cd for installation that came with the router ,and it should set it all back up
is yor router a wireless g router model no f5d7230-4

if you have changed your pc or lan card it mite take a few hours to reconise the new mac addrees of the lan card on NTL's system put it should not because i think they changed it a few years ago , i do not think you have to ,like you did on blueyonder which is ntl now ,that why you mite not get a conection stait from the modem

if you still have problems with the belkin ring them up (belkin)they are very good and will sort it in minutes (and it a free phone number)

westie666

When you did a reset, did you use the paper clip in the back of the router/modem and hold in for at least 10 seconds. If so the this should put it back to factory settings.....

albertross_2

I can't think of a reason why you would need a network bridge..(that bridges your internal network with the internet.. not a good idea)

The router should be working independently of the PC, and therefore a change on that PC could mess up the link between it and the router (and therefore the internet), but it shouldn't affect your internet link for the other 2 PC's.. Are they working? If not, can you get into the router config screen, and see if it is connected to NTL - 192.168.2.1 (I think?).

When you are changing between PC - Router, and PC - Cable modem, then you may need to do a

start, run, ipconfig /release and then ipconfig /renew.

As one will be dishing out a local 192.* address (assuming that you have NAT enabled on the router), and the other will be an NTL IP address..

If that works, I'd be tempted to delete the bridge altogether. If you are still having problems, post an ipconfig /all report (after removing any personal information (hardware mac addresses, names etc..)

Have you tried putting your dodgy Netgear back on?

thor

That's why I got into this mess because I thought that the network bridge was not needed and disabled it.
I've tried the other desktop but my laptop does not connect with the router either when I link it directly via a lan cable.
I've done the ipconfig renew and modem reset but that did not work and I can't get into the modem config screen anymore either. I've just managed to get the Internet working when connected to my main PC directly by removing the LAN from the bridge and then disabling the bridge so that is progress of some sort as it is the 1st time the Internet has worked without the N bridge enabled. I'll have another go now with both the netgear and belkin routers to see what happens. If i can get into their config screens is there anything I can change to get the internet to connect to the routers?

Chippy_Minton

Try a System Restore to an earlier time. It's in Start - Help and Support - Undo changes to your computer with System Restore.

T4i

No bridge required.

To connect 3 p.c's to the net all is needed is a router. A bridge is only required in a LAN situation for sperating collision domains.

A bridge is only needed if a high volume of bandwidth is required.

T4i

I would create a manual network. Turn DHCP off.

Use the TCP/IP properties to give all 3 of your p.c's a IP within the range of your router.

Router > 192.168.0.1

PC1 > 192.168.0.2
PC2 > 192.168.0.3
PC3 > 192.168.0.4

All have subnet mask of 255.255.255.0

Gateway on every p.c will be 192.168.0.1
And DNS is 192.168.0.1 (or find the DNS servers for your ISP and use them)

thor

Wahey...it's all working again!!!! After my last post I went away and played a bit of footie for an hour and a half and then decided to try the belkin router again. As soon as it booted up it got the internet signal and I had access to the net on my desktops and even my wireless laptop. I can't really say what particular action was the fix but now I am back to where I was before it all went wrong and the bonus is that the network bridge is disabled(I still don't fully understand why it would be dangerous to have it enabled though).
I don't know about anyone else but it sure feels good to have Internet working properly again. I have found that if I go without it for a day I begin to suffer withdrawal symptoms.
Anyway, thanks to all who replied as everyone had at least one good suggestion.

albertross_2

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wcemacbr/html/cerefNetworkBridgingSecurity.asp