Hi

For the past few months I have been using a router (set up by someone else) to access the internet from 3 different machines. Yesterday the PC which the router is installed on would not connect to the internet. The LAN connection was shown as enabled and connected in Control Panel but I was unable to browse the internet using Internet Explorer. - it just said 'Page cannot be displayed'.

After hours of plugging and unplugging the router cables, switching it on and off and looking at the installation CD - Internet Explorer was able to browse the internet again - but only on the PC with the router installed on it.

If I try to use my laptop with any of the LAN connection cables (in 3 different rooms) I cannot use IE as it says 'Page Cannot be Displayed'. However, the Local Area Connection is shown to be enables and connected!

I think the problem may be to do with settings on the Laptop - but I cannot understand why they would change without me doing something to them. I have spent 2 days messing about with all the settings in Properties (of the Local Area Connection) and Connections in Internet Options.

I have a Netgear DG834 Router/Modem and am using Windows XP on both the PC and Laptop and use Wanadoo Broadband as my ISP.

I am so frustrated with this as I just can't figure out what the problem is and I have wasted two days trying to fix it. I am thinking of replacing the router with a Wanadoo Home Kit as it comes with a Set Up CD that does everything for you - but this is a last resort.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

I wouldn't claim to be an expert on networks (yet), but here's a suggestion on how to start diagnosing your problem.

The first thing to do is to establish the connectivity on your three-computer network, which you can do using the ping command from a command line prompt.

You need to find the IP addresses of your three computers and your router. You can use the ipconfig command on each computer to establish its IP address. I think that the network properties on each computer should list the IP address of the router as the default gateway. (You may also be able to query the router itself to find out what it thinks its IP address is on the local network side.)

Then start using the ping command to check whether the computers can see each other and the router.

If the computers can ping each other and the router then try pinging a remote server (such as www.whitehouse.gov). This will tell you whether the router is successfully passing data packets between your local network and the Internet.

Alastair_M

Can the computers connect to the router.

I presume the router has a configuration screen accessable in IE. Does that show.

Try accessing a website by its IP address.

To get to that screen, when you find the ip (maybe something like 192.168.0.1) You take the ip and go to that http://x.x.x.x.com (ex) http://192.168.0.1.com and that is your router config page. This is the first thing that glared out in your issue to me. And as BorisE said, before you go to the web address of your router ping 192.168.0.1 FIRST! See what happens.