Member Avatar for dayexday

Hi,
I run windows vista home premium.
I have a desktop, and laptop and both were connected wirelessly to a linksys BEFW11S4 router which connects via ethernet cable to a westell wirespeed B90-210015-04.

The router and the modem are both old, from perhaps 3 years ago.

I was able to connect fine to the internet for a long time. THe connection was unsecure so I thought that I should make it secure. I did, set the WEP encryption, and now its a secure connection... that doesnt connect to the internet. Both computers list the connection as a local connection.

So everything worked yesterday until I stupidly decided to mess around with it and now its only local. I tried going back but now even when its unsecured, the connection is still local.

Any help? Please?

  • 3 Contributors
  • 3 Replies
  • 99 Views
  • 6 Days Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by dayexday

Dani AI

Generated

A few clarifications and a short troubleshooting checklist that fill gaps in the thread.

As noted by and , wireless security mismatches and incorrect addressing can both produce a "connected, local only" symptom. The decisive factor is whether the router itself has a working upstream (WAN) connection to the ISP. If the router never gets a valid WAN address or never completes whatever authentication the ISP requires, clients will talk to the router but not reach the Internet.

Quick, practical checks (in order)

  • Power-cycle the modem first, wait about 60 seconds, then the router. Many upstream sessions need the modem to be restarted before a router will obtain a fresh WAN lease.
  • Look at the router's status page or front-panel WAN/Internet LED. Confirm the router shows a WAN IP that is not the router's LAN subnet and is not all zeros.
  • From a client, isolate DNS vs routing: ping a public IP (for example, 8.8.8.8) and then ping a domain name (for example, google.com). If the IP ping works but the domain ping fails, the problem is DNS; if the IP ping fails you have no upstream route.
  • Bypass the router: connect one computer directly to the modem (if allowed by the ISP) to verify the ISP link and whether the ISP expects any login/authentication or MAC-binding.
  • Back up the router configuration before making changes. If reconfiguration is needed, check firmware and then consider a factory reset only if reconfiguration fails.

Preventive notes

  • Avoid weak Wi-Fi encryption on modern networks; use the strongest option supported by your devices.
  • If the ISP uses a login or special addressing (credentials, a static IP, or MAC binding), confirm those settings on the router or with the ISP support team.
  • Keep a brief record of original settings so you can restore them if a change causes loss of Internet.

These steps explain why a change on the router side can produce a local-only connection and give a safe path to diagnose and fix it.

Recommended Answers

All 3 Replies

Member Avatar for UnknownUser

Did u actually put in the passphrase for WEP once it was created??
Sounds like its just an addressing issue or else u have some encryption still turned on.
By the way, wep is pretty much insecure.. WPA is better nowadays.

Member Avatar for cguan_77

both wired and wireless connection not working? or only the wireless? try typing ipconfig /all see what you got..post it here...

Member Avatar for dayexday

hey guys, thanks for the replies.
well i called verizon yesterday and after a 40 minute troubleshooting phone call, the problem was finally fixed when i changed the linksys router's "internet connection type" setting to "PPPoE" instead of the "Obtain an IP automatically" setting it was previously on.
so that was the problem.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.