Networks

Ask something
Question Locked

Default Gateway Issues

0 helpful
3 replies

by rdumvill

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Alright, so here's an odd one... I'm back from college for the Thanksgiving Holidays, and my laptop can only intermittently connect to our home router, via either wireless or ethernet connection. After searching around a bit, I noticed that the default gateway line was blank in the ipconfig/all and the network settings areas. The IP Address and Subnet Mask were normal for these connections (192.168.1.101 and 255.255.255.0 respectively). The DNS servers pulled up fine as well.

I tried to set the TCP/IP settings manually, but, while that did put a value into the Default Gateway line, it didn't actually give me a connection. I double checked all the values on the other two computers in the household, and they matched up (excepting the different IP addresses, of course) and they haven't had any problems. I've tried resetting the router, unplugging the router, restarting, etc, etc. Sometimes it mysteriously picks up the Gateway for hours, only to drop it later for no apparent reason. I've had some minor issues before when I've come home from college (my wireless usually doesn't like working all that much here--I can be in the same room as the router, and have no luck connecting.) but never have I been totally unable to connect.

I'm running a HP Pavilion dv5000 that I bought a year and a half ago, with Windows XP SP2 installed. I've kept pretty up-to-date with both Windows and HP updates so I'm fairly certain that isn't the problem. Any ideas? Or more info needed?

3 replies

by scott_heath

This is not uncommon among home routers. We bout extremely expensive Cisco routers for a wireless roll-out at my company and we still had sporatic connection issues that Cisco couldn't explain.

Are you using a third-party connection manager that came from the wireless NIC manufacturer? I have had a few system where letting Windows manage wireless worked flawless and the provided management app would never work. I've also see it in reverse. Also make sure the NIC and router have the latest firmware and that Windows is using the latest driver from the NIC manufacturer.

Although did you say this happens when connected via a wired connection as well?

by rdumvill

I don't think the connection manager is third party, though, honestly, I'm no longer sure exactly how my wireless is working... there were some update issues in the past that altered things, and then uninstallations that may have altered it back.

But yes, I am having this in the wired connection as well.

I just realized that I forgot to post the router type: it's a Linksys Wireless G router, model WRT54GC.

Oddly, this doesn't seem to happen if the connection has constant usage--for example, I left a large download running last night, and have had no issues so far with the connection this morning.

This discussion is closed to new replies.