34 replies to this topic

[Guth]

I just started having this problem today but first some background;

I live 3 doors up from my Grandmother and we both have wifi routers. Our internet is faster than hers but its throttled at peak times, so I bought a long range WIFI adapter which has a little satellite type thing for an ariel. It works great and picks up about 10 networks! Where as the one I had before picked up 2.

What I usually do is at 5PM (start of peak time) I connect to my Grannys router to use her internet as ours is down to 1MB.
Last time I used it was 2 nights ago and it worked fine, got downstream of 7mbit.

However, since then I cannot connect anymore. I can connect to my own router fine though (with signal as low as 50%, however its usually 100%)

If I point the adapter the right way, I can get 100% signal quality and 84% signal strength to her router but its always limited connectivity (no internet).

when I leave IP settings as default, its assigning me an IP of something like 70.264.30.22 but when it was working 2 days ago, my IP was 192.168.1.8
The subnet is 255.255.255.0 and the gateway is empty. It also says unkown network

When I set the IP to manual and force myself an IP of 192.168.1.8 (or 192.168.1.X) and the gateway to 192.168.1.1 (which i know is correct, its also in my browser history) it now picks up the network name but still limited connectivity.

When I manually set the IP's I can ping the router and get 4 replies all under 6ms. However I still can't connect.
I cant even open the routers config in browser at 192.168.1.1 It just says error, server never replied any data.

Not sure whats wrong here, it was working fine before and with signal at 84% (100% quality) I thought it should connect no problem.

she isn't at home justnow so I cant reset the router either.

[+sc302]

verify your grandmothers settings on her router, check the IP on her computer and see if she can get out. then check your settings.

[JJ_]

It could be her router crapped out, some third party routers do that and are fine after a reboot. Or perhaps your gran enabled mac filtering

[Guth]

sc302, on 30 December 2012 - 18:32, said:

verify your grandmothers settings on her router, check the IP on her computer and see if she can get out. then check your settings.

yeah thats my next plan, unfortunately shes not home but will do this as soon as she is.

Just dont understand why it connected fine before on auto IP but now im having to manually set the IP to even get a connection.

JJ_, on 30 December 2012 - 18:45, said:

It could be her router crapped out, some third party routers do that and are fine after a reboot. Or perhaps your gran enabled mac filtering

haha could be the first one. Definitely not the second! haha she can get to facebook thats about it! I've seen her type google into google! rofl!

Also, even if it were MAC filtering, i would get an error or something rather than just no IP or SSID until i manually set an IP.

[+sc302]

setup remote access like teamviewer or logmein free so that you can troubleshoot when she isn't home.

[JJ_]

Guth, on 30 December 2012 - 18:45, said:

I've seen her type google into google!

Heh I think that's a trait with old people. To come to think of it, you're right if mac filtering was enabled, you wouldn't be able to connect to the network. Try the following commands in elevated command prompt:

ipconfig/release
ipconfig/flushdns

Then disable your wired adapter if you are wired leaving only the wireless adapter enabled enter these in command prompt:

ipconfig/renew
ipconfig/registerdns

Now connect to her network after and see if there's any change:

[Guth]

JJ_, on 30 December 2012 - 18:52, said:

Heh I think that's a trait with old people. To come to think of it, you're right if mac filtering was enabled, you wouldn't be able to connect to the network. Try the following commands in elevated command prompt:

ipconfig/release
ipconfig/flushdns

Then disable your wired adapter if you are wired leaving only the wireless adapter enabled enter these in command prompt:

ipconfig/renew
ipconfig/registerdns

Now connect to her network after and see if there's any change:

No still no change
Dont get this at all. When I leave it at auto, the router assigns me no IP which Is why I dont get connectivity obviously
when I manually do it, all I can do is ping the router

I was just thinking that her router has one of those connect buttons, you know you press it and then connect to it. Maybe thats why I can't connect?
However, I've never had a problem before

sc302, on 30 December 2012 - 18:49, said:

setup remote access like teamviewer or logmein free so that you can troubleshoot when she isn't home.

Thats a great idea I will definitely do that in the future

[JJ_]

Hmm that's odd. Does your gran have an ADSL or Cable connection?

[Guth]

JJ_, on 30 December 2012 - 19:25, said:

Hmm that's odd. Does your gran have an ADSL or Cable connection?

ADSL
Cant figure this out at all, don't think she will be home till atleast tomorrow either.
looks like I may just have to put up with throttling for a day or two

I would put it down to the distance, had I not connected before and have signal of 84%

[redvamp128]

Is it possible to sign into the router/modem and check the device logs? I know with mine there is an option (though depending on the modem) this sometimes can only be checked when connected directly to it.

That may shed some light - on what is going on.

[Guth]

redvamp128, on 30 December 2012 - 19:48, said:

Is it possible to sign into the router and check logs? I know with mine there is an option (though depending on the modem) this sometimes can only be checked when connected directly to it.

That may shed some light - on what is going on.

afraid not, once I manually set IP, the network ID comes up (rather than unidentified network) and I can ping 192.168.1.1 but can't visit in browser

[redvamp128]

I have seen this once a while ago- you may want to check to see for example if the device is set to hibernate on the computer it is attached to... In other words let us say your grann'ys computer goes to sleep so it will tell the modem to hibernate as well (it didn't before because you were using it) Just a thought.

That is just a thought of something to check based upon the -- it was working -- then poof no internet.

also have this a look --

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813827

[JJ_]

I have a sneaky suspicion her modem/router has lost its WAN connection or it may have a built in feature to auto disconnect from the ISP after a certain amount of time idle. When your nan gets back ask her to cycle power the modem/router's power and I'm sure you should be able to connect again without a problem

[DigitalFamilyMember]

Are you with virgin media?

One thing I don't understand about throttling is that their throttling gets the internet slow to a crawl when I download a certain amouth with a wired connection but itcs normal when downoading through a wireles connection...

Why is this? Anyone else experienced the same? :confused:

[Guth]

Thanks for the further tips guys, I'm thinking you could be right, I haven't spoken to her for a few days but last time I was logged in I did notice she hadn't been connected for atleast a day before that and she is the only user.

I am with Sky but they have no hardware in our exchange so they are reselling BT. Therefore we can only get Sky Connect which is throttled between 5 and 1AM
BT don't throttle in my area as its their hardware, thats who Gran is with and who we will be switching to in a month when our Sky contract is up

EDIT:
Been doing some reading and the 169.254.x.x IP I am getting is a Link Local address. Its what windows assigns when the computer doesnt get an IP from the router.
So by me manually assigning the IP, thats why it seems a little better when infact it isn't. The router is still doing (or not doing) the same thing.

Guess I'll just need to wait until she is home to reboot it and like others have said, I suspect that will fix the problems.

(Or maybe I could somehow cut the power to her house to restart it haha)