54 Mbps Wireless Router WGR614v7 Reference Manual

7-4

Troubleshooting

April 2006

Troubleshooting the ISP Connection

If your router is unable to access the Internet, you should first determine whether the router is able

to obtain a WAN IP address from the ISP. Unless you have been assigned a static IP address, your

router must request an IP address from the ISP. You can determine whether the request was

successful using the Web Configuration Manager.

To check the WAN IP address:

1.

Launch your browser and select an external site such as www.netgear.com

2.

Access the Main Menu of the router’s configuration at

.

3.

Under the Maintenance heading, select Router Status

4.

Check that an IP address is shown for the WAN Port

If 0.0.0.0 is shown, your router has not obtained an IP address from your ISP.

If your router is unable to obtain an IP address from the ISP, you may need to force your cable or

DSL modem to recognize your new router by performing the following procedure:

1.

Turn off power to the cable or DSL modem.

2.

Turn off power to your router.

3.

Wait five minutes and reapply power to the cable or DSL modem.

4.

When the modem’s lights indicate that it has reacquired sync with the ISP, reapply power to

your router.

5.

Then restart your computer.

If your router is still unable to obtain an IP address from the ISP, the problem may be one of the

following:

•

Your ISP may require a login program.

Ask your ISP whether they require PPP over Ethernet (PPPoE) or some other type of login.

•

If your ISP requires a login, you may have incorrectly set the login name and password.

•

Your ISP may check for your computer's host name.

Assign the computer Host Name of your ISP account as the Account Name in the Basic

Settings menu.

•

Your ISP only allows one Ethernet MAC address to connect to Internet, and may check for

your computer’s MAC address. In this case:

54 Mbps Wireless Router WGR614v7 Reference Manual

Troubleshooting

7-5

April 2006

Inform your ISP that you have bought a new network device, and ask them to use the router’s

MAC address.

OR

Configure your router to spoof your computer’s MAC address. This can be done in the Basic

Settings menu.

If your router can obtain an IP address, but your computer is unable to load any Web pages from

the Internet:

•

Your computer may not recognize any DNS server addresses.

A DNS server is a host on the Internet that translates Internet names (such as www addresses)

to numeric IP addresses. Typically your ISP will provide the addresses of one or two DNS

servers for your use. If you entered a DNS address during the router’s configuration, reboot

your computer and verify the DNS address as described in

“Install or Verify Windows

Networking Components” on page C-9

. Alternatively, you may configure your computer

manually with DNS addresses, as explained in your operating system documentation

.

•

Your computer may not have the router configured as its TCP/IP gateway.

If your computer obtains its information from the router by DHCP, reboot the computer and

verify the gateway address as described in

“Install or Verify Windows Networking

Components” on page C-9

.

Troubleshooting a TCP/IP Network Using a Ping Utility

Most TCP/IP terminal devices and routers contain a ping utility that sends an echo request packet

to the designated device. The device then responds with an echo reply. Troubleshooting a TCP/IP

network is made very easy by using the ping utility in your computer or workstation.

Testing the LAN Path to Your Router

You can ping the router from your computer to verify that the LAN path to your router is set up

correctly.

To ping the router from a running Windows 95 or later:

1.

From the Windows toolbar, click on the Start button and select Run.

2.

In the field provided, type Ping followed by the IP address of the router, as in this example:

ping 192.168.1.1

54 Mbps Wireless Router WGR614v7 Reference Manual

7-6

Troubleshooting

April 2006

3.

Click on OK.

You should see a message like this one:

Pinging <IP address> with 32 bytes of data

If the path is working, you see this message:

Reply from < IP address >: bytes=32 time=NN ms TTL=xxx

If the path is not working, you see this message:

Request timed out

If the path is not functioning correctly, you could have one of the following problems:

•

Wrong physical connections

—

Make sure the LAN port LED is on. If the LED is off, follow the instructions in

“LAN

or WAN Port Lights Not On

” on

page 7-2

.

—

Check that the corresponding Link LEDs are on for your network interface card and

for the hub ports (if any) that are connected to your workstation and router.

•

Wrong network configuration

—

Verify that the Ethernet card driver software and TCP/IP software are both installed

and configured on your computer or workstation.

—

Verify that the IP address for your router and your workstation are correct and that the

addresses are on the same subnet.

Testing the Path from Your Computer to a Remote Device

After verifying that the LAN path works correctly, test the path from your computer to a remote

device. From the Windows run menu, type:

PING -n 10

<

IP address

>

where <

IP address

> is the IP address of a remote device such as your ISP’s DNS server.

If the path is functioning correctly, replies as in the previous section are displayed. If you do not

receive replies:

—

Check that your computer has the IP address of your router listed as the default gateway. If

the IP configuration of your computer is assigned by DHCP, this information will not be

visible in your computer’s Network Control Panel. Verify that the IP address of the router

is listed as the default gateway as described in

“Install or Verify Windows Networking

Components” on page C-9

.

54 Mbps Wireless Router WGR614v7 Reference Manual

Troubleshooting

7-7

April 2006

—

Check to see that the network address of your computer (the portion of the IP address

specified by the netmask) is different from the network address of the remote device.

—

Check that your cable or DSL modem is connected and functioning.

—

If your ISP assigned a host name to your computer, enter that host name as the Account

Name in the Basic Settings menu.

—

Your ISP could be rejecting the Ethernet MAC addresses of all but one of your computers.

Many broadband ISPs restrict access by only allowing traffic from the MAC address of

your broadband modem, but some ISPs additionally restrict access to the MAC address of

a single computer connected to that modem. If this is the case, you must configure your

router to “clone” or “spoof” the MAC address from the authorized computer.

Restoring the Default Configuration and Password

This section explains how to restore the factory default configuration settings, changing the

router’s administration password to

password

and the IP address to 192.168.1.1. You can erase the

current configuration and restore factory defaults in two ways:

•

Use the Erase function of the router (see

“Erasing the Configuration” on page 5-7

).

•

Use the Default Reset button on the rear panel of the router. Use this method for cases when

the administration password or IP address is not known.

To restore the factory default configuration settings without knowing the administration password

or IP address, you must use the Default Reset button on the rear panel of the router.

1.

Press and hold the Default Reset button until the power light blinks on (about 10 seconds).

2.

Release the Default Reset button and wait for the router to reboot.

If the wireless router fails to restart or the power light continues to blink or turns solid amber,

the unit may be defective. If the error persists, you might have a hardware problem and should

contact technical support.

Problems with Date and Time

The E-Mail menu in the Content Filtering section displays the current date and time of day. The

wireless router uses the Network Time Protocol (NTP) to obtain the current time from one of

several Network Time Servers on the Internet. Each entry in the log is stamped with the date and

time of day. Problems with the date and time function can include:

54 Mbps Wireless Router WGR614v7 Reference Manual

7-8

Troubleshooting

April 2006

•

Date shown is January 1, 2000. Cause: The router has not yet successfully reached a Network

Time Server. Check that your Internet access settings are configured correctly. If you have just

completed configuring the router, wait at least five minutes and check the date and time again.

•

Time is off by one hour. Cause: The router does not automatically sense Daylight Savings

Time. In the E-Mail menu, check or uncheck the box marked “Adjust for Daylight Savings

Time”.