Setup Linksys E4200v2 Wireless Router

[Bigaldoc]

If what you were told is true, I would never buy a Netgear product. I can't believe that the IP numbers would require a support person to change them.

You really should re-consider the Belkin line.

[hlewton]

Thanks Big Al and I have to agree with you and I have not ruled Belkin out. As a matter of fact I talked to them twice today and got 2 different recommendations. One was the N750 DB WiFi Dual Band Router N+ Gigabit Router and the other was the AC 1000 DB Wi-Fi Dual-Band AC+ Gigabit Router which I was told by both would be the better choice if I didn't mind spending the extra money. Even with the extra cost it is still $70.00 cheaper than the Netgear one I was talking about. However it is what they called an AC router and the reason I asked if there was any information from anyone here who could tell me if they thought that was a good choice. Before today I had never heard of an AC router.

The only reason I was considering the higher priced NETGEAR Wireless Router - AC 1750 Dual Band Gigabit (R6300) is because the one article I read from Cnet said it had the 192.168.1.1 IP address as its default and thought it would be a lot easier for me to set up. However, after talking to their support people I have my doubts but still I cannot believe I couldn't find the setting to change it myself. I just do not want to gamble on that though.

Who knows, maybe as StuartR said earlier, even the default IP address may still allow my printers to work properly but I do not want to have to set them all up again and am thinking if I can get the 192.168.1.1 as the default IP address all should be well.

[DaveA]

I think they want to be sure that it is your router that you are change the default start address, so you can not HiJack some one else's router.

I have always used the default settings in this area, and have never had issues.

Why do you feel you need to change this IP setting?

[StuartR]

I don't think it is worth spending the extra on an AC router.

• 802.11ac is not due to be ratified until the end of this year. The devices on the market now are based on the draft standard
• It is unlikely that your laptops and smartphones support AC, unless they are very new, so they will still use the same old protocols as they use now

[hlewton]

I think they want to be sure that it is your router that you are change the default start address, so you can not HiJack some one else's router.

I have always used the default settings in this area, and have never had issues.

Why do you feel you need to change this IP setting?

Dave I think you are correct. However, it bothered me when he said I could not make the change myself but perhaps he was protecting himself against helping me hijack another's router. I never thought of that.

I feel I need to change the default IP address because I have 3 printers assigned static IP addresses and they are all 192.168.1.3 through 192.168.1.5 and I am not sure if they will work if the router's IP isn't set the same way the Linksys' one is now. I don't want to have to reinstall the printer drivers on all my computers and try to figure out how to set the static IP addresses again. StuartR mentioned that the printer ports possibly could be edited but I don't know how that would be done either so I am just trying to keep it as simple as I can by changing the router's IP address and hopefully all else will continue to work as it is now.

[hlewton]

I don't think it is worth spending the extra on an AC router.

• 802.11ac is not due to be ratified until the end of this year. The devices on the market now are based on the draft standard
• It is unlikely that your laptops and smartphones support AC, unless they are very new, so they will still use the same old protocols as they use now

Thank you very much.

[hlewton]

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.

I am supposed to get my new Belkin wireless router tomorrow. It's IP is 192.168.2.1 and I am wondering if before I attempt to change that to the same IP as my Linksys router has now would it hurt anything to see if the printers work or could that mess things up?

[StuartR]

It's worth a try, it all depends on how things have been configured already, but just trying it won't do any harm.

[hlewton]

Ok thanks.

[hlewton]

Well now the test begins. Setting up the Belkin N900 DB was not a quick or easy task. After trying to set it up using the included CD and finding out it did not work I contacted their tech support technician and after about an hour on the phone and after she had me "clone" a MAC address (which I sure do not understand) she got it working. We tested my printers and they would not work so we changed the IP to the 192.168.1.1 and then the printers did work. So because of the problems I encountered I had her stay with me until I successfully changed the SSID, the password for that, and created an Administrator password. All is working now and I hope it continues to function as it should.

Thanks for all the help.

[StuartR]

Good luck

[hlewton]

I will try to make this as brief as possible and still hopefully be understood.

