My home network is in a right mess- can you help?

JulyKnot

I am getting more and more confused and not sure what is wrong.

Here is my setup:
Netgear 834pn modem router
Netgear WN3000RP wifi externder
A)Windows 7 desktop
B)Windows 7 laptop
C) Windows 8 laptop - very new and still getting to grips with it.
HP wireless printer/scanner copier.
A, B, C connected wirelessly

My first concern is that when I log into the router and look for 'attached devices', none are listed.
Yet when I go to each individual machine, and look at network connection details I can see an IPv4 number for each of A B and C

Second concern is that all of a sudden, Widows 7 laptop won't connect to the internet. It is connected to the extender ( as they all are) but the network and sharing centre states unidentified network no internet even though it is connected to the extender like the other devices.

All three machines had been on a home network (with password) but when I go to windows explorer on Win 8 laptop, sometimes the other machines are seen and sometimes not.

Twice now, I have had to use troubleshooter to get W8 laptop to see available network.

I'm even more confused with the printer side of things and will shortly remove the printer from all machines and start again.

First of all, how can I make B connect to the internet like it used to and recognise the network?

Figment

First reboot the router
Then reboot each device
If is still showing as 'unidentified network', go into the Network and Sharing Center. In the second panel down, is your network shown with a park bench icon? If so, try clicking the wording underneath the icon and change the network type to 'Home Network'. If this doesn't work, click on Change Adapter settings (menu on left) and then right click the icon for your wireless network adapter and click on Disable. Wait 5 seconds then right click again and this time click enable.


As for the wireless printer, you need to set it to use a static (fixed) IP which is outside the range of numbers automatically allocated by DHCP, or bind an IP address to the printer in the router's admin pages (this reserves a specific IP for it to use) You will then need to update the settings on each device to use this specific IP for the printer. (HP printers often have a utility to do this, which if installed you will find by clicking Start > All Programs > [HP Printer folder]

JulyKnot

Thanks for replying. I'll go and try all that now.

JulyKnot

I'm being very slow with this and doing one thing at a time.

Have turned router off and on again and rebooted Windows 7 pc only for now.

Can access internet wirelessly from it and it says connected to the extender.

When I log into the router it only finds one unknown IP address and I am guessing perhaps it's the extender's IP address?

Have I actually got two networks or one?
List of connections available are mySSID and mySSID-EXT. Win7 pc and phone connected to mySSIS-EXT.

Any reason why my router login doesn't pick up the pc and phone IP addresses?

I'm off to switch the win7 laptop on now and see what happens but I am sitting here confused whether there are in fact two separate networks.

JulyKnot

I have now turned on Win 7 laptop and all is behaving as it should and accessing the internet and connected to the extender without any further input from me.

Once again have logged into the router and it can only see one unknown device whuch I now feel sure is the extender. As pc, phone and laptop are connected to the extender, could that be why the router can't "see" them?

JulyKnot

Figment wrote: »

First reboot the router
Then reboot each device
If is still showing as 'unidentified network', go into the Network and Sharing Center. In the second panel down, is your network shown with a park bench icon? If so, try clicking the wording underneath the icon and change the network type to 'Home Network'. If this doesn't work, click on Change Adapter settings (menu on left) and then right click the icon for your wireless network adapter and click on Disable. Wait 5 seconds then right click again and this time click enable.

Finally I switched on the win 8 laptop and this time when I connected to the extender, this machine is now saying unidentified network and won't connect to the internet.
I've tried disabling and re-enabling without success.
I just don't understand what the problem is and why it's flitting from one machine to another.

JulyKnot

I've run Windows network diagnostics and it says " wifi doesn't have valid IP configuration" Not fixed.
Yet I had internet on this machine this morning before I switched everything off.
Can anyone shed any light?

JulyKnot

I've now connected the win 8 laptop via ethernet to router and router login now recognises the win 8 laptop with an ip address plus the unknown one which must be the extender.

I still can't get win 8 to connect wirelessly but the other two machines will. The problem seems to have hopped from win 7 laptop to win 8 laptop since rebooting all devices.
Very annoying and total mystery to me. Can anyone help at all?

Figment

mySSID will be the router, mySSID-EXT the extender. I do not know whether they work as one or two networks, but in theory they should work as one with the extender working as a slave for the router. Only one of them (the router) should be set as a DHCP server. If the extender has DHCP capabilities it should be disabled. If enabled on both you are likely to get IP address conflicts or other network issues.

I'm guessing here, but I think you cannot see the devices connected to the router because they are not connected directly to it but to the extender. Does the extender have it's own web admin page? If so, logging into this may show those devices.

JulyKnot

Thanks for giving me a clue there.
I have logged into mywifiext.net and sure enough the win7 pc and win 7 laptop are showing there ( as is the printer I believe).
It also says connection status to existing network with mySSID name there = connected.
Also the mystery IP address that the router login picked up was indeed the extender.



So the present situation seems to be:

Connected to router: extender ( wirelessly) win 8 latop ( ethernet)

Connected to extender: phone, printer, win 7 laptop and win 7 pc.

As soon as I unplug win 8 ethernet cable and try to connect to mySSID ext, I get limited connection ( ie no internet) and it won't let me connect to mySSID at all.
Troubleshooting doesn't fix.

Help!

JulyKnot

Oh, and in mywifiext.net, it says that there is a firmware upgrade available but I won't even try that yet until I can get win 8 laptop connected again wirelessly.