Cat 5 outlet issue (actually a router issue)

[Brannigans Law]

Ok so here in a nut shell is my problem: my internet is going down whenever my pc is off or asleep. I've narrowed the problem to something to do with my new cat5 outlet I have. Here is the idea:

I have a phone jack in my bedroom and I wanted internet, but not in my room (the modem anways). I have a PC, a tablet, a phone, and a laptop; all wireless but the PC. My PC is just outside my bedroom in the rec room. So I installed a cat 5 jack with the wire spliced inside the wall. I have a modem hooked up to the phone jack and then I have the modem plugged into the cat 5 jack to feed it internet to the rec room. I then have my router (linksys e1200 i think) plugged into that cat5 outlet to receive internet. My pc is then linked by cable, and everything else fed wireless.

Here's the problem: Everytime I turn my computer off the internet goes down. The modem lights stay on, the dsl is on, lan, and internet. So I tested it and if I plug the laptop in wired to my modem the internet doesn't skip a beat. Unless I'm missing something it appears the cat 5 outlet I've installed is not working unless my pc is on. I wonder if this has something to do with the router maybe? Actually I'm going to test that right now by plugging in my laptop to my cat 5 outlet on the other side of the wall....

Ok it works. This is definitely some sort of router setting I've never experienced before. Help me CP! Just double checked and it's the e1200. Some sort of router script or issue is forcing my PC to be on for the internet to be on. Maybe an IP issue? Thanks a lot in advance for any tips that can help fix it.

[Brannigans Law]

So with my computer off I plugged the internet port back in on the back of my router to the modem thru the wall jack. So its modem thru the wall, to the router, while my pc is off, and the internet is working wireless again. I'm quite baffled at what's going on here.

Is there a way to make my router script free? Just have very basic router access and function? Do I have to go in to the routers menu and manually turn off a bunch of stuff perhaps?

[Rathji]

Ok, so there is pretty much no way that your router working is in anyway tied to your PC being on, unless:

a) You turn your PC off by turning the power bar that the router is plugged into off.
b) You somehow think that your router is actually your PC, and are turning it off instead of your PC.
c) You somehow think that unplugging a random cat5 cable is an essential part of turning off your PC.

Seriously though, is it safe to say that you took the router out of the box, and ran some program on a disk that they gave you to set it up? If that's the case, then there is almost no way you screwed it up.

[Brannigans Law]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Ok, so there is pretty much no way that your router working is in anyway tied to your PC being on, unless:

a) You turn your PC off by turning the power bar that the router is plugged into off.
No way I did this as everythign was powered including the router. The wireless network was still up but no internet data was being streamed.
b) You somehow think that your router is actually your PC, and are turning it off instead of your PC.
See a)
c) You somehow think that unplugging a random cat5 cable is an essential part of turning off your PC.
I dont do this nor do I think this..
Seriously though, is it safe to say that you took the router out of the box, and ran some program on a disk that they gave you to set it up? If that's the case, then there is almost no way you screwed it up.

Yes I did just that, took the thing out of the box, ran the disc, and voila. What bothers me about this is I cant make sense of it either. I was surfing my iphone fine and when I put my PC to sleep I set my alarm and no internet all the sudden. The wifi was up but no data. I checked my tablet same thing. Laptop same thing. So I unplugged the router and plugged in my cat5 cable directly into the modem and suddenly everything worked again as normal.

I dont get it.

[Rathji]

so if you connected to your wireless but were unable to get internet data, then the issue is with your modem, not your router.

[Brannigans Law]

Ya but rathje I literally a second later connected to my modem straight into the back with a Cat5 cable and the internet was fine.

[psyang]

Originally Posted by Brannigans Law

Ya but rathje I literally a second later connected to my modem straight into the back with a Cat5 cable and the internet was fine.

Here's a total stab in the dark, but maybe your wireless devices are on dhcp, and are pointing to your pc as the gateway. Your pc is on a static ip lan address and points directly to the modem for gateway. As such, all wireless network traffic to the internet goes through your pc?

Can your wireless devices see each other on the lan when the pc is down?

[BlackArcher101]

I think what this thread needs is a cat 5 wiring schematic done in paint. Git'r done.

[Brannigans Law]

Originally Posted by psyang

Here's a total stab in the dark, but maybe your wireless devices are on dhcp, and are pointing to your pc as the gateway. Your pc is on a static ip lan address and points directly to the modem for gateway. As such, all wireless network traffic to the internet goes through your pc?

Can your wireless devices see each other on the lan when the pc is down?

I have no idea what you just said but how do I check on that without the wireless device thing? I dont know how to look for my tablet on my laptop on the wireless network to be honest.

[mykalberta]

Do you have a router/modem combination or do you have a separate wireless router plugged into a modem? Pictures of physical setup?

When did this start happening, how did you find out it was happening?

Who setup your network - you? Friend/Cousin/Wife ? Shaw/Telus?

[psyang]

Originally Posted by Brannigans Law

I have no idea what you just said but how do I check on that without the wireless device thing? I dont know how to look for my tablet on my laptop on the wireless network to be honest.

