Two router settings causing IP conflict?

Hi folks,

Difficult to explain this. Really hope you can help because I've spent this afternoon on the phone with the Talk Talk helpline and they've done no good except tell me I'll get a new free router through the post in 5 - 10 working days. They seem to think when I let windows update the router's drivers it has messed something up in there. Below is my problem, described as best I can. If you need more info/clarification please ask.

Somehow in my Network I can sometimes see one or another router names/icons. This is not wireless, this is LAN. It seems the PC has somehow two sets of settings in the router and it is causing some kind of conflict. I do get sometimes a msg in Windows saying an IP conflict has been detected.

Now, I have a Huawei HG521 router. Sometimes this shows in Network and sometimes it shows DSL-2780. When I click to view its webpage it asks for login details and then over the top it asks for log in details of the other phantom router too (the DSL-2780 one).

I am at a loss here. I have tried resetting the router but it makes no difference. Somehow two sets of details seems to have got stuck in the router and I don't know how to stop computer from trying to connect with both, besides a fresh W7 install! The end result of all this is my broadband keeps dropping so I can't even watch YouTube if I wanted to, and my speed is at 0.5meg!

Have you tried renewing the IP or flushing the DNS or resetting winsock or resetting the TCP/IP stack?

Windows can't update the router's drivers because router's use their own firmware for this.

The file below will reset everything as described in the first sentence, just save the file, unzip and run the file, your machine will reboot automatically.

I can't say if this will have the desired effect as I've never heard of a problem quite like yours but it won't hurt anything to try.

Hi,

I already had tried DNS flush and Ipconfig all/release/renew commands. No change with that. Haven't tried resetting winsock or resetting the TCP/IP stack. I did try to run that file you posted before I turned the PC off last night. I wondered why it hadn't restarted my machine but thought maybe it had crashed or something so I turned PC off and went to bed. Only realised when turned PC back on today that Bitdefender had blocked it thinking it was malicious. It was on my list of things to try next when I decided to try turning off wireless at the router. (I run a dongle for wireless on my aging PC.) Well, my connection is stable and maxed out speed wise right now. I have turned off wireless and am only using via LAN. It isn't ideal but at least I know the problem is with the wireless causing a conflict somehow. Usually my connection would have dropped by now but it is stable so I can only assume turning wireless off did that.

Oh, actually, now I come to think of it, I also uninstalled the Nvidia Network Adapter at that point too. I suppose really it could be either of the two things. I will look more into it after work tomorrow.

Following on from above, this hasn't resolved the issue. I am still getting the rogue DSL-2780 router showing in Networks. Both it and the HG521 are trying to use the same IP address for the router settings. So when I try to log in I sometimes get the Huawei HG521 screen and other times I get the D-Link. One asks for Admin passwords and then over the top comes a pop up again asking for log in details again, even though I've typed them in once. I will try and get some screenshots. It is very weird getting this over LAN only. Somehow the router has got confused. Both router homepages have my User and Pass words in them, but the DSL-2780 shows a different SSID in the greyed out wireless box (because I've turned it off).

The problem I'm pretty sure is in the router itself. I think it has two configurations in there. I did allow Windows to go off and update the router drivers and I think this is where the problem originated.

richt48 said:

Following on from above, this hasn't resolved the issue. I am still getting the rogue DSL-2780 router showing in Networks. Both it and the HG521 are trying to use the same IP address for the router settings. So when I try to log in I sometimes get the Huawei HG521 screen and other times I get the D-Link. One asks for Admin passwords and then over the top comes a pop up again asking for log in details again, even though I've typed them in once. I will try and get some screenshots. It is very weird getting this over LAN only. Somehow the router has got confused. Both router homepages have my User and Pass words in them, but the DSL-2780 shows a different SSID in the greyed out wireless box (because I've turned it off).

The problem I'm pretty sure is in the router itself. I think it has two configurations in there. I did allow Windows to go off and update the router drivers and I think this is where the problem originated.

As I mentioned earlier Windows is incapable of updating the routers firmware. That has to be done from inside the routers set up page using the router's own firmware. There are no Windows drivers that can do that.

You might try downloading and installing the latest firmware for your router as the current firmware appears to be corrupted. :)

My ISP sent me a new router... a DSL-2780. Lol. If you read my posts above you can see that this is the type of router that was appearing as a phantom in Networks when it should have been picking up the HG521 I was using. So, the HG521 is in the bin and I have a DSL-2780 plugged in now. This is better in that now in Networks what Windows sees is the right type of router. Unfortunately, I am still getting a slow and then fast connection, and still Windows pops up messages about an IP conflict. So the problem has to be in Windows somewhere. The router is completely new.

I'm thinking I'll just re-install Windows, it's gotta be easier than this!

Right, this does sound a distinct possibility. I will call the ISP (Talk Talk in the UK) tomorrow. I'll post back if this fixes the issue. Thanks for the info!

Called my ISP about this. Told them what was mentioned above about a conflict of service. The guy didn't think it could happen and dismissed the idea. I did mention it again at the end of the conversation and they will send out an engineer to check my line. In the meanwhile they are... sending me another new router!