Trouble Connecting to Router in Windows XP

Hello all,

I have recently acquired an old computer from a friend for free (Acer Veriton 5600GT). It has Windows XP Professional already installed on the computer, and everything runs as normal. However, I am trying to connect it to my router with a LAN cable, and it has limited or no connectivity. It can not access internet, or any other things on my network at all. Occasionally, it will go through and there will be no error messages, but still no internet access. I have tried a direct connection through my modem, and that works fine, but not the router. I also have another wired computer on the same router, in a different LAN port, and it works fine. Switching LAN ports does not help. All wireless devices connected are not affected by the same problem, and run as normal, with internet access. There is also another wireless machine, with XP SP3 installed, and that connects fine, My own Vista/7 based laptop has no issues ether. Only the XP desktop. Also, within the "Support" tab of the menu for the LAN connection, it says that it could not connect "Because the computer was not assigned a network address" or something along those lines.

I am going to get a USB Wireless dongle for the XP desktop, but until then, I want to be able to use the LAN port.

Does anybody have some suggestions? Any help is appreciated, as I am not too knowledgeable when it comes to networking.

Thanks.

 

I guess you've tried it already but just to be on the safe side- did you check if the computer is set to automatically acquire IP address? If you got it with XP already pre-installed it may have been set to static address.

 

Might want to check the FW settings too. I see no need to buy new hardware till you know what the problem is.

From the cmd prompt see look over the "ipconfig /all" . Compare to you working machines.
This will tell you if you have a gateway and/or dns server problem.

 

Checked that, and it is set to "Obtain an IP Address automatically".

Done. It seems that there are a few entries missing on the other machine, as compared to my wired main desktop, although I don't know if some are missing because I'm using Vista on my main desktop and XP on the other one.

I'll post a screenshot of both the working machine and the non working machine in cmd - BUT. Before I do, I need to know that none of the data in ipconfig /all is going to allow people to get into my computer.

If it's any help, the router in question is a Belkin F5D8233-4v3.

 

Should be no issues with posting the results. But you can block your MAC address if you like. Since everything is internal there is no problems. If your concern you can send them to me via email.

Here is a test for you to do to diag your problem.
See if you can "ping 98.137.149.56" if not your gateway is down.
see if you can "ping yahoo.com" if not the DNS server IP's are bad.

 

Alright here you go. Working wired machine on top, and the non working one is on the bottom. See if you can decipher anything.





Some entries are missing in the XP one, the non working one. It can't find the "Belkin" in the router at all, and there are some other things.

I hope Anon doesn't find these screens, lol. Please tell me if anything is there that could be potentially dangerous to release...

I tried the ping thing, and I can't ping either of them. If I try pinging the first IP address, I lose all 4 packets of data, and it can't even find any proper internet addresses.

EDIT: It must be the router. Put in simple terms, it doesn't seem to be able to handle more than one LAN cable connection to the internet at one time. I just restarted the router itself, leaving only the problem computer plugged into it, and it worked fine. I later then tried to plug my main desktop, the originally working one, and it would do the same thing as the XP problem computer did, so it must be the router. Changing the IP address from "Obtain automatically" to a manually configured one yields little in terms advancement, except if I manually configure the IP of the router, I can access each computer from the other. This still does not change the fact that I have no internet access on either machine, depending on which one is plugged in first.

 

Try to update the firmware on the router if you haven't done it already.
I've heard bad thing about Belkin but this is ridiculous- no router can be that bad- it's gotta be fixable via firmware update. Mind the hardware version though- yours should be version: 3.01.29, size: 1.05Mb (for hardware version 3)

 

I see you haven't worked with very many Belkin's. Yes they can be that bad....

Make sure the Belkin has the DHCP range setup to handle more than 1 IP. It's possiable the DHCP range is for 1 PC, if so just increase the ending IP Address.

I would try a complete reset to factory settings before doing the firmware upgrade. If it fails no need wasting any more time with it. IF new return it.

 

Wow, I was unaware of this. I have already done a firmware update to it recently, to stop a constant internet disconnection problem, and that was kind of fixed, but not fully.

Looks like I might have to shell out for a new router, although it's a difficult option for me at this point, as I have a lot of other things to take care of at this point.

How would I increase the ending IP address?

And I'll try as you suggested, I'll reset it to default, and then flash it. It has always been a problem router...

 

Find DHCP setting on the router (usually where you set DHCP to enabled or disabled). There you should see settings for DHCP range like "start IP", "end IP" or "lease time". What you need to do is to make sure that your DHCP range is not like "start IP: 192.168.1.2" end IP: 192.168.1.3" or similar- make the end of the range i.e. 192.168.1.253".
I doubt it will work though- IP range is not 1 IP if your other devices (connected via Wi-Fi) work unless these are constantly connected and your IP range is exactly the same as the sum of your Wi-Fi devices plus 1. That would always leave out one machine.

 

It's not the dhcp server settings--the wireless devices are getting ip settings. I've never seen a router with separate dhcp servers for wired and wireless.

Maybe a bad update flash?

 

It is already set from 192.168.2.2 to 192.168.2.100, so there is nothing wrong there. That means theoretically, it should be able to hold 99 clients...

Just flashed it, and still nothing...

 

Contact Belkin maybe they will RMA it and get you a replacement.

I would do a reset back to factory settings, then reinstall the firmware update. Then put your setting it to it. But test it a factory default. It highly possiable who every did the programing coded it such during his testing.

I quit using them many years ago, when I went through 3 routers in which 1 was dead out of the box, 1 worked 1 day before dieing, the 3rd lasted a week. The 1 that lasted a week locked up so bad the only way to get it working was to reset it back to factory. Client said "I guess these were not that great of a deal". He bought the router ignoring what I recommended to him. He bought cheap then spent all of his savings and more to me.

 

Hmm, interesting experiences. I think I am about done with Belkin, if I get another product of theirs being a lemon. That router has already had numerous connection dropout issues before I updated the firmware about a year ago, and even now, it's difficult to get a Youtube video to play right through. But that's peripheral to the problem at hand, and I'm not going to bother discussing it.

I will see what I can do.

 

Hmm, resetting to factory default settings, and then re-updating the firmware to 3.01.29 (latest), seems to have fixed the problem. Thanks for the help, people.