Networking problem

DarkXaldin · Post by **DarkXaldin** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 9:35 pm

Hi,

In our office the internet is connected to the router and a switch is connected to the router to provide internet connection to the whole office. What happened is that suddenly all the computers in the office are not able to connect to the net. I've checked the computers and it seems that the computers are using the gateway 192.168.0.1 instead of 192.168.1.1 which is the IP of the router. I have to change the settings in all of the computers to static IP but this is just a band-aid solution and when the computer is powered off and then powered on again, I have to type in the gateway IP again. Can anyone tell me what the problems is? Thanks.

nwrickert · Post by **nwrickert** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:23 pm

It's hard to say what's wrong, with so little information.

Was the router changed, or reconfigured?

Normally, the computers would get their information on the gateway IP using DHCP. If the router was reconfigured to use a different network, or the router was replaced, then you might have the router using a different network than is in the DHCP information.

You can set the DHCP lease time to shorter, if this happens often.

If this is a rare occurrence, then maybe just pull the power plug on that switch, and wait a minute or two before plugging back in. The connected computers should then recognize that their network connection has been reset, and make a fresh attempt to get a DHCP lease.

DarkXaldin · Post by **DarkXaldin** » Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:02 am

There wasn't any recent change that I'm aware of, this problem just suddenly happened. I did try to reboot the router itself but it's still the same thing, I'm still getting connected to 192.168.0.1. Sometimes it would also show in my computer that I'm connected to multiple networks. When I check the 2nd network it's just a duplicate of the existing network plus a number e.g. "Network 2". The gateway IP for the duplicate network would be 192.168.0.1.

nwrickert · Post by **nwrickert** » Tue Feb 19, 2013 7:04 pm

Is there any possibility that there is a second router on the network, giving out conflicting DHCP information?

DarkXaldin · Post by **DarkXaldin** » Tue Feb 19, 2013 9:54 pm

I've checked and you're right. Seems like there was a router that was being used as an access point but DHCP was not turned off in the config of the router. Though I'm wondering how come the problem just happened all of a sudden when the setting of that router was never touched and it was working previously.

nwrickert · Post by **nwrickert** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:19 am

Maybe someone pushed the reset button on the box, and that would turn it back into a router (the factory defaults).