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Full Version: Need help setting up a wireless PC network
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A couple of days ago, my sister bought a D-Link DI-524 wireless router because she wants to connect her main computer (which is downstairs) to my niece's new computer (which is in her bedroom upstairs), so that they are both able to access the internet at the same time.  It is an NTL cable broadband connection.

She was worried about the cost of calling out an engineer to install the router, so she asked me to do it instead.  I'm the only person in the family who knows much about computers.  The trouble is, I don't have any practical experience in computer networking, and I couldn't get it to work.  After I installed the router, the internet worked on my niece's computer upstairs, but it no longer worked on the main computer downstairs. The cable modem is linked to the downstairs computer, and always has been.

This is what I did:  I connected the ethernet cable from Port 1 on the router to the ethernet port on the back of the downstairs computer.  I then connected another ethernet cable from the router's WAN port to the cable modem downstairs. Next, I went to the upstairs computer and connected the wireless USB adapter (which came with the router) to it, although I had to install some software from the accompanying CD-ROM first.  The upstairs computer then detected the wireless network from the computer downstairs, and we could connect to the internet on the upstairs computer.  But then when I checked the downstairs computer, I could no longer get the internet to work on it. The downstairs computer showed a "Page cannot be displayed" error when attempting to access websites.

Does anyone know what I could be doing wrong?
I don't, as a rule, do windows, so I can't give you specific instructions, but a start would be to configure the computer downstairs manually.  There's a control panel dialog that lets you do this (sorry, I don't remember offhand how to get there):

  IP address:  192.168.0.xxx, where xxx is some number between 2 and 254.  I suggest a largish number, so as not to interfere with the router's DHCP assignments.

  Netmask: 255.255.255.0

  Default Gateway (windows may call this something else):  IP address of the router (192.168.0.1 is the default, I believe).

  Primary DNS Server: Address of the router again (I think this router has its own DNS cache).

Reboot and see what happens.  If you still can't get to the internet, try accessing the router from your browser (http://192.168.0.1/).  If that doesn't work, there might be some problem with the router's built-in switch (maybe a router setup option).

Good luck.
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