Strange router problem

paulpud

In our small office we have an O2 Wireless Box II router with 3 PCs and a network drive connected to it. It is the router that was supplied to us by O2 before their broadband switched to Sky 2 or 3 years ago.

Yesterday the PCs all lost their internet connection so I simply turned the router off for a few seconds, rebooted it and all was well. About 3 or 4 hours later, the same thing happened again whilst all the lights on the router were illuminated so I tried to access the router settings via a browser but it wouldn't connect to it, although the PCs were all still communicating with each other over the network. As our phones were still connected to the internet wirelessly it seems that it is the connection between the ethernet ports and the internet that is going down which can be cured by turning off and on again.

I'm going away for a couple of weeks soon and I really need to make sure this isn't going to happen in my absence. Does anyone have any experience of sorting out this kind of problem or do I simply need a new router? If so are there any recommendations that would be easy to set up on our Sky (formerly O2) broadband connection?

kwikbreaks

Make sure nobody is torrenting. Lots of routers don't have sufficiently large internal tables to cope with that and the result is a lock up. Failing that complain to Sky and get a replacement or better still buy a decent router which would let you lockdown on sites and activities.

Surely leaving instructions to power cycle the thing in the event of a failure wouldn't be too hard?

dcouponzzzz

Be careful buying a new router, I'm not sure if Sky changed their policy since I was with them but you may be restricted to router's provided by Sky only.

paulpud

The internet here is used only by myself and 2 others who I know really well and there is no torrenting or large downloads happening, we just use it for email and browsing when we need to.

Leaving instructions to reboot it will be issued for sure but my only concern would be if that procedure stopped working and my boss got someone in to 'repair' it like the last time our system went wrong when I was away (I was not a happy bunny on my return!)

As this router is a few years old and before O2 switched over to Sky, I'd imagine they wouldn't exactly be tripping over themselves to send us a replacement so I did think about buying one and setting it up myself, which I'm pretty sure you can do.

dcouponzzzz

My experience with replacing a sky router was about 10 years ago, and when plugging in the new device it asked for a MAC code or something, which you should be able to discover on the previous router. This option was disabled by Sky and after speaking to customer services they stated it was a breach of their terms and conditions to attempt to use any other device.

I found an online extractor tool which pulled the required code and installed the new device regardless.

Worth checking with Sky before you go ahead and purchase a new router.

Rubidium

paulpud wrote: »

The internet here is used only by myself and 2 others who I know really well and there is no torrenting or large downloads happening, we just use it for email and browsing when we need to.

Leaving instructions to reboot it will be issued for sure but my only concern would be if that procedure stopped working and my boss got someone in to 'repair' it like the last time our system went wrong when I was away (I was not a happy bunny on my return!)

As this router is a few years old and before O2 switched over to Sky, I'd imagine they wouldn't exactly be tripping over themselves to send us a replacement so I did think about buying one and setting it up myself, which I'm pretty sure you can do.

As it's old simple pick up another router to try, there are plenty available and it does not have to be a Sky hub.

You can configure any ADSL router using the following details:

Encapsulation: PPPoA
Username: install@o2broadband.co.uk
Password: install
VPI: 0
VCI: 38
Multiplexing: VC-BASED

paulpud

Thanks for the responses. I do have an old netgear ADSL router at home so I'll give that a go I think.

esuhl

I had a line fault, and one of the first steps the Sky troubleshooting person suggested was to send me a new router. (I also had an old O2 one at the time.)

They charged me £6.95 delivery, (but they didn't tell me at the time so I got them to refund it!).

ISP-supplied routers are cheaply made, so maybe your O2 one has had it's day.