Router disconnects wireless when ethernet port used

mattross

mattross

mattross

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2 Jun 2005
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Here's an odd one. A friend has an SMC Barricade wireless-N router that works fine connected to Virgin Media cable with a laptop. It connects via WPA2 and all is well until plugging in an ethernet cable from a desktop PC into one of the LAN ports on the router. Then the laptop remains connected to the network but nothing appears to work from that point on. Webpage requests that did work then return page not found errors.

Tried three different ethernet cables and all four ports on the router with no effect.

Any idea what's going on?
 
Hmm...it looks like there is no issue with this kit. Got the desktop PC, router and laptop at my house for testing. Everything works as it should. Then I was told at their house they had the cable modem's ethernet AND USB connectors both plugged in. Oops. The cable modem's USB to the desktop PC and its ethernet to the router's uplink port.

Looks like that was the cause for the disconnections. As soon as an ethernet cable was connected between the desktop and the router it would have meant the desktop was connected to the cable modem via two different routes. I'm not a network expert but I'm fairly sure that would be an issue. The modem at best would be confused as to which connection to use and may use USB in preference, thus disconnecting the router's uplink to the internet and breaking the laptop's link as I described in my first post.

Can anyone confirm what happens if both are connected?

Update:

It was the cable modem USB driver causing this problem. Even when not connected via USB it was interfering somehow. Manually uninstalled the drivers by removing the registry keys that detailed the driver and after that no more problems.
 
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