I was about to report that the Belkin router was working great and I had not lost Internet access since installing it. Actually that is still partially true but the part that isn’t true is what is confusing me and cannot get a good explanation from Belkin support.

I lost power to the Belkin for a brief time yesterday when my battery backup system failed and shut it and my computer down. After powering everything back up I could not access the Internet and Belkin could not help me get it back suggesting my Internet service was the cause. Luckily I got a hold of a knowledgeable person at my ISP and he could see that my modem was working fine but I was still not able to reach the Internet so he had me do “netsh winsock reset” and once that was done and I rebooted I could get Internet. I then called Belkin back and they had me do a hard reset on the router but still no access. She was very confused and kept having me do an “ipconfig” but the Gateway IP remaind as it was after running the above “netsh winsock reset” and we couldn’t even access the router’s setup page. So I told her to wait a minute because she at that point really was no help and I again ran the “netsh winsock reset”. Once I rebooted again I had the Gateway IP address we needed of 192.168.2.1 to access the router’s setup page. From there we were able to setup the router again but I had to run a Mac Clone in that setup. I did originally too.

Here’s what I do not understand because I never ran into any of these with the Linksys routers I have had for years. Why when losing that power briefly did I lose Internet access because the router lost it setup apparently? Why when connecting a computer directly to the router does it not obtain the Gateway IP address it needs to set it up? Why must I run a Mac clone? BTW doing a Mac clone was the first thing Belkin had me try before resetting the router but it did no good at all.

I am trying to understand all of this and wrote notes on all we did yesterday over almost 2 hours on the phone because once my support is done after 90 days and this happens I believe I would be lost. So any explanations that help me understand all of this would be greatly appreciated. I did order a new battery backup so I am concerned when it arrives in a few days that I may have to go through all this again. I was told by Belkin that would not happen but then they had no explanation why it happened this time.

Thanks.

[StuartR]

I have absolutely no idea what was going on, but I am curious to know where you typed the command "netsh winsock reset". Was this at a command prompt on a PC connected to the router? Or was it a command sent to the router somehow? What was happening on other PCs also connected to the same router? etc....

[hlewton]

First other PC connected to the router had no Internet access and I assume were no longer on my network but I may be wrong about that. I did not check to see if one computer could see another.

Now this is after Belkin gave up and said I must not have Internet access because of my service provider so I hung up and called my ISP. I could not reach the Internet with my laptop connected (or any computer) through a cat5 cable directly connected to my ISP modem. My ISP tech said he could see that my modem was, in fact, working properly but he too could not see any computer associated with the modem even though, as I said, my laptop was directly connected to it and at this point the Belkin was totally out of the picture along with all my other computers. He had me open the Command Prompt and run "netsh winsock reset" which after running required a reboot. After rebooting the computer's Gateway IP address was reset to that of my ISP which I don't recall exactly what it was but something along the lines of 75.75.2.1 (I know that is not correct) but the point is the Gateway IP address was no longer 192.168.1.1 on the laptop as it was before running the "netsh winsock reset". Once the reboot was finished I then could access the Internet through my laptop still connected directly to the modem. So we knew my ISP was functioning as it should.

At that point I called Belkin again, hooked the modem to the router, hooked the laptop through a cat5 cable to the back of the router and could not get to the Internet. She had me unplug the modem a few times and also unplug the router a few times, run IPCONFIG and every time it still showed that 75.75.2.1 which no longer allowed access to the router's setup page. She had me do a hard reset to the router and still no luck. She seemed lost at that point and kept going to someone else putting me on hold. While on about my 5th hold I decided to run the "netsh winsock reset" again. After rebooting I then had the 192.168.2.1 Gateway IP address she was looking for and we were then able to access the router's setup pages but were starting completely over as if it were a brand new router. Each time I ran the "netsh winsock reset" is was in the Command Prompt window. Hope this clears it up a bit but still I don't think it answers anything as far as why I lost all Internet connection in the router after a brief power loss.

[StuartR]

It clears things up a bit, but leaves me even more confused.

