I have my Verizon DSL through a Westell Model 6100F modem - Westell goes into Cisco Linksys
Wireless router - ethernet cord from router straight into my desk top computer. I have a Dell laptop and a MacBook Pro connected wirelessly. Running Windows XP on desktop and Dell.

Problem: I disconnected the ethernet cord from the router and the desktop. I then re-connected the cord exactly the way it was. Since then, I cannot get my desktop back online at the same time as the two wireless laptops. The two laptops work, but then I have to disconnect the ethernet cord from the
Router and plug it straight into my desktop to get it to work and of course, the laptops don't work. I have to keep switching the
Cords and cannot run all 3 computers at once - the way I did before. I called Verizon-waste of time - they sent a technician out here - I knew more than he did about
The way the router and modem needed to be hooked up. Does the reset button on the Linksys need to be reset? The error message I get on my desktop when I hook everything back up the way it was to start with, is Renewing IP Address and then This connection has limited or no connectivity. The router is obviously working since I can
Use the laptops and the modem is working since I have DSL. It seems to me something
Needs to be reset. Not sure why since all I did was unplug the ethernet cord. Any help
At all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

It may be the cable. Have you switched cables around?

You can reset your Linksys router. It won't hurt anything and it's worth a try.

Yes, I switched the cables, tried a brand new ethernet cable, a new phone cord going from the wall to the modem. The phone man pushed the reset button on the modem today(they told me on the phone from Verizon that would mess everything up)... but I have been afraid to reset the Linksys for fear I would lose all internet access. At least the laptops work at the moment. Thanks

I'll bet it's a configuration problem and you have two DHCP servers.

Reset buttons are bad things to push. They are necessary for recovering from an unknown password. That's what they should be saved for. Turning on and off power is about as far as you should go.

What I believe you should do is to place the 6100 into bridge mode and disable NAT and DHCP. Connect the router via the uplink port to the 6100. Have it do NAT and DHCP.

The 6100 in bridge mode is kind of a pain to work with. I need to disconnect and use a crossover cable to access it's configuration page.

I don't have a step by step procedure, but I am using the 6100 now in bridge mode.

Not to sound completely stupid, but can you please tell me how to "bridge" and also how to
Disable NAT and DHCP? I think I can do it, I just never have done this particular thing before. Any idea why this would have to be done just simply because I unplugged and replugged the ethernet cable? Are you not supposed to ever unplug them? Thanks:)

Doing a crash course in networking isn't going to be easy, so I'm going to ask you to look around. Remember, once configured in bridge, the modem's IP address doesn't mean much.

So, I'd like you to look around and don't save any settings.

Look at your modem's config page and find where they talk about Bridge. The IP address of the modem. What is it? 192.168.1.1, I think. The Subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0 in most cases.

See where it talks about assigning addresses automatically (DHCP) (what range is listed?) What is the fixed Ip address range.

It should also talk about NAT which they might call sharing an IP address or a group of IP addresses.

Don't confuse the DHCP address it get's for itself. In other words, in the configuration for the ISP, it will talk about PPPOE, Username, Password. The public IP address should be assigned by the ISP and not fixed.

Learn how to back-up the settings.

Now look at the wireless router and find the same sort of settings. PPPOE; IP address; range of DHCP; range of fixed addresses. NAT. There should not be any entries for PPPOE at this point.

What also happens in the way I think your set up is you will have difficulty seeing wired and wireless clients.

To give you a couple of hints:

Your modem should have a fixed IP address and the default is probably OK because of troubleshooting.

You need to be able to connect wired to this modem for configuration purposes and I think you need a crossover cable to do so, unless your laptop is an auto-midx.

Say your modem is 192.168.1.1 and you have either midx ports or an x-over cable. You need to set your "WIRED" connection address on your laptop to something like 192.168.1.200, a SM of 255.255.255.0 (probably 0.0.0.0 will work too); Basically something on the network of the router. Who cares about name servers and default gateway.

This is not a link between your laptop and your modem. If the modem is bridge only stats, and a few other things will work. You should be able to type http://192.168.1.1 and access your modem's configuration page.

That's all I care about. Can you do that?

Eventually the wireless router will also be given a fixed IP address like 192.168.1.2, SM of 255.255.255.0 and you need to access it the same way. It could have the same address. Normally this is a No No.

In here, DHCP will spit out addresses from 192.168.1.3 to say 192.168.1.20 and sharing IP addresses (NAT) should be enabled. I like using a long lease times, like years.

Network printers should be given fixed IP addreses.

Eventually connection must be changed to PPOE with the same username, password that the modem is using. The uplink port of this router will eventually be connected to the modem in bridge mode with NAT and DHCP disabled in the modem.

Once this happens, you can connect via the non-uplink ports and access the linksys page. The modem will be OFF LIMITS unless you connct to it directly.

When everything is working, you can either have everyone connect via DHCP or give them fixed addresses.

Since windows make it difficult to have settings, DHCP for wireless connections seems to be best all around because it works at hot spots too. With high lease times you'll typically get the same address assigned when at home.

What happens when your all done is that the modem "bridges" the telco connection to ethernet with no smarts and the linksys router takes on all the functions of firewall, port forwarding, DHCP, NAT etc. The wired and wireless connections will be in the same IP address range.

I don't know what's going on in your set up, but having two DHCP servers and two devices doing NAT, you will have problems.

SO, look around. Don't save anything. Figure out how to backup settings.

I know what I said is confusing and doesn't make sense.

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all that in detail to me. It was worth the time, the problem is fixed! :) I am not sure exactly what I was doing but you are the MAN!
Thanks again, to you and all who tried to help me. I love this site.

Thanks for the compliment. I was just afraid that I didn't do a good job explaining things.

It will cause you a little grief when it comes to Verizon wanting to test your DSL line. You'll have to revert to the non bridge mode.

Verizon tech support sometimes isn't the greatest.