Hi folks. I'm trying to fix a problem my brother-in-law is having with his pc, but this one has me stumped.

PC is running Windows XP Home. For the past few days, he has been unable to connect to the internet. His setup is cable modem --> wireless router --> pc. If we remove the router and go directly from the modem to the pc, he has internet connection. IPCONFIG shows his ISP-assigned IP address of 74.77.*.* and all is well.

If we connect the router, then he cannot connect to the internet. For some reason, his wired connection is still showing the old ISP IP address of 74.77.*.* instead of the router-assigned IP of 192.168.*.* . HOWEVER, any wireless clients connecting to the router can connect just fine, they show the router-assigned IP address of 192.168.*.* as expected.

We have rebooted all equipment several times, including hard reboots. We have verified all the wired connections are fine. We even tried 2 other routers (3 total), and the same problem is happening with all of them.

My guess is that the pc is not grabbing the new IP address that the router is assigning to it, it's still seeing the 'old' IP address, and that's why it won't connect. I thought this could be fixed by using IPCONFIG /RENEW, but when I tried that it got some type of error (I don't remember what it said, sorry, something to the effect of "Unable to..."). I also tried the Network Connections - Lan - Status - Support - Repair method, and all it said was "The following action cannot be completed: Renewing your IP address".

All I need to do (I think) is to get his pc to grab the new IP address instead of using the old one.
Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!
DaveNetMan

Welcome to our forum, DaveNetMan!

Have you checked the properties of the network connection? On mine (which is connected to a router) everything is on 'automatic'....

General tab: Obtain an IP address automatically; Obtain DNS server address automatically.
Advanced button: DHCP Enabled; nothing in DNS tab; nothing in WINS tab; TCP/IP filtering in Options, all checked to 'Allow all'.

Advanced tab on main page: Automatic private IP address.

You can always see your 'real' IP address by clicking HERE.

I had this problem recently also. What I ended up doing is setting my IP as static in the same subnet as the router. I left it like that for a couple days and then changed it back to dynamic and it finally took an IP address from the router. Give that a try and see if it helps.

Sorry for the delay, but problem is resolved. Here's what happened.

My brother-in-law has a Vonage router. He lost connection, and after a couple of days, I went over to his house, I found we couldn't connect with not only his Vonage router, but 2 other routers I tried. Vonage had told him to buy a new router, which he had ordered, but at first I didn't think that was the problem, since neither of my 2 routers worked. That's when I post my original post.

After jimholly's post, I checked his network settings, and sure enough, instead of having it set to Automatic, he had some IP/DNS numbers in there. After setting this back to Automatic, I was able to connect using either of my 2 spare routers. But he was still unable to connect using his Vonage router, so I was waiting until his replacement arrived.

His new Vonage router arrived, he installed it, and now everything is working fine. So it was indeed his original router that went bad. Having that assigned IP address explains why he couldn't connect with my spare routers. He also told me that when putting in his new router, Vonage did instruct him to put in an IP/DNS address in his settings. I am not very familiar with Vonage, so I don't know why this is needed, but they say it is, and everything is working again.

Thanks so much for all your help!
Dave