Setup Linksys E4200v2 Wireless Router

[hlewton]

I do not want any wireless devise being able to access my router's setup software. In the attached file if I take the check mark out of the place that says, "Access via wireless" will that make it so that the router's setup software can only be accessed by a wired computer in my network? I think this will work but with the new firmware and this new router interface I want to make sure it is the correct place to do what I want without messing up anything as far as being able to connect to my network wirelessly and reach the Internet.

Thanks

Router.JPG

[StuartR]

That is certainly what I would assume

[hlewton]

I tried it after you answered and I believe it worked.

Thank you.

[hlewton]

Rather than start a new thread since my question is still about setting up the same wireless router I will just post here. For some reason I have been losing Internet connection with this router both on the hard wired computers and the wireless laptops. I get the connection back if I unplug the router and then plug it back in. Tech support wanted to try something but I was against it so they are sending me another router to see if that will correct the problem. If not this is what they want to try. The IP address of the router is normally 192.168.1.1 and they wanted me to change that in the router's setup under the Connectivity tab to 10.10.1.1 and that is where I stopped them. I'm not sure what would happen to my printers and their tech support was in agreement with me that since my printers were hard wired to the router and had static IP addresses assigned to them I would probably not be able to print to them without reinstalling their drivers on all my machines again and reassigning new IP addresses like 10.10.1.3, etc. So my question is would I have to reinstall all the drivers on all my machines and reassign new static addresses or could I just change the static IP addresses on the printers and continue to use them with the installed drivers? I'm not sure this even possible without going through the entire installation. It would really be a pain to have to reinstall the drivers on all my machines and is the reason we are trying new router.

[StuartR]

I have made similar changes to a router and was amazed that my HP printers seemed to still work properly afterwards.

If they do stop working then you shouldn't need to reinstall them, just change the settings for the port in the printer setup. Let us know what version of windows you're running and what model of printer you have and we should be able to sort you out.

[hlewton]

Thank you StuartR

I have mostly XPP SP3 or XP SP3 machines except for 1 Windows 7 laptop.

I have 3 printers:

1. Ricoh Aficio SPC222 SF and this one I could not find a Windows 7 driver so I am using the driver from Vista to make it work and it does work fine that way. Also this may be the easiest one to change the static IP address on because when I go to Settings, Printers, and click on its properties it has a “Ports” tab and after clicking on it I can see the IP port of 192.168.1.3 and then I can click on “Configure Port” and see listed both under the Port name and Printer name or IP address lines 192.168.1.1 it looks like I can change that IP address. I’m not sure if this is how this can be changed or not.


2. Kodak Hero 9.1 when I do similar as above for this printer I do not see the IP address of 192.168.1.4 as it is assigned. I see under the Ports tab the port name of EK9459C60F and then if I click on “Configure Port” I see the same EK9459C60F listed both under the Port name and Printer name or IP address lines. So I have no idea at all how to change that static IP address.


3. Brother HL-5370DW the static IP address is 192.168.1.5 but following the same steps as above again I see BRN001BA9955E4F and the same shows up in both places when I click on the “Configure Port” option. So again I have no idea how to reassign these static IP addresses. Not that it matters but this printer is my default one.

[StuartR]

I suspect the ones where you don't see a fixed port address will just work without you needing to do anything. I have no idea how this magic works but it does seem to. If it doesn't then you can just configure the ports manually to use the new IP address that has been assigned to the printer (don't forget to tell the router to assign this address to the printer permanently).

[hlewton]

I guess I will just have to wait to see if the new router works the way it should but if not and I do have to assign that 10.10.1.1 to the router's IP address I have no idea how to do what you just suggested. Also I already know that Linksys' techs won't be able to help me with telling the router the printers' IP addresses because they already told me that was beyond their scope. Do you have a link or any advise on how to configure the ports manually if I have to do that?

Thanks.

[StuartR]

You won't be able to tell the router the printer's IP address. The usual approach is to let the printer be allocated an IP address and then tell the router to make this a permanent allocation. You then note down this address and go edit the port information on your computers.

You can download the user guide for the router at http://homedownloads.cisco.com/download ... 47_Web.pdf, but this does not seem to have any information about how to configure permanent addresses -

[StuartR]

According to http://www.watchingthenet.com/linksys-t ... twork.html the method they recommend is to manually setup an IP address on the Printer and then exclude this address from the range that the router gives out. What a horrible way to do it!

If you need to do this then I can try and guide you through the process - but let's hope it isn't necessary.

[hlewton]

Thank you for the information and links. The assigned static IP addresses I have now for the printers (192.168.1.3), (192.168.1.4), and (192.168.1.5) I was thinking I would somehow only have to change them to (10.10.1.3), (10.10.1.4), and (10.10.1.5) static IP addresses. Not sure about any of this but that was my thinking and the reason I thought the Rioch printer may be the easiest one to change because it already shows the static IP address associated with the port. As I said I will look over those links and see if I can figure anything out and again, thanks.

