Hard disk problem

[Trev]

At the risk of dragging this back on topic (Yes, I know it was sort of me in post@29 but I was curious to know wht SF had two routers hooked up in series. But now I know).

Stone Free. Have you tried setting the box's network addresses to DHCP rather than manual?
It is usual that the Gateway and DNS addresses on the box are the same IP address as the address which accesses your router logon page. You said in post #30 that the 'router page' is 192.168.0.1 (that's the standard base address for Netgear to access the router management web page which is what I assume you to mean) but you said the box's Gateway address was 192.168.1.1. This is likely to be wrong, or was that a typo/memory fade? You also said that you think that 192.168.1.1 accessed the WCN4004 router.

As you say that you did "briefly play silly buggers with the ip address" (in the range 192.168.1.xxx), I assume that you have manual network settings selected on the T2? Set it to DHCP and see what happens. It worked for the other person who was having a similar, if not the same problem.

From what you have said above, I suspect this. The old WCN4004 router base address was 192.168.1.1 and you had the T2 correctly set to manual network settings pointing to that address for Gateway and DNS and had set the T2 address to 191.168.1.10. You then changed the router to the Netgear which has a base address of 192.168.0.1 but didn't change the network settings on the T2 to the new base address.

But there is also a strong possibility that I could be talking out of my ass at this time of the morning.

 

[Stone Free]

Trev, the WCN4004 isn't a router its the Wifi-To-Wired Media extender.

The older router was the Netgear DG834. I think it must be this that is giving the address of 192.168.1.1 for the gateway. It is the only device with the ADSL modem, so I imagine that the DG834 is the gateway, so it probably provides the Nighthawk with the internet gateway, and then the Nighthawk passes it on to everybody else.

The WCN4004 instructions imply that it will only offer up a configuration web page when it is directly connected to a PC. Indeed I cannot visit the WCN4004 page by supplying its address in the browsers address bar even if I directly supply it the port number.

It seems that the only time I can access the WCN4004 web page is when my PC fails to find the router. What is strange is that whenever this happens, its not that I try and access www.routerlogin.com or the 192.168.0.1 IP address and the WCN4004 webpage comes up, but the browser seems to automatically open a web page with one of those microsoft.com/go? links, and that page redirects to the WCN4004 Wifi extender/media thingy.

If I then attempt to use www.routerlogin.com or the 192.168.0.1 IP address, it will again go to the WCN4004 webpage. I'm not sure why sometime the PC fails to find the router, and also why internet pages still work in in that state.

 

[Stone Free]

Last night I tried turning off both the routers, but that didn't seem to help, so I got bored and went to bed. I will try turning off the WCN4004, and see if rebooting that helps.

 

[Trev]

It seems to me that you obviously have an IP conflicts going on somewhere.
Simplify your network to minimun devices (use the ADSL modem as the router), and get that working and then expand from there. If your gateway is really 192.168.1.1 then all the other devices on your network should have an address of 192.168.1.xxx. There should be mothing on 192.168.0.xxx. The gateway is usually the device that's dishing out the DHCP addres. You said "so I imagine that the DG834 is the gateway". You really aught to be absolutely certain what is the gateway and what its base address is. The default address for a Netgear router is 192.168.0.1. unless you have changed the Netgear default address......I give up.

 

[Trev]

Have you read and understood the reference that BH supplied in post #26?
Configuring IP Address (click)
Only one of your routers should be set to do that. The server must be switched off on the other one.

 

[Stone Free]

I didn't realise that it didn't have an ADSL modem, but I found out there was a special webpage for my old Netgear DG834 router that allowed you to activate "Modem (Modem Only)" device mode. You then select Other (PPPoE)' under 'Internet Service Provider Name', and from that point on the DHCP server is disabled, and it just allows your Router to receive an ADSL signal.

The link to the article I used is as follows: http://marc.info/?l=pfsense-support&m=129272019312898&q=p6

As I said earlier the first router is no longer acting router, there is a device page that makes it only an ADSL modem, so there is no longer a DHCP server on the original router to conflict with anything.

All my other devices like laptops, smart phones and the TV are accessing the internet fine so far.

 

[MartinLiddle]

As I said earlier the first router is no longer acting router, there is a device page that makes it only an ADSL modem, so there is no longer a DHCP server on the original router to conflict with anything.

Turning off a DHCP server doesn't stop a device being a router. Please can you provide the full IP address the Humax has; the DNS server and the gateway. With those we may be able to see what is going on.

 

[Trev]

...so there is no longer a DHCP server on the original router to conflict with anything.

Then what is causing the mix of IP addresses 192.168.1.xxx and addresses 192.168.0.xxx that you have referred to in a previous post (#30)?

I'm at work at the moment so I can't supply all the info, but yes it was 19.168.XXX.XXX for all the addresses. I think the gateway is 192.168.1.1, the router page is on 192.168.0.1

Please can you provide the full IP address the Humax has; the DNS server and the gateway. With those we may be able to see what is going on.

And confirm the same for your 'other devices that work' are using, but please, not from memory as in post#30.

 

[Stone Free]

Turning off a DHCP server doesn't stop a device being a router. Please can you provide the full IP address the Humax has; the DNS server and the gateway. With those we may be able to see what is going on.

If you read what I said, I didn't turn off the DHCP server, what I did is swap the device mode to "Modem Only", there are no longer any controls over the DHCP as shown in the PDF I linked.

