Wireless router causing wired computers to lose connection.

Tron · 21 Apr 2011

My network has 3 computers connected through lan cables to an IP switch that connects to the gateway. The gateway is running the latest m0n0wall -1.33. I just got and connected a wireless router to my network (4th lan position on the switch) - setting it up as an access point. As soon as the router turns on, the wireless devices connect but the WIRED comps lose connection. My wired comps are running Win XP sp2. The wireless devices are a laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit and an iPhone. Any advice?

2xg · 21 Apr 2011

Hi Tron and Welcome to SF,

Looks like the Gateway is also a router then you added a second router.

Might need to reconfigure the 2nd router, the Gateway's setting stays the same. Disable DHCP from the 2nd router and assign a Static IP Address to the second router with the same Subnet for ex. Gateway's IP is 192.168.1.1, you may assign a 192.168.1.2 Static IP to the second router.

See if that helps and let us know.

Tron · 22 Apr 2011

Thank you for your suggestions. However, all of the above was done beforehand. Since my posting, I have found the problem. There was an IP duplicate. The WLAN routers's WAN IP was the same as the gateway's LAN IP. As the router's WAN wasn't used anyway, I put them on different subnets. Now all devices can connect and browse and so on. Unfortunately, now I face a problem of a different kind. File sharing between wired and wireless computers isn't working. What would you recommend?

2xg · 22 Apr 2011

Having 2 different Subnets in one network - computers and network devices won't communicate.

The best practice and will resolve the issue is having them all in one Subnet. Please see Post# 2 on how to do this.

Tron · 22 Apr 2011

Perhaps my previous post was confusing. Here are links to setup screen shots of both my gateway and router:

m0n0wall Gateway:
http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/2...atusinterf.jpg

WLAN Router:
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/7...outersetup.jpg

Tron · 22 Apr 2011

Just for clarity, I want to emphasize that the WAN connection on the wireless router is not utilized and the router is set up only as an access point connecting 'LAN jack' on the router to 'LAN jack' on the ipswitch.

2xg · 22 Apr 2011

Thanks for the snap shots. Do you have a simple diagram to post?

Tron · 22 Apr 2011

Here is my LAN diagram:

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/6739/landiag.jpg

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions on the resolution of the file sharing issue.

2xg · 22 Apr 2011

Very nice...I wish, would have seen Subnets

...based on your Post# 3, they are on 2 diff Subnets.

Tron said:

Here is my LAN diagram:

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/6739/landiag.jpg

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions on the resolution of the file sharing issue.

You may also give this a try, almost the same as Post# 2 but a lot more detailed.
Post# 3 from this Thread will give you a lot more detailed guide on how to accomplish this.

Do a test after, try pinging from your XP Computer to your Wireless computer.

Make sure that they are on the same Workgroup, Netbios need to be enabled on all computers.
Create identical UserNames and Passwords on all computers.

Share a C or D drive, give a Full access permission for now and see if they are able to access each other's shared Drive.

This tutorial might be of helped.

Tron · 23 Apr 2011

All of the above recommendations have already been implemented as can be seen from the pictures I have linked to.
All of the computers on my LAN diagram are on the same subnet (192.168.1._). Only other subnets are Opt1 (192.168.2._) which is the unused nic on the gateway and 192.168.10._ which is the WAN on the wireless router (the connection that is also unused).
NetBios is enabled on the Win7 box (wireless), don't know how to tell on the XP box (wired). Trying to see shares from under identical User Name accounts on both computers made no difference (account passwords were disabled on both).

Currently, both the WinXP and the Win7 comps can ping each other without any data loss. Therefore, data flows either way and the issue seems to be only OS related. The XP box sees 7's shares but 7 doesn't see XP's OR its own shares (in the Network section), nor does 7 see any computers on the network including self.

The tutorial link suggested covers an example of sharing btw W7 64bit and WinXP sp3. My W7 is 32bit and XP is sp2. Further, I do not wish to apply the sp3 patch. Every other step in the tutorial has been followed exactly. If you happen to know that the problem resides on the XP end, please advise if it can be fixed with a particular small patch (as a specific subcomponent of XP's sp3 package, for example). However, it seems unlikely that XP is at fault since 7 cannot even see itself.