[hlewton]

You won't be able to tell the router the printer's IP address. The usual approach is to let the printer be allocated an IP address and then tell the router to make this a permanent allocation. You then note down this address and go edit the port information on your computers.

You can download the user guide for the router at http://homedownloads.cisco.com/download ... 47_Web.pdf, but this does not seem to have any information about how to configure permanent addresses -

I'm sorry I missed replying to this. Actually I already have that users guide, even printed out and in a binder. I briefly looked it over a few days ago and came to the same conclusion you did about how to configure those permanent addresses or maybe I should say the absence of information on that subject. I am glad you came to the same conclusion though because I admit there are many things I either do not understand or get confused about when reading guide like this one. Also, as I mentioned, I even talked to their tech support about this and they said it was beyond their scope of expertise so I am not looking for much help from them on this issue.

Thanks for finding this guide for me but I learned my lesson before when, I believe it was you, who also found a users guide for the old wireless router I used to have. Since that time I have been trying to get and print out guides such as this for any piece of equipment I buy. I really do appreciate the time you took to find this though.

[hlewton]

I followed and tried my best to understand that last link. It seemed to me that is exactly what has been done on my network over the time the 3 printers were installed. It still did not tell me how to change the static IP address so I looked it up on the Internet for just 1 of my printers. Believe me that raised more questions than answers for me but I am putting them aside for now and hoping I do not have to deal with them. However, I would like to say again that the reason for a new router is that I have had to unplug and plug the router back in to get Internet access way too frequently to suit me. The frequency of this varies from maybe 2 days to 3, 4 or 5 days. It was very disturbing losing access in the middle of something so I started unplugging it every other day so I would not lose access - this seemed to work well. Also I want to point out that I have 5 hard-wired computers and they do not all lose access at the same time. They seem to take turns losing it though I cannot see a definite pattern. When one of them loses access it seems that I may or may not have a wireless connection but unplugging the router always solves the problem. To me, admittedly not knowing much about routers, this sounds like a hardware problem and hopefully the new router will solve the problem. My question is after knowing all this why would they have wanted to change the default address of 192.168.1.1 to 10.10.1.1?

[StuartR]

Sounds like a hardware (or firmware) problem on the router to me too. Does the router get very hot when it is left on?

I can't think of any good reason why they would want you to use the 10.10.1. address range with the new router. It is certainly a valid address range for a router in your home (those addresses are never routed across the internet), but so is the 192.168.1. range that you are using now.

[hlewton]

Thanks, I'm glad you agree. BTW the firmware has been updated to the latest version available and before it was a very similar problem existed with the previous version of the firmware. To me, this is even more proof of a hardware problem.

[hlewton]

I have installed another new Linksys E4200v2 Wireless Router and it worked well for 5 days then it too lost wireless Internet access. It doesn't seem to matter whether the wireless channel is set to "auto" or a particular channel is selected. I get the Internet back after unplugging and replugging the wireless router back in. Any ideas at all what I can do to make this work as it is supposed to or what could be causing the loss of the Internet? On the one I just sent back I believe we tried almost all of the 11 available channels and they all seemed to work about the same. This is frustrating because when I updated from the WRT54G router I expected my problems to be over but looking back it may have operated much better since I did not have to restart it every 5 days or so.

This is a dual band router - Simultaneous Dual-Band N (2.4 & 5 GHz) not sure if the 5 GHz could be shut off but if it can do you think that may help? I don't think I use the 5GHz but I'm not sure about that either. There are other wifi networks that appear under when I check Network Connections but I can't do anything about them.

So again, any ideas?

Thanks

[StuartR]

Most strange. You could try running a tool like inSSIDer to see what other wireless networks might be interfering, but if restarting the router clears the problem then it still sounds like a hardware or firmware problem to me.

How many different wireless devices do you have using this router? Do they all stop working at the same time?

[hlewton]

StuartR I have to agree with you but unfortunately Cisco tech support isn't all that convinced it is a hardware problem and I do have the latest firmware installed already.

My wired computer did not stop working this time but my wireless laptop and now I have an iPad and it too lost Internet access. That is all that was running at the time. Actually the iPad wasn't even turned on at the time but I turned it on to see if it had Internet access and, as I said, it did not.

[StuartR]

Does the iPad normally work with the wireless access, if so then I really do think it must be the hardware.

[hlewton]

Yes that is the only way my iPad works because I do not have any Internet access for it other than when connected to a wifi network. I don't know how to convince those at Cisco that their hardware is defective again. The guy I talked to about it is the one who wanted me to try to change that default IP address to 10.10.1.1. He said if this router acted the same that was the only thing that could be done. But, as you know, I really am not willing to try that because of my printers.

Let me ask this can Netgear's default IP address be set to the same as Linksys? If it can be the same as Linksys then maybe I should look for a Netgear wireless router with 4 ports so I don't have to worry about my printers with those static IP addresses. Maybe I should also ask would it be difficult to change Netgear's default IP address? This stuff is really getting way over my head to be honest.