Antares said:
The model number on the box is DGN3500.
I downloaded and printed the manual but have not been able to get any
positive results from anything it suggests.
http://docs.netgear.com/dgn3500/enu/202-10487-01/usermanual.pdf
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/25-124-004-Z04?$S640W$
You'd connect some computer, by means of a working NIC and Ethernet
cable, to an RJ-45 (orange colored) on the router. You'd try
http://192.168.0.1
as suggested in the manual. The manual says there is also a symbolic
address, but it relies on the client computer's network properties a bit.
Whereas typing that in the browser, stands a better chance of working.
If you enter the router, and change the default address, that can make
it hard to "find it" later. So it doesn't necessarily have to be
at 192.168.0.1, if someone else in your house has been fooling around
with it.
But if you use the reset button (sometimes, a button actuated with a
paper clip for ten seconds), that will usually reset the address to
the value specified in the manual.
When the login dialog appears in the web browser of the client computer,
the account name to use is "admin" and the password value is equal to "password".
You can then change the password to something else if you want. That
account and password are only used to access the web interface on the
router, not anything else.
Once in there, you can set up the security properties of the Wifi section.
The PPPOE for ADSL would also need to be set up. As in entering a
login name "(e-mail address removed)" and password "some_isp_provided_password".
Those go into a dialog box, when setting up PPPOE. PPPOE is in some
ways, just like dialup modems years ago, in that there is a login
step for authentication. That login name and password, are quite
different in syntax than the typical "admin" "password" stuff used
to get into the web interface of the router.
Anyway, I expect you've already been in there. So the above is
probably redundant info by now.
*******
A wired connection, from some client computer, to the router, is
the best way to access the web interface.
Now, say it doesn't work.
Go to the client computer, open a command prompt as in "cmd.exe",
then type
ping 192.168.0.1
If the cable is good, you should see an activity blink for
each ping packet sent. Check for "blinks" on both ends of the
cable. And the router should echo a response if it is responding.
Otherwise, the client doing the test will show timeouts or no
response when the ping test is done.
I had a router a couple years back, which failed. It had been
sitting in the box, and I pulled it out for a test. It refused
to answer at 192.168.0.1. What I did, was located an application,
which would try ping commands at relatively high speed, and
actually scanned the entire private address space, trying to
get the stinking router to respond. And there was no response
from the interface. The router had two cards inside it, and
the one with the four port switch portion, was "partitioned"
from the card holding the router chip. And I couldn't get a
damn thing from it. It was probably a firmware problem, like
a dead EEPROM.
Some NICs, like the Marvell chip on my current motherboard, have
a thing called "Virtual Cable Tester". If you have a bad PHY
or bad cable, sometimes that can show an open pair in the wire
(like, a broken or shorted wire). I've used that feature a couple
times, for testing the physical interface of a NIC here.
In this example, only two of the four pairs are working right.
And the pin numbering doesn't make sense. If you have a 10/100BT
cable (only four wires, arranged in two pairs), the pin numbers
used are 1,2,3,6. And the "normal" pairs shown here, don't
match that pinout. And if this was supposed to be an eight
wire four-pair, GbE ready cable, then you'd expect all the
pairs to show "Normal". When I had a NIC that wasn't working,
one of the pairs shows "open circuit", and there was dirt on
the connector pins. Once cleaned, it worked again (being careful,
not to damage the pins). The cleaning procedure, is to insert
and remove the connector a few times, and let the rubbing
of the pins do the cleaning.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/mainboards/asus-p4p800e/vct.png
If you had lightning damage, it's not guaranteed the impedance
would be wrong. So even if the impedance test passes, it
still doesn't mean the network will work. But that Narvell
tester, is convenient for detecting a broken wire or dirty
pin on a connector. I think I have two motherboards here, with
that test capability on them.
Paul
