I was try to help a friend set up a small basic LAN network in his home. This thing kicked my butt yesterday. He has a BellSouth DSL modem. He is using a Neteverywhere router by Linksys. All it came with was a CD, power supply, and router. No CAT 5 cable. So here's the story. I have set up small LAN networks before and have never had this much trouble. I first try it the easy way. I run the network setup wizard in XP. I go to my network places and check the settings. All are set to automatically detect. O.K. The problem is that when the modem is connect to the router there is no internet connection available. I look into the bellsouth manger software and it tells me the DNS is not available. I try to run the setup software for the router and it too complains about no internet connection. So. I can't even access the router, to configure it. When I type in the IP of the router it prompts me to connect but it never connects. I unhook the router and hook the modem straight back into the computer and I rerun the Bellsouth software and I'm back on the net. No problem. I hook the router back up and I lose the internet. I run Net Diagnostics and it fails the NIC card in his computer. I go in and configure the Network settings manually. I tell it that the static IP of the router is 192.168.1.1, and that the computer I am wanting to network is 192.168.1.2. I give the subnet mask, I manually enter the primary and secondary DNS. and Now I can get into the router and configure it. I set it up per the instructions that can with the router and Bellsouth finally says it sees an internet connection. Then when I try to go onto the web it keeps prompting me to connect. But it never connects. I can't surf the net. It is set up as a PPPoE and I gave it the sign in and password for the account. What kind of brain fart am I having? Is it the cabling? Do I need to be using cross over cables instead of straight through? Or vice versa. I'm not sure what is actually being used. Didn't look closely enough. Is there something else I'm overlooking? I haven't even begun to network the other computer. It's an older 98 machine. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like it might be a cabling problem. You need to use a crossover cable between the modem & router, and streight thru from the computer(s) to the router. Another possibility is that your ISP has associated the MAC address of your computers NIC with your account. - Turn off the modem and router - Make all the physical connections. - Press the reset button on the modem while powering it up. - Do the same with the router. - Configure each computer to receive its IP info via DHCP. - Logon to the router (via its web page) and enter the username & password for PPPoE. - It's been awhile since I've used PPPoE but, you may also need to set the timeout for the connection. - Cross your fingers and browse the Net.

What has worked for me with BellSouth. BellSouth uses some weird software to provide the PPPoE support that runs on the computer. It handles the PPPoE logon/password through the NIC and Modem. They update the software late at night once a week. This software does not work when you insert the router in the path, period. In addition, their system talks directly to the NIC card with its MAC address. Hum... router has a different MAC address... So when you try to use the router, their system no long sees the NIC's MAC address. And unless they reset the connection or it gets automatically reset, it will not talk to another MAC address. If you power the modem off over night, their equipment will normally reset the connection and then make a new one when you power the modem back on the next day, to the NIC or router the modem is connected to. You have to make a number of changes. First, power off the modem over night so they reset their side of the interface. In the mean time, hook in the router with a normal eithernet cable and power up the router and system (Keep the modem powered off) and make sure the system is setup for normal networking. In Network properties, Configuration, select the "TCP/IP - NIC card..." line and click properties. Make sure the "Obtain an IP address automatically" is selected, and the "Detect connections to network media" is checked. All others tab setting should be set to default. Reboot system. Bring up the browser and access http://192.168.1.1 to talk to the routers configuration software. Reset the router to default settings first. Then select the PPPoE option, plug in the full user logon and password. At this point, you should be able to hook up other systems to the router and share them on the local LAN. If you RUN WINIPCFG at this point, it should show your system's IP Address as 192.168.1.100 or 192.168.1.101. This is the local LAN IP address of the system now, assigned by DCHP in the router. The next step is to power on the modem after it has been off all night, and with the rest of the system and router has been correctly setup. It may take a half hour or more for the modem/router to connect the first time. But in the mean time, bring up your browser and try to access sites. Do NOT start the Bell South longon software as this is now being done by the router. The browser should be going through the normal TCP/IP software LAN access. As I recall, the logon is the username@bellsouth.net The router will handle the PPPoE connection. Make sure the router firmware is up to date also. Check the version and compare it with what is available on the LinkSys web site. In some cases, you have to contact BellSouth support and ask them to reset the connection to get this to work.

Thank you so much for your very useful insight. I will give it a go tommorrow and let you know how it turns out.

Worked like a charm. Thanks so much for your input guys. Jack G your instructions were vwey useful.