Address Conflict On Wireless LAN With Satellite Service 1

[olgaportland]

We cannot get on the Internet with our laptop. Here is the situation.

We have just had LincSat wireless service installed.
We have the LincSat receiver/transmitter plugged into a DLink DI 714P+, Wireless Broadband Router.
In our HP Pavillion laptop we have a Linksys Instant Wireless Network PC Card, for which we have just downloaded and installed the latest driver. Our System pops up a window saying that there is a "conflict with the IP address, with the system having hardware address........" while the Device Manager under Network Adapters says "This device is working properly" and the Conflicting Devices List says "No Conflicts." The Wireless LAN Configuration Utility says the Link Quality is Excellent - 100% and that the Signal Strength is Excellent - 93%.

We have set up another computer (desktop) with a wireless card - DLink DWL 520+, using the same IP address and subnet mask and we have no trouble getting on the Internet. It is working perfectly.

Any suggestions for the laptop?

 

[bcastner]

To clarify things:

Windows identifies a conflict with an IP address only on a single workstation; in other words, it is blind to the IP assignments of other workstations.

For TCP/IP to work properly, each "host" on a network must have a unique IP. When I see a statement such as this from your post "We have set up another computer (desktop) with a wireless card - DLink DWL 520+, using the same IP address and subnet mask and we have no trouble getting on the Internet." It worries me.

. You HP laptop is complaining that another adapter (likely an ethernet adapter) is already assigned the static IP address you are trying to use for the wireless card. XP "remembers" a workstations assignments for network adapters, and the error message you receive is only an informational message. It is perfectly acceptable to use a static IP already assigned to another adapter on an individual workstation as long as both are not connected to the same network at the same time.

. Your IP assignment is quite a different animal than your IRQ and base memory address assignments for an adapter. The "no conflicts" in Device Manager is what you want to see, but have no relationship to your IP settings.

Practical Advice:

. Most satellite systems offer either a static IP for the receiver, or a dynamic DHCP address. If you set up the receiver with a static IP address (you would know) connect the satellite to the WAN port of the router, and set the router to a fixed IP address given to you by the satellite company.

The more common situation is that the satellite receiver has its own DHCP server, and issues a dynamic IP. In this instance connect the receiver to a regular LAN port (not WAN) on the router, and disable DHCP on the router setup pages.

. Set all clients in TCP/IP properties to "obtain an IP address automaticly". They should pull a valid IP, subnet mask, and Gateway address from the DHCP server on your satellite reciever.

. The key issue: likely your satellite receiver is trying to issue IPs in the same network segment address as is the default of most small routers: 192.168.1.x Either use the DHCP server on the satellite side, or change the base LAN address of the router to a different network segment address: I would use 10.0.0.1 as the IP for the router, and for your LAN network.

. If you change the base IP address for the router and your LAN, you can plug the satellite into the WAN port and tell it to use DHCP to obtain its WAN IP address.

But it just will not work to have two DHCP servers, the satellite receiver and the router, contending over issuing valid IPs on the same network address.

 

[olgaportland]

Thanks for your well considered answer. I will have to think about all this for a couple of days before letting you know the outcome.

 

[olgaportland]

Everything is working. To test what you said, I removed the working (wireless) computer from the lan and the laptop started working. Although one wireless did work using the IP address suggested by the ISP, we are using automatic settings now on all five computers - three wired to the router and two with wireless cards.

I appreciate your help in this matter -- especially the tone of your response. On occasion, forum responses (not necessarily in this one) are sarcastic in tone, which would lead some to think twice about displaying their ignorance and ask questions. Wireless is smoke and mirrors to some of us. Thanks.

 

[bcastner]

Glad you got the issue sorted.

If you receive a sarcastic reply in this forum, use the 'Red Flag' feature.