Hi,
 I'm having an annoying issue with our all in one wireless router and DSL box. It's a brand new replacement that I received as replacement after lightning hit the previous one.

 I pay the small up charge and the phone company replaces the modems when lighting or stuff happens. I just take what ever appliance they offer.

 Ever since I installed the latest router last week we have had occasional trouble getting on the internet with various computers and devices.

 We never had any trouble prior to this. Now everything will quickly find the router and get on the local wireless network but some devices will not see the internet. 

 Then they will.

 The unnerving thing is that one computer will be on the net working fine and the one next to it will not be able to get on. 

 Then when they do it's all great.

 I spent 2 hours with phone support Friday and using ipconfig we found that when this was happening the computer that couldn't get on the net did not see a "Default Gateway" address. 

 In this case the default gateway seems to be the I.P. address of the wireless router.

 I can use that address to get in to router config, firme ware etc.




 So, I am asking for some shared insights.

 The phone support says they can't figure out what's up. I'm saying/thinking that if all the devices can get ON to the wireless network through the router them my devices must be ok. They were 100% until the old router went goodbye.

 I am trying to figure out if the new router is somehow faulty and if I should request a replacement. The phone rep said I could ask for one but didn't seem optimistic that it would help.

 Honestly, I just don't know what to think and until a few minutes ago I didn't really know what a default gateway was.


 Any thoughts? What do yo think about the idea that the wireless hooks right up but the internet will not?


 Thanks.


 best regards,
mike

The default gateway tells your computer where to send network traffic to devices that aren't on your local network (for local devices, it can just send directly to the other computer or printer or whatever). 

If you're using DHCP to configure your computers on the network, the DHCP server should give them this information. If you're using static network configuration instead of DHCP, you need to enter the default gateway when you assign the IP address.

*Skip all this below and go to the asterisk at the bottom for the short story.

I always though the Default Gateway was for LAN style networking. Usually you don't get that with DSL or Cable unless you request (and pay for) a Static IP (One that doesn't change every time you log on.). 
For example: My ISP comes in to my house via a small receiver box that's attached to an antenna outside that has line of site to a transmitter tower. It has an Ethernet cable that I can connect to a Wireless Router or directly to an Ethernet card on my laptop or PC. I just plug it in and it works as long as I have DHCP enabled.

My Wireless Router has a 4 Port LAN hub built in so I can connect non-wireless devices and share them wirelessly over the Wireless Router.

I recently hooked up my old LJ4100DN and had to set the Default Gateway settings in the LAN portion of my Wireless Router.

As far as I'm aware, there are two separate sections of a Wireless Router that contain Default Gateway settings. If it has LAN ports, there is a setting for that, and there is one for if your ISP provides a Static IP address ... which almost none do unless you request and pay for it.

If you are having Default Gateway problems, I would do a factory reset on the modem, and if that didn't work, (I cringe to say it) firmware, and then request a replacement if that doesn't work.

* It's very very rare that you would have to touch your Default Gateway settings for a Wireless Router unless it has LAN ports for hard wiring devices such as LAN printers to use over your wireless network. Also ... the LAN side of your Wireless Router is separate from the Wireless side. IOW, you should have two sets of Default Gateway settings if your Wireless Router has LAN ports built in.

What OS is on the troublesome system? We need specs?

Seriously though, I found that Vista had some very strange quirky networking issues. Many people argued that point with me (probably still will)

All I know is that my previous laptop used to work perfectly on a multi networked LAN set up with XP installed, had also sorts of strange network related issues with Vista installed, and then started working perfectly again when it was upgraded to Windows 7.

I drew my own conclusions from that experience, no scientific proof or testing, just my own experience. I'll also add though that mine wasn't the only computer on that system that had issues. The common denominator was the OS installed on each system that had an issue.

Main problems was constant loss of internet connection despite settings being apparently "correct", hence my question.

have you thought bout setting up a static IP for every computer on your network?
what happens is a new ip address is given everytime you access the router to comect to the internet,your network really doesnt care and often will assign the same ip address to 2 different computers leaving your network in a discombobulated state.(you like that  :)

anyway a static ip will assign a permenent ip address to your computer and everyone elses on the network(but you must do each one seperately.
no more random assigned IP's

im actually shocked the rep didnt mention this to you.
go to start/CMD and type in IPCONFIG
write down 3 things, but most importantly your ipv4 address,your subnet mask and your default gateway.

now right click on your network icon in the taskbar/select network and sharing.
select/change adapter settings.
click on your local network andright click it.
select properties.
this is where you need to make sure you know exactly what your doing mikey,
select internet protocol version 4(tcp/ipv4)
once you click on this,select properties.
this will open up where your ip info is and now you can create your static ip
remember those numbers i told you to write down in IPCONFIG ?
well now is your chance to put them to use.
heres what your going to do.
first click on USE FOLLOWING ADDRESS,you dont want windows to make one up everytime.
create an ip address,yea,make on up between 1-99.
so your first numbers will look like this 192.168.1.** <this number.make one up.

keep the same subnet mask.
the default gate way is the same.192.168.1.1

now click on USE THE FOLLOWING DNS SERVER
this will be the same as your default gateway.

this is important,before you check out,select VALIDATE SETTING UPON EXIT.
when you click OK.
windows will use the troubleshooter for like 5 seconds or less.
when it comes back and tells you nothing is wrong/it couldnt detect a problem...your good.

i do this for every computer on my network and i havent had an issue since.

feel free to ask as many questions as you'd like.

