Networking Problems ... help!

St. Worm2

New Member
Greetings: I just set a little peer to peer network up in this manner: Cable Modem > 4-port wireless router > 16 port workgroup switch out to all wired computers and devices. All are Linksys products (for whatever that is worth) and all are connected together with Cat 5 Ethernet cable.

At the moment there are 4 wired computers, 4 wireless computers, 3 print servers, and 2 wireless access points attached to this LAN. All work just fine until I add in the 16 port switch (which I obviously need to do) to the LAN, then the connectivity issues begin. If I just connect four devices and/or computers directly to the router ... ANY combination of 4 of the wired devices and/or computers in fact ... NO PROBLEM. They all work. But once I have them all connected to the 16 port switch, I get all kinds of problems, and this is the second, new Linksys-Cisco switch I've tried on this LAN.

Today, when the new switch arrived and I booted up the 1st Desktop, I was able to access everything like gangbusters, well, on computer #1 anyway. I then booted up computers 2 and 3 and found I was unable to access anything with either one of those computers, Intranet or Internet, but computer #1 was still working GREAT out of the same switch (and this is about how it was with the first switch I tried last week). But if I took the switch out of the mix again, all devices and computers would again work just fine plugged directly into the router's LAN ports. WEIRD!! Has anyone experienced anything like this before? If so, what did you do to fix the problem .. :confused:

Finally, and just FYI, this is how I tried to get everything up and running. First I turned off all computers and devices. I then connected everything together with Cat 5 Ethernet cable (as I said earlier). Then I booted up the Cable modem, then the router, then the switch, then the computers and devices, giving plenty of time between booting each device.

Have I done something wrong that you can think of? I'm using the "Uplink" port #16 in uplink mode on the 16 port switch, but should I use a Crossover cable instead of an Ethernet cable between the router and the switch nonetheless? ... remembering, of course, that one computer did work perfectly just the way I had it set up with regular Ethernet cable (also, that all Ethernet cables appear to be good since they all work when plugged directly into the back of the router rather than the 16 port switch).

One last thing, computer #2 seemed like it was going to connect each time, but it never would. And each time I tried, the same thing happened to the URL address in IE's "Address Line" and in the Finding page line on the bottom left-hand side of the IE window, both flashed rapidly. Again, weird, but I thought it might be worthwhile to mention it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I need to have this network up and working properly by Monday morning if possible .. :eek:

Thanks!

--David
 
xX_InVeRtEr_Xx said:
Maybe the modem isnt powerful enough to power 16 ports.


Test that.. plug the switch into the router, and plug 1-4 computer into the swith and see if it works.. I dont know if there is a max number of computers for a modem... Also make sure you dont have the number of assigned ips limited to 4-5...
 
What I ended up doing!

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! The subnets were OK and the Linksys Cable Modem has proven to be adequate power-wise for the network. I got the network working, but I'm still not exactly sure what made the difference!?? I did end up using the uplink port on the 16 port switch, and regular Cat 5 throughout (so no changes there), but I did change two other things.

First, I realized that I was going from the built-in switch in the router, to the uplink port in the 16 port switch, and then into another 5 port switch from there (for multiple devices in the copy room), and I wasn't using it's uplink port. So I changed and ran the copy room's Ethernet cable directly from a router LAN port to the 5 port switch's uplink port. I hoped that one less switch in the mix and using the uplink port again would help, and I think it did :)

Second, instead of plugging all the Ethernet cables in and powering up everything in the 16 port switch at the same time, I plugged in one computer or device at a time and then turned them on one at a time as I did that. Now everything is running smoothly unless the network devices get powered down for some reason. Then I have to go through that entire drill all over again :( I must say that I have never experienced anything quite like this with any other network I have built or worked on, and hope I never do again! Unmanaged switches always seemed the easiest part of the setup!!

--David
 
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