Hi There, I had another thread going on this, but it's pretty far down the line and haven't had any tips, so I thought that I'd bring it up to the top ;) Can anyone help me troubleshoot my small network? I have 2 pc's running Win98 SE. I have MSN DSL service, so my 2 pc's are attached to the Linksys BEFSR41 (Cabel/DSL router with 4 port switch)via ethernet, and the arescom DSL modem is attached to the WAN port on the router. Both of my PC's will connect to the service independently through the modem, but neither will connect when the router is hooked up. Now I've learned that MSN only gives you one IP address, so that's why I bought the router, as it was supposed to allow my 2 pc's to share that one IP address or connection. Everyone says it's so easy to do, just plug it in and go...well...I'm prrof that's not the case. I'm convinced it has to do with MSN as I've read about others having the same woes with them. If remove the MSN Explorer from my PC and try to connect just using IE I can't get on either. I really think MSN is making it difficult because they want you to have to buy another IP from them, but that's just my humble opinion. The theory I've heard is I need to "assign" the router the IP from the modem and then the PC's need to be assigned a different IP? Can someone maybe walk me through this process? You guys are always so helpful here. I hope someday I can help answer someone elses questions. Thanks and looking forward to some feedback. Alicia

Did the router come with a Installation CD? you 100 percent need it, it will configure your router for you. Does your DSL company give your IP address va DHCP or Static? you need to find that out...

Does your ISP assign a static or dynamic IP address? . A static ip address will stay the same all the time, and Dynamic will change at the will of the service provider. I have the same Linksys router, I think , it’s the same as your router, I have a BEFSR41 ver2. First you need to find out the Mac address of the first machine going into the output of your switch. At the start menu on that machine go to run then type in winipcfg then enter. The Mac address will be a 12-digit number. It sounds like you need to clone your Mac address . Open Internet explorer click on file and on the drop down menu click on work offline. Then type in 192.168.1.1 on the address bar and enter. You will then see a network password prompt in the middle on your screen. Your user name is 192.168.1.1 your password, if you haven’t set one, is admin. You will go to your linksys setup page. At the top will see tabs starting with setup and ending with advanced. Click on the advanced tab, and then clone Mac address. Type in the mac address in then apply. Then you may need to restart your machine and you should be able to get online thru your router. I hope this helps. Please let me know.

Hey guys! Thank you for your response! I did use the setup CD when I frist installed. It didn't make any difference. I'm going to give this MAC address clining a try. My ISP assignes DHCP does that make a difference? I found the tab under advanced for my router, now, do I need to clone the MAC address for both machines or are they the same?? Pardon my ignorance, this is really new to me. :) Alicia

You should only need to clone the Mac address for the machine in position one on your router, or if you are plugged into 2 and 3 it will be 2 . Also I didn't mention in my earlier post . When you type "winipcfg" go will then need to click on the drop down arrow by the thing saying "PPP adapter" and click on the one stating your Ethernet card Adapter( it should be pretty obvious) the MAC address needed is for the Ethernet or network card connected to your machine . Once that is setup the router should fine the other one okay . I assume you are using network cards ?

DHCP makes it possible for your router to spit of ip addresses . Your router recieves the main ip from your ISP then assigns to others going out of the router . And that's okay , that what you want .

I had a similar problem with my Linksys BEFSR41 Router and a replacement cable modem. The DHCP lease is renewed by my ISP every six hours (apparently they use Cisco Network Registration) so I had a choice of either cloning the MAC address of the Ethernet card that was used previously, as described by above by Wil, or to switch off the C/M for up to six hours until the DHCP lease expired. Choosing the latter option, after waiting for the lease to expire it was just a case of powering up the router and then the Cable Modem. When the C/M re-registered everything was fine.