Westell He11!....

[Sgsteve]

I'm a little baffled. I'm trying to help a buddy. Here's the situation:

He has an older PC (I built and maintain) running 98SE. He has Verizon DSL with a Westell B90-210015-04 supplied by Verizon. Connection speed is supposed to be 1.5M, but currently on a good day, he's getting 128K if that. Verizon tech says when they test the line on their end it shows 1.4 -1.5M. They're supposed to send an on-site guy to check the local wiring. But that's not what's befuddling me, I just want to give as much info as possible.

The problem I'm having is:

He just bought a Dell Inspiron 9300 notebook (with Centrino). At my house (where I am now) I also have Verizon DSL but with a Westell 327W Modem/Wireless router. His notebook (here now) connects flawlessley either wirelessly, or by LAN connection to my router. It achieves 1.5M on wireless, 2.5M by LAN.

So earlier today at his house I tried to connect his notebook to his DSL modem. I unplugged the ethernet cable from the PC and plugged it into the LAN port in the notebook. No good. The notebook tries to establish a network connection but fails every time. It says "limited or no connectivity" and "unable to establish an an IP address" or something like that.

Today, at his house, I also tried installing a Linksys wireless router model BEFW11S4-VN (supplied to me by Verizon before I got the 327W). The setup wizzard was unable to complete. After connecting all the cables (all LED's lit and everything looking good) the router can't reach the internet through the modem. (Remember the notebook can't get through the modem either.) I called Linksys tech support and their guy walked me through a manual setup. Tried many things but the bottom line was the router can't establish an IP address. Linksys' guy says he believes I need a user name & password for Verizon. I say no way, never have before, Verizon don't work that-a-way. He says call them and check. I did. They say no way. Also they said that modem (Westell B90-210015-04) has no setup. No way to change port or block anything. Nothing to prevent connectivity. I didn't discuss the lack of connectivity through the notebook with Verizon because at that point I hadn't tried it yet.

Anyway, my goal is to get my buddy's notebook connected to the web at his home. I need help. Any ideas? Suggestions? Questions?

Thank you.

[glc]

The 2100 is a modem that stores the PPPoE login and issues only one private IP address. Verizon West also uses MAC bonding - in order to connect the modem to ANY other device other than the NIC it was set up with, it has to be powered off for a few hours.

The slowness on the Win98 machine can probably be fixed with proper TCP/IP stack tweaks - 98 defaults to parameters optimized for dialup. DSLReports.com has these testers and tools. In order to connect a router to the modem for networking and/or wireless operation, you need to either clone the MAC of the 98 machine's NIC into the router, or shut the modem off for a few hours. If it's a Linksys router, you have to change its internal IP into a different subnet - the 2100 uses 192.168.1.1 for its private IP, this conflicts directly with the default 192.168.1.1 IP of the Linksys. I'd suggest 192.168.2.1.

The other option is to log into the 2100 and change its mode of operation to "bridge" - this will require that it be connected to a router set up for PPPoE, or if standalone, a PPPoE client such as Winpoet be installed on the computer. XP's builtin PPPoE client will work, but 9x/ME/2K don't have that.

[Sgsteve]

glc,

Thanks very much. I had my buddy power down the modem last night. I went to his place this afternoon and logged into the router, change the IP to 192.168.2.1 as you suggested. Then I powered up the modem and Viola! He's got internet on both machines.

Both are operating at the same slow speed however. I believe there's a physical problem with the line or the modem. Anyway, Verizon is aware and is supposed to be working on it. If nothing comes of that, I'll be back for more help here.

Thanks again for your assistance.