Connection Lost Unless XP Wired is on.

Audiofreq · 24 Jul 2007 at 12:21

Hi,

I'm having this strange problem with my Safecom SWBAR-5400 router.

In the 4 wired ports it has an XP pc, a wireless access point and 2 spares. It supports wireless but because of location of the router and the place it's being used people only connect to the wireless through the access point.

Now this has all been working fine for the past year at least but now i have strange problems. It appears when i turn off my XP pc nothing is able to access the router through wired or wireless. The only solution is to turn on the XP pc and reset the router. If i reset the router without the PC on then it doesn't work.

It's obviously a real pain in the ass and i can't tell what the problem is (although i'm guessing XP installed some crap update that confuses the router).

My router is up to date in terms of firmware and i have tried resetting to factory defaults.

Has anyone heard of or experience this problem? Any help would be appreciated.

Snapshot · 24 Jul 2007 at 12:32

Where are the clients getting their IP addresses from? It sounds like the XP PC has become the gateway so all traffic has to pass through it before hitting the router.

errata · 24 Jul 2007 at 12:37

At a guess theres probably somethng odd about the IP or gateway addresses being issued or the DHCP settings on the router and or access point.

It may be esier to solve this if you sort out the router/PC settings via its wired conenction first without the access point connected and seaprately check the IP, DHCP etc settings of the AP and finally the combination.

Its very easy to lose track of IP address allocation, etc !

Audiofreq · 25 Jul 2007 at 14:34

Ok I just managed to restart the XP pc and maintain connection after changing NetBios setting in TCP/IP advanced setting to Enable NetBios over TCP/IP rather than "default".

EDIT: Here's the spiel underneath default :

"Use NetBios setting from DHCP server. If static ip is used or the DHCP server does not provide NetBIOS setting, enable NetBIOS over tcp/ip."

So there we go. Everything was working before so i dunno if an update changed this NetBIOS stuff or if a ghost went into my machine...