Wondering if anyone's got any ideas about this... My girlfriend's sister-in-law's been on the phone, she's just got this router (used, from a friend, so it's not necessarily at factory settings) and the installation CD didn't manage to set up her connection.

Main issue seems to be that the router won't accept a browser session to let anyone into the admin panel; requests to 192.168.0.1 just time out. She's definitely connected to the network, and her computer has been assigned 192.168.0.2 so surely the router is .1, right?

Anybody got any ideas? Is there any security setting on this thing that might cause it to reject connections from a LAN-connected computer? I'm looking at the manual online but I can't see anything obvious.

First things first, even if it won't accept the browser it should reply to a ping. That will confirm the IP address.

Is it a Blue Square one?
I may have used the same one in the past.
Its not a problem with the router, its just Windows itself. It takes along time to get the I.P adresses to find each other and many other things can mess things up. You just have to keep messing around with the I.P. Address. It's not as easy as setting up an 0.1 and an 0.2 and they find each other, it has to be a number that windows is comfortable with finding and the only way you can find out the comfort zone , is by assigning it on Automatic but even then, Sometimes it decides to use the IP that starts with 169 and this IP is bogus, I don't even know why Windows uses it sometimes.

Edit : PS. What bob said. Add my useless comment for fun

There's a reset button on the back, probably need a pin or something to press it as it is in a small hole (I'm sure you know what I mean).

Yeah we've tried pinging it and it's there. We've also reset it to factory settings and it still won't accept a browser session. Really puzzled now - anyone know of anything she might've done on her computer that could be fudging this up?

I hate trying to diagnose other peoples' network problems over the phone.

If she's denied a firewall permissions question that could stop it.

How come her friend gave her it?
Could it be that they fudged a firmware upgrade and made it a paperweight ?

Think there's recovery tools from Netgear that may be some use.

I doubt her friend would've attempted a firmware upgrade tbh. She doesn't move in such nerdy circles as we do - that's why she called me when it didn't work and not her friend!

I can only think of it being a firewall issue but I can't imagine a firewall grumbling about connections to a local network IP address.

Is her PC automatically assigning an IP, or is it set to static?.

Also, it could be a "workgroup" issue.

InSim (or is it OutGauge) causes the firewall to complain when using CSR and that's on the same machine!

Quote from danowat :

Is her PC automatically assigning an IP, or is it set to static?.

All dynamically assigned.

Quote from danowat :

Also, it could be a "workgroup" issue.

Do go on. There's just the one computer in their household and I doubt she's changed the default workgroup name tbh. Windows was pre-installed when she got the computer, IIRC it's XP Home.

I sometimes have a hard time resetting the netgear routers to factory settings using the pin. i have the wireless version of this router and the default ip for it is indeed 192.168.0.1 but i would run ipconfig just to double check the default gateway and try browse to that address.

have you tried loading up a telnet program to port 80 to see if that can connect (then type in a couple of http commands to see if you get a response)

Quote from danowat :

Also, it could be a "workgroup" issue.

i doubt thats the problem as the router doesnt care about workgroups or domains

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I doubt her friend would've attempted a firmware upgrade tbh. She doesn't move in such nerdy circles as we do - that's why she called me when it didn't work and not her friend!

I can only think of it being a firewall issue but I can't imagine a firewall grumbling about connections to a local network IP address.

Do you get to the point where you have to fill in the adminname and the password? It might be the browser-settings prohibiting scripts and thus would prevent the password-query to pop up...

Or Windows firewall turned on on her machine? If yes, turn it off... I've personally had problems moving files in my and other people's networks because the Windows firewall wouldn't accept a connection...

Quote from bbman :

Do you get to the point where you have to fill in the adminname and the password? It might be the browser-settings prohibiting scripts and thus would prevent the password-query to pop up...

The user/password prompt never appears, no - the request just times out.

Quote from bbman :

Or Windows firewall turned on on her machine? If yes, turn it off...

I think she said she's using Norton, but Windows firewall might be on, too. I'll have to go over there at the weekend and take a look I think.

Get her to install LogMeIn, then take control of the machine.

Could save you a trip

It was proxy settings!

We all suck.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I think she said she's using Norton

Norton TRFD also known as, Norton The recipe for disaster!