Wireless internet

[Focus2.0Zetec]

Hi

For about a year i've had a Belkin wireless router which is used to distribute Broadband around my house.

I've set it up with Mac address filtering and WPA.

I have a wireless desktop which i use in my home office and a Sony Vaio laptop for the garden/general internet use.

In the past i've been able to connect to the router with both machines at the sametime, however recently if i have one machine connected then the second machine can't connect. All i get is "Aquireing network address". It doesn't matter which machine is connected first, whichever combination i use i can only use one at a time.

Has anyone got any idea why this is happening?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Regards

Chris

Edited by Focus2.0Zetec on Saturday 30th September 16:26

[puggit]

Only thing I can think is that the DHCP range has only got one IP address to allocate...

[Focus2.0Zetec]

You'll have to excuse me cos i'm not exactly an expert when it comes to this sort of thing but i've been able to connect both machines in the past.

I did get a virus on my desktop a few weeks ago but seem to remember it been ok after this point.

Is a IP address the same as a MAC address?

Regards

Chris

[puggit]

The router has a list of addresses it can hand out to computers connecting to it. These are IP addresses and are dynamic.

Each network card on the PCs has a MAC address - this is static.

Can you access the router? On Belkins I know you can see what addresses are being handed out, but can't tell you where!

On both machines (when connected to the internet) go to Start>run type 'cmd' and then in the black screen type 'ipconfig'.

If they both get given the same ip address then that is your problem

[Focus2.0Zetec]

Puggit

Thanks for your help.

I've just turned the router off (Been powered up non-stop for about 6 months) and then re-booted the desktop, this conneced fine, i then turned the laptop on and both are now connected at the same time.

For now it all seems ok.

Regards

Chris

[Focus2.0Zetec]

IP addresses are different, consecutive numbers.

All seems ok at the moment.

Chris

[thepassenger]

It's best to always try rebooting the WAP as a first step in fault finding. Usually it makes practically every wireless fault go away (if it fails try rebooting window).

Most home routers only a small amount of memory and often run very kludgy code that overtime leaks... in effect it crashes itself over time, just one of those annoyances... but one reboot every six months sounds good to me.