First motherboard, now router - I appear to fail at PC stuff?
 

So I concluded last week that the network port on my PCs motherboard had died. I bought a new board along with new RAM and CPU.

Put it all together and decided to see if it would boot without complaining. It did boot but was fussing about drivers etc. I did install the network drivers to at least get some other drivers I needed downloaded before putting on a fresh Win7 build. It wouldn't get an IP address from the router (Vigor 2700VG)

So I assume it's something to do with using the old Win7 build on the new board.

Reinstalled Win7, its an upgrade CD so I have to install WinXP first. AFAIK the upgrade will only work with XP activated. Installed the XP network drivers and it still wouldn't connect to the router. Struggled with it for about 2 hours and gave up with online activation and did it over the telephone.

So, now we've got the PC running Win7 and everything has installed and is running just so. Still not able to connect the router.

Go on the laptop to see if I'm doing something horrifically stupid and it occurs to me that the laptop is connecting wirelessly to the router so I turn off the wireless and plug the wire into the laptop - nothing.

Now this is odd because in the past I've plugged the lappy in directly and it worked fine.

Starting to wonder if the cable might be damaged - new carpet put in so might have been damaged that way. Go get 2 known working cables and try them both in the laptop without success.

When I run the diagnostic/repair app in Win7 it says cannot renew IP address - the green light on the router for the plugged in cable just flashes a couple of times a second and doesn't stop until PC is off.

I've done the "ipconfig /all" on the PC and it comes up with the wrong IP address. Its not 192.168 etc it's the one that comes up when they can't get an IP address 169.254. No default gateway address, nothing.

I've gone through DNSflush and lots of ipconfig commands I've found on the net but nothing helps.

I've even tried to put in the address manually and Win7 changes to reporting it's connected but then can't do anything with. No internet and can't see laptop.

Can't get this sorted at all. Done a factory reset on the router too. Had a look on the internet but almost all the help is relating to not being able to connect wirelessly. Wireless is fine I just can't get either machine to connect to the router via it's wired connection.

You have different router at home?



Jura

The ethernet port/ports on your router appears to be dead.

No although I'm going to borrow my mothers Netgear router and see if that will work at home.

Can this happen?

Is it possible that something has happened to cause the port on the router and the port on the motherboard to fail at the same time? There was a powercut last week but we were away, my mother was looking after our cats and said the power was off when she came one morning.

Yes this is possible, and likely, usually a power surge kills things outright if it is going to cause damage, but partial damage is not unheard of. For a quick test, link a known working ethernet lead between your laptop and pc, windows will recognise the lead being connected and disconnected but will not allow data transfer (unless you have a crossover lead).

I've the 2820 and this has a 'reboot router to factory defaults' option. Could be worth a try. Oh, it also has a 'Configuration backup' option which could be worth doing first - "IF" you have loads of configuration options already set-up that is. Sometimes it's better to start afresh and input things from scratch.

Dave

Have you tried the Draytek users forum?

http://www.forum.draytek.co.uk/

Can u login to the router over wire?

Wil try the forum

Have reset router to factory defaults.

I can login to the router wirelessly but not wired.

When I plug the cable into the PC it does register the cable is there but doesn't do anything else.

router def fooked im afraid then, unless the ethernet ports/ onboard nic is turned off in the bios, unlikely...

Get a wireless dongle for your PC. Sorted.

I have a belkin N router going for a steal if your interested


Mart