Wireless networking - connected but no internet!

[Libatius]

Hi,

I've been trying to set up my wireless network for a while now, and I just can't see what I've done wrong! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My connection is as follows: desktop computer - router - modem - adsl line (the computer is connected to the router via an ethernet cable.

I'm having no trouble connecting to the internet on the desktop (that's where I'm writing from now) but I can't share the connection with my laptop which is wireless enabled. In the router's configuration page (192.168.2.1) I enabled wireless communication, changed the SSID and enabled WEP security. Now, when I turn on my laptop and search for wireless networks, it finds the one I created, and the WEP key works and everything, but opening IE gives me 'page cannot be displayed' etc etc despite the fact that the wireless icon on the taskbar says 'connected to x, signal strength excellent'.

The laptop is a Toshiba which comes with ConfigFree which diagnoses network problems, but it can't find anything wrong at all - it seems to think everything's connected properly. The only hint I do have is that when I run the network diagnostic tool in the help section of XP, the DNS 'part' always fails. I've tried all the DNS server numbers I can find for my internet service provider but it doesn't make any difference.

The fact that I can connect to the internet via the router (albeit over a wired connection) would seem to suggest I've just made a mistake in configuring the router, but is there anything else anyone can suggest?

Thanks

[z1p]

What version of windows are you running? If you are using XP make sure you are only running 1 wireless configuration tool.

What do you get when you run ipconfig /all?

[Libatius]

I'm running Windows XP Home on the desktop, and Pro on the laptop.

ipconfig /all on the desktop (connected to the router via cable) gives:

IP address 82.243.******
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Default gateway 82.243.****
DHCP Server 82.243.*****
DNS servers 212.27.54.252
212.27.53.252

On the laptop I get:

IP address 192.168.2.25
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
Default gateway 192.168.2.1
DNS Servers 212.27.54.252
212.27.53.252

(I manually assigned the IP address on the laptop)

[z1p]

Ok you said the desktop is also behind the router. From its IP config its obvious that you don't have the router perform NAT on it. Is there a reason why?

Can you ping the router from the laptop? Can you access the router's admin console from the laptop? Are there a MAC filter set on the router? Why did you manually assign the IP address? It should be able to get it from the router.

[Libatius]

I was having trouble with IP addresses - windows kept detecting 'an ip address conflict with another system on the network' so I thought I'd get round that by disabling DHCP and manually assigning the laptop an address.

I forgot to mention that the router is actually a modem/router combined but I'm just trying to use the router function as I already have a modem which my phone and tv are connected to. I don't know if that explains anything...

Also, I can only access the router configuration panel when the modem isn't connected to the router (ie desktop is connected to router only) - is that normal? I can access the config panel from the laptop wirelessly, and there is the option of MAC address filtering.

I don't know what NAT is, but i'm guessing it's to do with why the IP address of the desktop isn't in the 192.168. range - I asked a friend of mine and he said it didn't matter...would it be better if I changed it?

As far as pinging is concerned, I can ping the router from my laptop, but the network diagnostic tool in XP tells me that it can't ping the DNS server numbers I put in, even when I put in the same numbers that come up when I run ipconfig /all on the desktop - shouldn't they be the same?

Think I'll try and start from scratch tonight...

[Libatius]

Well my connection is working now - and all I did was select 'obtain an IP address automatically' (I'm sure I tried that before...) and everything seems to have clicked into place.

z1p, thanks for replying to my original post - I really appreciate it! (Even if I don't really understand what happened...)

Thanks again,

Libatius