How many computers do you have? How many were not working? I can't imagine any way that doing that winsock reset on one computer could affect a different computer!

[hlewton]

Not sure why you think that doing that winsock thing affected any of the other computers other than I must not have explained it very well. I have 6 XP computers and 1 Win 7 computer. I had turned on one additional XP desktop computer besides the one I always have on to see if I had Internet access on it and I did not. Because of the difficulty of hard wiring any of my desktop computers directly to the wireless router I used my laptop instead to connect to the modem and then to the router. It is the one I did the winsock reset on which enabled me to prove to Belkin that I did, in fact, have Internet access. Then I had to do another winsock reset once it was hard wired to the router to obtain that 192.168.2.1 Gateway IP address. That only allowed us to set up the wireless router again. I have no idea if or how it affected any of the other computers. Also I have no idea why connecting the computer directly to the router would not set the Gateway IP address to the one needed to access the router's setup page but it didn't until running the winsock reset. I only know that after it was all set up again I tested other computers and they were once again able to access the Internet as well but that should be expected I believe. Am I not saying something clearly because if not please tell me what I can try to explain to help make it clearer.

Thanks for trying to understand what I'm attempting to explain. I know I sure do not understand it at all.

[StuartR]

I guess I am confused because the winsock reset would only affect internet access for a single computer, whereas your symptoms sound like they affected all your computers.

According to Microsoft the command netsh winsock reset is used to recover "if the Winsock registry keys are damaged or corrupted", this would generally be caused by malware or possibly by a strange hardware fault.

It sounds to me as though you had two entirely distinct issues here, maybe the laptop had a corrupt registry entry for a long time but you hadn't tired to use the wired Ethernet connection recently. I don't think that this issue was caused by whatever went wrong on your router.

[hlewton]

Now what you said is very likely what the problem was/is. Before this happened I had used that laptop through a wired connection recently but it was when the router was working perfectly so I have no idea what could have caused that problem. As far as my other wired computers are concerned they are all connected through switches connected directly to the back of the Belkin router. I have both an 8 port and a 4 port switch hooked all the time. In the past when setting up the Linksys router I have always been able to use my desktop computer to set them up without making a direct cat5 connection between that desktop and the back of the wireless router. Even on the first setup of the Belkin that was not the case. As I said earlier, it is not an easy task to rewire any of my desktops directly to the Belkin (because of walls and desks) but I did just that the first time I had to set it up the Belkin with the aid of Belkin's tech. During that setup as soon as I wired the desktop to the Belkin and rebooted and powered off and on the router and modem I had the correct 192.168.2.1 Gateway IP address to access the Belkin's setup page but I did not get this until I directly wired that computer to the Belkin. That, as you know, was not the case this time when I tried to make it a lot easier to hook directly to the Belkin by using my laptop. I honestly do not know how my desktops were affected by this last fiasco. The only thing I know for sure after checking two of them and my laptop we are discussing here is I had no Internet access at all on any of them.

I am very concerned that I may have to go all through this again when I get my new backup battery power supply and hook it up or any time I may have another power outage in the meantime. So if you have followed me so far about what happened in the first setup when I stood on my head and did a direct connection between my desktop and the Belkin do you think that allowing that desktop to remain connect as it is now through a switch to the Belkin that I may be able to run that "netsh winsock reset" and force the desktop to get the Gateway IP address necessary to configure the router again?

I will try to digest that link you just gave me better but I do have one question that jumps out immediately at me after viewing it. Do you think both my ISP tech and Belkin's tech should have had me tryd using "ipconfig /renew" first to see if that would have corrected the problem? I guess it leads to another question. If that worked then do you believe it is unlikely that I had/have a registry problem? I can't believe I do because this is the computer that most recently has been completely reloaded and I do have good anti-virus and malware protection on all my computers.

You got to admit I run into some strange ones, don't I? LOL

[StuartR]

I don't think that IPCONFIG/RENEW would have helped you. Every time you reboot your computer it does a much more major renew than this. The command you did issue fixes corrupt registry settings, which ipconfig/renew does not.

[hlewton]

OK thanks for all your help.