Thanks everyone.

The two laptops are Win 7 64 Home edition with all updates. The other devices are a Kindle and some phones.

Once I got the second laptop on line last night it was solid until we turned it off and it's working great this morning too.

That's what has been happening.


Chuck, I am absorbing what you have said. I am generally clueless about networks and have even less experience "networking" than the average office worker because my home office and field work have a different culture. I am just wholly unfamiliar with thinking about networks.

I used to have a crude LAN network, and now I just use the wireless as it happens to work. I don't have a work group setup or anything like that.

I plan on maybe doing some "sharing" in the future with a centralized media hub... but we don't have any sharing now. We just share the router and the internet.


For me, my most practical concern is that 2 or 3 times a year lightning will kill my modem. We actually endeavor to unplug it when ever we are not home. We usually have damage when we are caught by surprise. This incident was a middle of the night thunderstorm we didn't know was coming. When it hit my wife and I both jumped out of bed, running for the modem, and got ourselves stuck in the door way. It was comical.

The point is, when that happens I have to stop everything and set up all the devices for the new pass word etc. 

I've been trying to do it the most brainless way because I usually am anxious to get back on line now that my clients think it is the primary method of communication.

In this case I got back up and running just a few minutes after I got the replacement... but there seems to be this small problem.

I'd rather just be able to continue what I've been doing for the past couple years, and I'd like to learn why something changed.

Your explanation gave me some insights into what is going on behind the scenes. Thanks very much for that.

I may end up relying on your suggestion. :-)


best regards,
mike

I'm a bit lost now ... are you trying to set up your Wireless or your LAN?

If you're setting up Wireless ... you really shouldn't be using Static IP's ... it practically defeats the whole purpose of Wireless ...

But hey ... if it solves the problem ... and you don't mind going in and setting up your entire network every time your modem gets zapped ... go for it.

It's all wireless. The printer s wireless too.

Mike, what make/model router is it?     Data networking is my day job....

The default gateway refers to when you connect to the internet, and is usually the ip address of your router. (Commonly 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1)
The ip address of your router can be changed to a different one if you need to.
The ip address that your isp assigns to you is usually a 'dynamic ip address'.
You can pay for a fixed ip address from your isp if you require this, and you want to access your network from outside via the internet. Not normally required by the majority of domestic users though.

The ip address of your individual computers, printers, ipads etc is something else.
They refer to your internal network and allow your network switch/router etc to connect to your computers together on your internal network (LAN or Local area network) and to allow them to pass information through to other devices on your LAN, and also to connect through your router/adsl modem and out onto the internet. (WAN or Wide area network).

Your router is the thing that assigns an ip address to all your local devices on your internal network LAN.
It does this by keeping a tab on all available IP addresses in the pool, and assigning them dynamically or actively to devices as and when they appear on the network, (when you switch on the pc for example).
This is called DHCP or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. 
An ip address may last for a few days or a week, depending on the settings configured.

You can renew all ip addresses by using cmd prompt.
Now let's say you want to connect to a NAS drive or a printer on your network, then you need to know it's address ( a bit like your house number in your address) so it helps if that address never changes (or in other words it is fixed), you could then assign your printer on the network with a static ip address, so that you always point to it when required.
You need to assign it with an available ip address from any one of the available ip numbers in the pool.
Usually anywhere between 1-255
So you could call your printer for instance 192.168.0.12
If you follow this method, then you also need to tell your router which controls the DHCP to reserve this ip address so that it does not try to use it for other devices, (which it will do if you do not tell it otherwise).

You can use 
192.168.0.2 
to 
192.168.0.20 
for reserved ip addresses in your router, and then then assign one of those numbers to each device on your network.

Eg your router will always have the lowest number address of 192.168.0.1
Then a Managed switch could be the next number 192.168.0.2
Then your 'wireless access point' could be the next one 192.168.0.3
Then your print 192.168.0.4
Then you main pc 192.168.0.5
Then your DAW 192.168.0.6
Then your wifes pc 192.168.0.7
Etc etc etc.

This leaves ip address of 192.168.0.21 and above for use by the DHCP server to use for anything else that connects to your network le your Laptops etc and mobile smart phones when on wireless.

Remember to let your DHCP server know what your doing, and you should avoid clashes and two devices trying to use the same ip address.

Also another thing you need on your network is for all devices to share the same workgroup.
Windows normally by default names your network 'WORKGROUP'
But you can change this to 'mshome'
As long as all device are members of the same group, then they will all be able to see one another when you click on NETWORK under my 'computer'.

For details on how to do some of these things you will need to consult your manual.
I am sure someone else can explain it better and in more detail.
I do it in front of the screen easier than I can explain it in writing, sorry about that.

Hope this helps to fill in the pieces of the puzzle a little.

Regards
The Wildman