As soon as I get home I fetch the settings from the Nighthawk router

 

[Black Hole]

Simplify the network, get it working, then build up gradually testing at each step.

 

[Trev]

I said that in #44 BH.

 

[MartinLiddle]

If you read what I said, I didn't turn off the DHCP server, what I did is swap the device mode to "Modem Only", there are no longer any controls over the DHCP as shown in the PDF I linked.

OK I understand what you are saying now.

As soon as I get home I fetch the settings from the Nighthawk router

and they are ?

 

[Stone Free]

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

The router web page is indeed the same as the gateway

tracert www.routerlogin.com

Tracing route to www.routerlogin.com [192.168.1.1]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.1

 

[MartinLiddle]

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

The router web page is indeed the same as the gateway

tracert www.routerlogin.com

Tracing route to www.routerlogin.com [192.168.1.1]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.1

Sorry I am still struggling to understand the network. Is the subnet mask and default gateway from the router or the Humax? Is the modem 192.168.0.1? If so shouldn't the default gateway for the router be 192,168.0.1 but the default gateway for the clients (eg the Humax) 192.168.1.1?

 

[Trev]

Is the modem 192.168.0.1? If so shouldn't the default gateway for the router be 192,168.0.1 but the default gateway for the clients (eg the Humax) 192.168.1.1?

No. I think I have got a better handle on it now and his network is using the base address of 192.168.1.xxx. The 192.168.0.1 is a bit of a red herring as it is the login address for the DG834 which he has set up as just a modem, which I assume is hard wired to his NightHawk which is the router/DHCP server in his setup. The default base address of the NightHawk is 192.168.1.0 with the login page at 192.168.1.1 so should be dishing out addresses in the 192.168.1.xxx range.

Let me summarise as I understand your layout. You have an 'old Netgear DG834 router' as the ADSL modem. This is connected somehow to a Netgear NightHawk (ac1900) as a WiFi source. You also have a Netgear WNCE4004 (n900) Video and Gaming Adapter) thrown into the mix somehow.
You say that you have followed the instructions HERE which seems OK, but note that the DG834's login page is 192.168.0.1. unless you have changed it which it did not tell you to do in those instructions.

I have a Netgear router and www.routerlogin.net takes me to its login page which is at IP address 192.168.0.1 which is the same as your DG834.But having done some more research I find that:
The Nighthawk has a base address of 192.168.1.xxx and the login page is at 192.168.1.1

So your default gateway at least tallies with the Nighthawk router address and if all the devices on your network have a unique IP address of 192.168.1.xxx, a default gateway of 192.168.1.1 and a subset mask of 255.255.255.0 then it seems that all is OK with your network so it must be something else causing the problem.

The problem that I, and possibly others, am having is understanding your network topography and thus are having a bit of a problem figuring out what could be causing your problem. Can you not temporarily hardwire the T2 and a computer to the NightHawk and disconnect all other devices that may or may not be clouding the issue.

Just as a matter of interest (again) why have you got the NightHawk (ac1900) and the WNCE4004 (n900) wiFi devices?

 

[Stone Free]

Well I've finally managed to get enough free time to fix the problem.

Last night I tried turning off both the routers, but that didn't seem to help, so I got bored and went to bed. I will try turning off the WCN4004, and see if rebooting that helps.

I have now rebooted the WCN4004, and everything is now working, although nothing looks any different in the Nighthawk router Attached Devices Page. That's the first time the WCN4004 has caused any problems.

Sorry that I didn't get round to doing it on Friday like I originally planned, so this thread has dragged on a little longer than maybe it should have.

No. I think I have got a better handle on it now and his network is using the base address of 192.168.1.xxx. The 192.168.0.1 is a bit of a red herring as it is the login address for the DG834 which he has set up as just a modem, which I assume is hard wired to his NightHawk which is the router/DHCP server in his setup.

For many years with the original router I used to type in the IP Address, then a little later somehow I found out about the www.routerlogin.com address and have used that ever since so I still have the 192.168.0.1 address in my head, which has never been the address for the Nighthawk router, as you say the login page is at 192.168.1.1 (and this has never been reconfigured from the default) and is dishing out addresses in the 192.168.1.xxx range.

Let me summarise as I understand your layout. You have an 'old Netgear DG834 router' as the ADSL modem. This is connected to a Netgear NightHawk (ac1900)

by a CAT5 cable from port 1 of the 'old Netgear DG834 router' acting (or pretending to be in some way, (like the bridge pattern)) the ADSL modem.
I then have the Netgear WNCE4004 (n900) Video and Gaming Adapter as a WiFi source which then hands out wired connections to my Receiver and the Humax.

Just as a matter of interest (again) why have you got the NightHawk (ac1900) and the WNCE4004 (n900) wiFi devices?

The Nighthawk was bought to replace the DG834 after reading about it in PC Pro and then seeing a really cheap deal on it, I was originally going to buy an ADSL Modem to go with it, but then I came across the webpage and PDF I linked to that told me that I could change the Device mode and have the DG834 act is if it was just an ADSL modem.

Then later on Amazon had a lightning deal of the WNCE4004 for £19, so I scrapped my plans to get a Wifi dongle for the Humax as I could also use it to finally upgrade the firmware on my Denon receiver.