I guess easiest thing to check is if your PC is on a static address or not. Sorry, I'm not a Mac guy, so I can't give detailed instructions if you have a Mac, but if you have a Windows PC, you can check:

Start->Control Panel->Network and Sharing Center.

Here, you should see your active network, and which connection it is using. It will probably be "Local Area Connection <xyz>", where xyz may be a number.

Click "Local Area Connection <xyz>", and you'll see a status dialog box. Click the Properties button, and you will see a list of items the connection uses. Find "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)", select it, and click the Properties button.

In this dialog, if you see "Obtain an IP address automatically" selected, then my guess is probably wrong. Just to make sure, click the "Advanced..." button. If the Default gateways listbox is empty, then you can ignore my hunch.

If it's not empty, then we might be on to something.

[TheGrimm]

Could be a number of things, I agree it sounds strange

- Can you confirm that your devices that connect to wireless (when the PC is off) are getting valid IP addresses? If you use the laptop you can click start then type "cmd" to bring up a command prompt window, within that window you can type "ipconfig" to see if the wireless adapter has an IP address, if it is a 168.254.x.x it likely means DHCP isn't working and as others have said it could be your PC which is acting as a DHCP server. I doubt this is the case as usually if this happened other devices would continue to work until the DHCP lease duration runs out.

- If you DO have an IP on your laptop. Try to ping your default gateway. To find your default gateway go back to "cmd" and type "ipconfig /all" you can ping it by typing "ping 192.168.1.1" (substitute your own default gateway in for that IP).

- The other things it could be get a little more strange and I would need to know how your network is setup, it was brought up jokingly before, but a crude paint diagram would actually help.

[TheGrimm]

[INTERNET]-->[MODEM]-->via CAT5 jack-->[REC ROOM E1200]-->[PC]

Does this look like an accurate diagram? If so, it should work however you may want to make sure your modem (assuming it's a Telus ADSL router) isn't handing out IP addresses at the same time as your E1200. I would also try to move the 1200 to connect directly to the MODEM instead of over that CAT5 cable you installed into the REC room and test wireless to make sure it works. If the only thing that changes is the location of the E1200 from beside the modem to into the REC room then you may have to re-terminate/verify your cabling.

[Brannigans Law]

Originally Posted by TheGrimm

[INTERNET]-->[MODEM]-->via CAT5 jack-->[REC ROOM E1200]-->[PC]

Does this look like an accurate diagram? If so, it should work however you may want to make sure your modem (assuming it's a Telus ADSL router) isn't handing out IP addresses at the same time as your E1200. I would also try to move the 1200 to connect directly to the MODEM instead of over that CAT5 cable you installed into the REC room and test wireless to make sure it works. If the only thing that changes is the location of the E1200 from beside the modem to into the REC room then you may have to re-terminate/verify your cabling.

Ya your diagram is spot on. It's a TELUS adsl non wireless modem, ALU the tech installer called it. I'm frankly at a complete loss as to what the issue is. Rebooting the modem fixes the issue but then why the hell does my PC sleeping do anything to do it to begin with? I just got home and have to play around with it now more.

edit: There's a setting in my router for DHCP server it was on I've turned it off. Is that maybe causing issues with my PC being intertwined with other devices getting the data?

[Rathji]

It could be ICS, but I really doubt the wizard would set it up this way. It would explain the symptoms though.

DHCP should be on on your router, and it should have in its DHCP settings that its own IP address is the default gateway.

If not, let us know.

[Brannigans Law]

So now after putting my computer to sleep the pc won't connect to my router or Internet. Well it's connected to my router but has no incoming Internet data. I'm typing this on my phone using wifi. I'm so far down tr rabbit hole I want to scream.

My pc does not see any connected devices on my network no printer or laptop or anything

[Rathji]

Type the following into your browser, on your computer.

http://192.168.1.1

Does it connect to the login page?

If it doesn't, hit your windows key, type cmd, hit enter, type ipconfig and tell us what the IPv4 Address is.

[Brannigans Law]

yeah it brought me back to the setup screen. I enabled DHPC server again and rebooted my device and it's connected again. Problem is that soon some time tonight or tomorrow I'll lose internet again for no reason and running out of explanations or reasons

I'm just going back the way it was before .. this isn't worth an extra 10 megabits a second. Long story.

[Fire]

Try updating the firmware on the router before going back to the old setup.

I wonder if the program you ran on the disc installed something to cause this. To setup a router you shouldn't have to run anything on your PC. You can go directly to 192.168.1.1 in order to set it up.

[Brannigans Law]

Originally Posted by Fire

Try updating the firmware on the router before going back to the old setup.

I wonder if the program you ran on the disc installed something to cause this. To setup a router you shouldn't have to run anything on your PC. You can go directly to 192.168.1.1 in order to set it up.

I'm gonna reset it and do that.

Uninstalled the software, reset the router, hopefully things go well. I like having my own router and not a telus one.. I want this freedom damn it.