Ethernet question

Deep · 26 Jul 2011 at 19:02

Hi everybody,

With my Homehub 2.0 I now sometimes use an ethernet cable to connect it instead of wirelessly. However, whenever I plug it in I get a yellow exclamation marl by the internet connectivity icon and I have to restart the router for it to work.

Is this usual or is something wrong with my homehub or laptop?

Thanks

moss · 26 Jul 2011 at 19:24

I know nothing about the homehub but it sounds like its not assigning an IP address via DHCP until you restart. You could try typing
ipconfig /renew
in a command prompt window next time you connect the PC via the ethernet cable.

Dist · 26 Jul 2011 at 19:41

as moss mentioned it could be a DHCP issue. One way to check is to once you connect the Ethernet cable, while the you still have the yellow exclamation mark, and run 'ipconfig' in command prompt

You should see something like:
Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:
IPv4 Address . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.10
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . : 192.168.0.1

Something along those lines (and possibly other entries that may not realy matter). The main things to check for is that it has an IP address in the same range as the router, and also shows the router as default gateway. As moss mentioned if you do a renew itll use DHCP to get the correct settings from the router, but this has to be done all the time, where as if you go into the IPv4 settings of your NIC you can assign a static address, subnet mask and default gateway, and this should allow the connection to just work whenever it is enabled and connected.

Deep · 26 Jul 2011 at 20:13

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll be doing that tomorrow for definite

TNGL · 26 Jul 2011 at 21:48

Can you ping your default gateway/homehub even when it does have the exclamation mark? If so, then I doubt it's a DHCP issue. If not, then it probably is a DHCP issue.

3dcandy · 26 Jul 2011 at 23:08

Why restart the router, usually plugging in the laptop whilst off and then starting it is enough...or restarting it whilst plugged in should do the trick, Windows can be picky..

however, if you have been doing this, then it does sound like a dhcp issue

Deep · 27 Jul 2011 at 09:00

3dcandy said:
Why restart the router, usually plugging in the laptop whilst off and then starting it is enough...or restarting it whilst plugged in should do the trick, Windows can be picky..

however, if you have been doing this, then it does sound like a dhcp issue

I have tried both of those actually

Ah just something else which I thought might be relevant.

I am usually connected to the hub via wireless in another room, I then disconnect the laptop from the wireless (turn off the wireless adaptor) and then go into the living room and then plug in the ethernet.

Then I restart, with the cable plugged in.
Unplug the cable, leave for a few minutes and then plug in again.

But I will look into this DHCP stuff tonight

RoyMi6 · 27 Jul 2011 at 13:55

I've experienced this also and it was due to the confusion it was causing windows having both the wireless running and a connection via Ethernet.

I found that a fool proof way of making sure it didn't happen was to turn off your wireless via the hotkey on your laptop then connect the Ethernet cable. Worked every time.