new router and i know very little about networking

[civic57]

This is probably an easy problem to fix, but it's been annoying me for so long i have to ask someone. I have a dsl connection that is connected to a router, and then connected to a hub and then to my computer. off of the hub, me, and my 2 roommates are connected and the room next door is connected off the ports of the router. We recently bought a new router, linksys nr041, and now we have no connection. My computer tells me i am connected but i can not use IE or AIM, and i try to repair my connection and it tells me that i can not refresh my ip address. Any ideas?

 

[bcastner]

You need to disable DHCP on the new router, set it to router and not Gateway mode (not critical, but do it) and give the router a fixed IP address in the network segment identified by the first router. If the first router is handing out IPs like 192.168.1.101, give the new router a fixed IP outside of its DHCP scope, such as 192.168.1.3

Connect a straight-through cable froma regular port on the first router to the uplink port of the new (or uplink old to new regular LAN port). Be careful as most small routers share the "Uplink" port with the adjacent LAN port, so do not use both at the same time on any of the routers.

A good discussion, step-by-step guide, (including diagrams and pictures) is found here:

http://www4.tomshardware.com/network/20030716/index.html

 

[civic57]

not sure what "give the new router a fixed IP outside of its DHCP scope, such as 192.168.1.3" means nor do i know how to do it.

 

[bcastner]

Connect directly to the new router.
Set your computer's TCP/IP properties to "Obtain an IP address automaticly"
Reboot your computer.
Run Internet Explorer.
In the address bar type: http:\\192.168.1.1

You will see the setup page for the router.

Follow the instructions from the Manual and from what you see on the screen to set the router's IP address as a fixed IP address at 192.168.1.3, Subnet mask 255.255.255.0, Gateway 192.168.1.1

I am having to make a lot of assumptions that could be clarified by going to "the room next door" where they have a direct connection to the router, and doing an IPCONFIG /all on one of the connected machines to determine the default Gateway address of those machines. That value you plug in on your router for the Gateway address. Add 1 to it for its static IP address above. For example, if the results showed 192.168.0.1 as the Gateway, you would assign 192.168.03 as the new routers fixed IP address, subnet 255.255.255.0, and a Gateway address of 192.168.0.1. In most cases the information I gave earlier should be correct, but check.

Follow the rest of my original advice.