An epic challenge in wifi connection! :P

Dark Raven X · 7 Mar 2011 at 00:17

I have a pretty convoluted problem here. I'll run it past you guys, see if you can see a solution.

I was on Virgin Broadband's ADSL service until September last year. I moved house, now in Birmingham, and on Virgin Cable Broadband.

The cable broadband came with a new modem, which does not have wifi, and only the one ethernet port.

This wasn't much of an issue, as I don't frequently use Xbox Live, and so just routinely had the PC hooked up to the new modem, and nothing else. Whenever I needed to go on Live for updates or whatever, I swap the ethernet over to my 360 and voila.

I just got that new Pokemon White, and would really like to use the online play in it. So, I bust out the old adsl wifi router.

Obviously, it doesn't work like it used to. I'm on cable now, so I can't just plug the internet into the router, then PC.

Here's the setup as I have it now:

Cable Broadband - cable modem, ethernet out into port 1 of router - ethernet port 2 of router into PC.

I have essentially inserted the router into the chain between my modem and the PC. It's functioning, as I'm still connected to the internet right now. However, the router is merely acting as a bridge; as far as the PC is concerned, it's not there. I tried entering that 192.168.1.1 into the URL bar, to get at my WEP key, which is what my DS needs to get online.

Here are my questions: how do I get at my router's WEP key, if not through the 192.168.1.1 URL?

And if I even get the DS connected to the router, will the router then be able to connect it to the internet?

Apologies if that was too convoluted. :s

Anyways, I've asked in a couple other places, and they recommended new routers... but all the routers I find don't have cable broadband imput; I'd still need the modem to connect the internet to the router, and the modem still only has ethernet out, so I'd be in the exact same position...

bremen1874 · 7 Mar 2011 at 00:52

If you've done what I think you've done it won't work.

To have more than one machine connected you are going to need a new router.

Connecting everything to the LAN side of your old ADSL router will just make it act as a network switch.

Cable routers are easy to find, just Google 'wireless cable router'.

Most places I visit seem to have wireless routers supplied by Virgin as part of the package, have you asked them about it?

Dark Raven X · 7 Mar 2011 at 01:04

The official Virgin guide is bananas. Check it out;

http://help.virginmedia.com/system/selfservice.controller

That diagram shows the 2 pieces of hardware I have. I was pretty excited when I found it, cause I figured it would spell out exactly what I'd need to do.

Nope.

That guide says I need to connect the Modem's ethernet to the router's DSL line. With an ethernet cable. O____o

Unless it's actually suggesting I just do exactly what I have done, connect it to the router's ethernet. But then, it's not working, and I can't find the router's WEP, so...

Yeah. Could you just recommend me a wireless cable router?

EDIT: It NEEDS to be a WEP device, NO WPA. The DS lite is not compatible with WPA at all. :/

bremen1874 · 7 Mar 2011 at 01:18

The link you posted doesn't work.

I think Virgin used to send out Netgear WGR614UK routers, but I'm not sure if they're still available.

For your needs almost anything would be okay. OcUK have 9 or 10 to choose from starting from about £20. It's years since I've had to buy a domestic cable router so I can't make any specific recommendations.

BlackAle · 7 Mar 2011 at 02:01

I'm surprised Virgin didn't supply you with a router when you had cable installed, these days they usually do.

linktoinsanity · 7 Mar 2011 at 09:12

We used to have a Virgin Cable connection which came with a single modem, I had a cable router (that I'd bought in error a few years before), which I connected. I just used the setup wizard on my router (a Netgear WGT624v3) and set it up on our internet connection and away I went.

Something like this should do the trick, make sure you connect the modem to the router via the Internet port and not one of the LAN ports.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-082-LS&groupid=46&catid=1596&subcat=

SMN · 7 Mar 2011 at 09:52

Can you not set the ADSL (wifi) routers default gateway to the LAN IP of the Virgin modem? Then just get clients to connect wirelessly to the router, let the router run DHCP in the same subnet as the virgin modem and just start the lease pool +1 from the virgin modem IP and it should work.

bremen1874 · 7 Mar 2011 at 15:55

SMN said:
Can you not set the ADSL (wifi) routers default gateway to the LAN IP of the Virgin modem? Then just get clients to connect wirelessly to the router, let the router run DHCP in the same subnet as the virgin modem and just start the lease pool +1 from the virgin modem IP and it should work.

For several reason this can't work.