Linksys router will respond to pings but wont connect to internet?

Hi,
I am running windows 7, 64 bit and have been having an issue with my Linksys E1500 router recently that has my ISP, myself and the few people I have talked to stumped.

My router will respond to pings from my laptop both wirelessly and when connected via ethernet cable, and will respond to pings from my ISP, but it won't allow my laptop to connect to the internet. I have rest and reconfigured the router a bunch of times, leaving the MAC address alone, cloning it to my laptop's ethernet port, and cloning it to my wireless cards MAC addresses, respectively. None of that allows it to connect.
Linksys (Cisco) has been useless in helping both via their site and when contacted, encouraging me to pay $40 to talk to someone who MAY be able to help.

Anyone have any ideas why the router is doing this and what I can do to fix it?

Note: The router worked fine for about 4 months, then one morning, couldn't connect to the internet through it. Have to connect directly from the modem via ethernet cable.

Thanks for any insight.

Hello gann17 and welcome to the forums!

That's a rather comprehensive list of troubleshooting steps you've performed there. Kudos to you, for the effort you've undertaken before posting here.

I'm the furthest thing from being a Networking Guru;I'm still learning quite a bit daily from the hang ups of my own networking devices, so bear with me here.

I've just two questions for you, with regards to your router and its connectivity.

Have you tried using any other internet devices (laptops, desktops, tablets etc.) with that router to connect to the Internet?

You've also mentioned that you tried to reset and reconfigure the router 'a bunch of times'; did those steps include flashing a newer or older version of the firmware for your router?

Thanks.

Perhaps these reviews at Amazon will help you find the problem. From what I read a recent firmware update caused this router to not work.

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Linksys E1500 Wireless-N Router with SpeedBoost

Thanks for the heads up on the amazon reviews. There seems to be a lot of issues with linksys stuff at the moment.

solarmystic, I have double checked the firmware and the router has the most up to date version and as far as I can tell, once it has been upgraded, it can't go back. (or I don't know how to flash it back) Either way, the only fmware available from the Cisco homepage is currently installed.
Also, all wireless devices cannot connect to the internet via the router, such as my PS3 and phone.

Chev 65, I have gone in and fiddled with the settings some more, regarding the postings on Amazons review page and it still does the same thing, creating responses both ways, but no actual internet coming through.

I don't have solution for you (sorry), but I can tell you that I had the same issue with my Linksys router. Mine is a much older WRT54G model. A few days ago it just stopped letting anything connect to the internet through it. After spending several frustrating hours trying everything a Verizon support agent and I could think of, i just replaced it with a Netgear router. Several days later, I still can't figure out whats wrong with it.

Something that worked with some Linksys routers was doing a 30-30-30 reset to factory default. Supposedly a more reliable way than doing it from its web based interface.

• Disconnect all ethernet connections
• With the router powered on, press and hold the reset button on the router for 30 seconds
• Without releasing the reset button, unplug router and hold reset for another 30 seconds
• Plug the router back in while still holding the reset button another 30 seconds

You would have to reconfigure it from scratch of course, including security settings. I've done the 30-30-30 with older Linksys routers with success and with no issues.

You may have heard it's possible to install third party firmware on some popular home routers. DD-WRT is one of those firmwares. I checked their website for your E1500 to see if they recommended doing the 30-30-30 in their steps to install. Although your router is listed as supported, as well as other Linksys "E" series routers, I only found instructions for installing the firmware on the E2500. They do specify doing the 30-30-30 reset to factory before installing the firmware on the E2500:

Linksys E2500 - DD-WRT Wiki

Petey7 said:

I don't have solution for you (sorry), but I can tell you that I had the same issue with my Linksys router. Mine is a much older WRT54G model. A few days ago it just stopped letting anything connect to the internet through it. After spending several frustrating hours trying everything a Verizon support agent and I could think of, i just replaced it with a Netgear router. Several days later, I still can't figure out whats wrong with it.

Click to expand...

Petey7, you might try that 30-30-30 mentioned in the previous post. I ran across someone with a similar issue with their WRT54G; had years of troublefree service then all of a sudden one day it just quits. Did the reset on it and he was back in business. That was a couple of years ago and it is still in service (that was one heck of a router).

Pinging the router from the LAN side will let you know if DHCP is working etc but it doesn't really check the WAN side of it. WAN being the Internet side of things. If you haven't already log into the routers status page and see if it's getting an IP address from your cable modem. If you connect your PC directly to the cable modem do you get Internet? If yes then it is a router problem, if no it may be a cable modem problem. I say "may" because some modems look for a specific mac address and may need to be rebooted or updated remotely by the ISP to read a different MAC address in. Looking at the modem and router status lights may help you sort it out if you know what the normal indication should be. Have you tried swapping network cables?

Thanks for the 30-30-30 idea, i will try it when I get a chance.

Alphanumeric, as for the pinging, my ISP can ping it, but when I check the status page of the router, it doesnt generate an IP address (sorry I didnt mention that originally).
i am currently connected to the internet via ethernet directly from the modem, so I know the modem and cables are okay.
Will let you guys know how the 30-30-30 attempt works out.
F5ing, I appreciate the info and link, but I am not technical enough to want to deal with flashing the stupid thing. For $50 I will just pick up a new, better router if I need to. I bricked a phone once and it was a pain. However, I may hit this thing with a hammer, just to alleviate some pent up anger.
Cheers.

gann17 said:

However, I may hit this thing with a hammer, just to alleviate some pent up anger.
Cheers.

Click to expand...

Now I want to do this to my old router. If I do, I will post pics.

The fast and easy solution is simply to shut everything down unplugging the dsl or cable modem as well as the router in order to recycle power on both. You can opt to unplug the RJ-45 cable from the modem while usually not necessary.

Once the modem has sat for a half minute or so you replug that back in and allow it to resync with the ISP before doing anything else. Then you plug the router back in and fire that up to allow to re-establish itself with a brand new IP and Mac address before powering up you pc.

With the fresh detection by Windows of the active connection you should see the prompt for choosing between Home, Work, or Public appear while booting up. If not you go into the Control Panel>Network & Sharing Center and run the Network Troubleshooter tool. One option will be to troubleshoot problems connecting to certain site which wil bring you to MS once reconnection is established.

You'll find similar steps in the support section of the ISP's own pages to follow as well. You use this method whenever any one desktop or laptop gets bumped offline to get things going again.

Night Hawk, you're right about that. Guess I assumed that as he's already spoken with both ISP and Linksys that they had likely gone through that a half dozen times.

Petey7, I await the pics!

And for gann17, I really wasn't posting that link expecting you to flash your router. I just wanted to make sure the 30-30-30 was a worthwhile step to try with your particular model so I went searching. And after reading the "confirmation" in that link I figured I may as well copy that link to this thread. That way it leaves it up to you to figure out how you want to proceed.

When swapping ISPs going from dsl to cable internat and then later finding I needed to add a router on I found out fast how to get back online again when the connection was lost and why I was outlining the steps to take.

What all that does is refresh to re-establish the proper configuration you need between pc and ISP. Typically any PCI type nic card or router is a Plug'n'Play type device to start with while a usb network adapter will require the correct driver(s) in order to work once it is detected and installed by Windows.