Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Nushi]

Hello,

I'm connecting to the internet via ADSL. The modem is in our living room and has a DIR-655 connected to it. Also connected are an IPTV set-top box and an Xbox 360. In our office room we have 2 computers and a Buffalo LinkStation hard drive connected by wire to a DAP-1522 which is working as a bridge for the wireless network created by the DIR-655. The reason for this configuration is that the set-top box refused to work with IPTV through the wireless bridge. Before we got IPTV, the bridge was in the living room and was primarily used for Xbox, while the modem was in the office and allowed all desktop PCs to connect by wire.

Ever since we've had the desktop PCs connected via the bridge, surfing has been difficult. Download speeds are good, but very often webpages simply refuse to load. The browser just says "Connecting to [internet address here]. For example, I might log on to Facebook, have the front page load and then I try to open a picture someone has uploaded, but nothing happens. Clicking links, nothing happens. Clicking anywhere, nothing happens. Put a new address in the address bar, nothing happens. It just tries to connect the addresses, but won't.
After waiting a while, or restarting the browser, it might work again for a while.

Any idea what might be causing this? Is it my new modem, the DIR-655 or the DAP-1522? All devices get their IPs from the ADSL modem to ensure proper networking between the devices. Streaming from the NAS to the Xbox is flawless.
Could someone just tell me the best settings for each device for this setup ?

[FurryNutz]

What ISP Modem do you have? Stand Alone or built in router?
What ISP Modem make and model do you have?
If this modem has a built in router, it's best to bridge the modem. Having 2 routers on the same line can cause connection problems.
To tell if the modem is bridged or not, look at the routers web page, Status/Device Info/Wan Section, if there is a 192.168.0.# address in the WAN IP address field, then the modem is not bridged.

Some things to try:
Turn off ALL QoS or Disable Traffic Shaping (DIR only) GameFuel (DGL only and if ON.) options. Advanced/QoS or Gamefuel.
Turn off Advanced DNS Services if you have this option under Setup/Internet/Manual.
Turn on DNS Relay under Setup/Networking.
Setup DHCP reserved IP addresses for all devices ON the router. Setup/Networking
Ensure devices are set to auto obtain an IP address.
Set Firewall settings to Endpoint Independent for TCP and UDP under Advanced/Firewall.
Enable uPnP and Multi-cast Streaming under Advanced/Networking.

What wireless modes are you using? Under Setup/Wireless/Manual.
Try single mode G or mixed G and N?
What security mode are you using? Preferred security is WPA-Personal. WPA2/Auto TPIK and AES. Some WiFi adapters don't support AES, so you might want to try TPIK only.
What wireless devices do you have connected?
Any cordless house phones?
Any other WiFi routers in the area? Use InSSIDer to find out.
Turn off Short GI and Extra Wireless Protection if you have it. Under Advanced/Advanced Wireless.

[Nushi]

- My modem has a built-in wireless/4-port wired router. Wireless is turned off because it was g only and totally sucked. I have no idea what the make and model of the modem are. I got it from my ISP and it has my ISP's custom management interface. Any other than the most basic settings are done through the ISP's online service, which I find ridiculous. I've read that they have a newer model with wireless-N, so apparently they decided to give us leftovers instead of the good stuff.
- You're saying I should connect the router to the modem via the router's WAN port? Presently the DIR-655 is bridged and to achieve that I had to connect it by LAN. I'm pretty sure the modem is NATed and just forwards required ports to the STB, but I can check it out just to be sure. The STB doesn't need to be in the same subnet since it has no LAN features, so connecting the modem to the router's WAN port is doable. Unfortunately I can't even remember if I had the router bridged or NATed in my previous setup.

Thanks for the router settings! That's got to be the clearest answer I've ever got when it comes to problems with router settings! I'll try them out and report soon.

- Wireless mode is mixed g/n. I tried using n only, but it turned out my sister's laptop is too old and only supports g. Security is disabled.
- Connected wireless devices are the DAP-1522, 2 laptops and 1 desktop with a D-Link wireless-N dongle.
- Yes, we have one cordless house phone.
- Other houses in the neighborhood have wireless networks. In addition to our own, I can usually see 3-6 other ones. I did setup the DIR-655 with Auto Channel Scan which set it up on channel 6 (I know it's the most popular one so apparently the channel scan wasn't too picky)

I'll try everything you suggested and report back. Thank you so much!

[FurryNutz]

I might try using the DMZ on the Modem for the IP address that the 655 gets and use the WAN port on the 655. However If your using the 655 as an AP, that should work too. I would turn off ALL options like Firewall, WISH, Protected WiFi, Traffic Shaping, QoS, and uPnP on the 655. Leave WiFi going as well. Might turn off DHCP too if your not concerned about using a different subnet. Just use the DHCP server coming from the modem.

Keep us posted.

[Nushi]

Hello again!

I now have the modem bridged and the DIR-655 connected to it through the WAN port. The DIR-655 has an IP address directly from my ISP and all clients get their IP from the DIR-655 (192.168.0.100 - 192.168.0.199). IPTV wouldn't work when connected to the DIR-655 but works perfectly connected to the modem. If I remember correctly, my ISP gives a maximum of 5 IPs so now the DIR-655 has one and the IPTV box has one. I manually entered my ISP's DNS servers for the DIR-655 to use and with less than 5 minutes of testing it seems the office computers now surf the net just fine through the DAP-1522 bridge. One thing I did notice when running speedtest.net was that speeds through the bridge are now around 2-3 Mbit/s (as opposed to 4-5 Mbit/s with yesterday's setup) while the laptops and desktops connecting directly via WLAN achieve 12 Mbit/s. Still, there doesn't seem to be any random nothing-going-ons any more so I'm pretty happy.

Also I must say your second answer confuses me. I now have the modem bridged as you originally advised so I cannot use the DHCP from the modem, can I? I do require my devices to be on the same subnet, except for the STB, so I'll have to use the DIR-655's DHCP server on (my limit of 5 IP addresses in the ISP servce contract is another reason for this, although I'm not sure whether that restriction is hard-wired to their systems or just a recommendation). Also you previously told me to turn uPnP on and now it should be off?

EDIT: Download speeds through the bridge on another office computer are 4-8 Mbit/s which is just fine. 2-3 Mbit/s on the other comuter is computer-specific, or I might have just had bad timing with the test.
Surfing has been working on all computers with no issues whatsoever for the last hour now, so I should consider this problem solved! Thank you so much for your help!