Annoying Ethernet Problem with Smart Modem

chorus techy

Hi

I've a HP Pavilion t680uk Windows XP Sp2 with an nVidia Ethernet NIC and Smart Broadband 4 port ADSL router. The router works fine when I connect to USB using a USB connection and is very fast, but it refuses to work AT ALL with ethernet and I was hoping to use the router as a network hub.

When I connect through the internet, it says it connects at 100mbps as would be expected, however, for 2 minutes displays "Acquiring IP address". It then comes up with an Ip address beginning with 169, whereas the USB gets an IP of 192. I had a ZyXEL BT modem a few months which worked perfectly on the Ethernet, and came up with an IP in the 192 range also, But it refuses to work with the smart router. The smart router uses DHCP, and I have the ethernet card set to obtain an IP and DNS automatically but it just won't work. The link light on the smart router lights up correctly and the light on the actual ethernet card lights also to indicate a link is present but it just won't transmit anything.

Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated, because it's driving me nuts here!!!

Mr. Fancypants

Have you tried manually setting the IP address on your Ethernet NIC on the HP machine?

chorus techy

Yes - I've tried setting it to 192.168.1.1, USB takes 192.168.1.1 and I tried 192.168.1.3 right up to 192.168.1.10 when I gave up as none of them worked. I've also tried setting the DSN the same as USB and also the Subnet mask (255.255.255.0). No avail though

Mr. Fancypants

When you are connected via USB. Go to a command prompt and type ipconfig /all
Take note of each address particulary the gateway as this will be the address of the router. Then manually set the Ethernet NIC to have the same settings, then at the command prompt ping the gateway address. If your not getting a response there is most likely a fault with the port on the router or on your Pavillion. Could you try another port on the router. Apologies if you have tried all of this already.

chorus techy

Bloody hell - it worked!
Here was me pulling my hair out for two days trying to figure out what was going on and you got it fixed in two minutes!

Cheers, thanks a million!

Mr. Fancypants

No probs