Hi!
I have a home network with machines using Windows 7 and Windows XP;
I also have multiple home entertainment set-top boxes that are connected to my router (DLink DIR-655), as well as a Vonage box (IP based telephone module). My router only has 4 ports, but my Vonage box also has four ports - so I connected all wired units to the Vonage box (total of four IP based units, including two Windows 7 PCs), and now only the Vonage box is wired directly into the router.
After I connected all this I bought a used laptop (Windows XP), and I'm setting it up on the network now. It sees the internet just fine - but it can't see any of the other devices on the network except the router; so I can't do any file swapping between computers.
Today I wrote down the IP addresses of the laptop and my workstations, and realized that the addresses have different values in the third quadrant:
Laptop: 192.168.0.198
Workstation 1: 192.168.15.5
Workstation 2: 192.168.15.2
In my router web-based GUI, it only shows the devices that have IP addresses with "0" in the third quadrant of the IP address; most of these devices are wireless devices (laptop, tablet, smartphones), with the exception of one device that I don't recognize (no name is showing) - I'm guessing that's the Vonage module, which is the only device that's physically wired into the router (then all the other wired devices port into the Vonage unit).
It seems evident to me that this is what is causing the problem - that the Vonage unit, having its own IP address and ports, is issuing "out of scope" IP addresses to the wired devices on its own ports.
Does anyone reading this concur with my guess?
Do I need to buy a new router with more than 4 ports? Or can I "widen the scope" of my existing router and/or PCs? Or can I plug all my wired devices into a simple 6 or 8 port ethernet switch, then into the router - without losing (much) bandwidth?
Many thanks to anyone who might assist!!!
I have a home network with machines using Windows 7 and Windows XP;
I also have multiple home entertainment set-top boxes that are connected to my router (DLink DIR-655), as well as a Vonage box (IP based telephone module). My router only has 4 ports, but my Vonage box also has four ports - so I connected all wired units to the Vonage box (total of four IP based units, including two Windows 7 PCs), and now only the Vonage box is wired directly into the router.
After I connected all this I bought a used laptop (Windows XP), and I'm setting it up on the network now. It sees the internet just fine - but it can't see any of the other devices on the network except the router; so I can't do any file swapping between computers.
Today I wrote down the IP addresses of the laptop and my workstations, and realized that the addresses have different values in the third quadrant:
Laptop: 192.168.0.198
Workstation 1: 192.168.15.5
Workstation 2: 192.168.15.2
In my router web-based GUI, it only shows the devices that have IP addresses with "0" in the third quadrant of the IP address; most of these devices are wireless devices (laptop, tablet, smartphones), with the exception of one device that I don't recognize (no name is showing) - I'm guessing that's the Vonage module, which is the only device that's physically wired into the router (then all the other wired devices port into the Vonage unit).
It seems evident to me that this is what is causing the problem - that the Vonage unit, having its own IP address and ports, is issuing "out of scope" IP addresses to the wired devices on its own ports.
Does anyone reading this concur with my guess?
Do I need to buy a new router with more than 4 ports? Or can I "widen the scope" of my existing router and/or PCs? Or can I plug all my wired devices into a simple 6 or 8 port ethernet switch, then into the router - without losing (much) bandwidth?
Many thanks to anyone who might assist!!!
