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Forum Discussion
WNCE2001 inappropriately providing DHCP connections
I have a new WNCE2001 Wireless Ethernet bridge and have successfully configured it to connect my ethernet-only printer to my home network. This morning, I was unable to get to the internet from my iP...
I am still having this problem. I would be interested in speaking to NetGear about it by voice, but there is no customer service phone number that I can find.
Here is my further insight on the problem...
I see this behavior when the bridge has been up for a few days without a "live" ethernet-wired device attached to it. It appears to me that the buit-in WNCE2001 configuration program is somehow escaping from the intended ethernet-wire-only behavior and is running amok wirelessly on my network.
My experience has been that if the WNCE2001 is up and my printer has been in "power save" mode (hibernate) or off for a few days, the bridge will start behaving like a DHCP provider. The WNCE2001 broadcasts something that bears the SSID of my home network, intercepts DHCP requests from wireless devices in my house and assigns IP addresses to the devices. (I have verified that the bridge is the problem by checking the MAC address of the device that has provided a "rogue" address to my computer.) The behavior of the WNCE2001 is different than DHCP, though. It only allocates addresses so that attached devices can configure the WNCE2001. The devices that end up connected to the WNCE2001 can access the WNCE2001 configuration program/URL and my home router, but they cannot access the internet. The documentation leads me to believe that all configuration of the WNCE2001 needs to be done through a wired connection, so I believe there is an error that leads the WNCE2001 to connect to my wireless devices.
I can find no configuration setting that allows me to prevent this wireless connection configuration behavior. The only solution has been to turn off the WNCE2001.
My WNCE2001 is currently unplugged and my home network is operating properly again. I am unlikely to use the WNCE2001 again unless a fix for this is posted. :( If you have a concrete recommendation, please accompany it with instructions for implementation. I still cannot figure out how to "do a back trace" on my network. I'm a home user, not a network administrator.
Here is my further insight on the problem...
I see this behavior when the bridge has been up for a few days without a "live" ethernet-wired device attached to it. It appears to me that the buit-in WNCE2001 configuration program is somehow escaping from the intended ethernet-wire-only behavior and is running amok wirelessly on my network.
My experience has been that if the WNCE2001 is up and my printer has been in "power save" mode (hibernate) or off for a few days, the bridge will start behaving like a DHCP provider. The WNCE2001 broadcasts something that bears the SSID of my home network, intercepts DHCP requests from wireless devices in my house and assigns IP addresses to the devices. (I have verified that the bridge is the problem by checking the MAC address of the device that has provided a "rogue" address to my computer.) The behavior of the WNCE2001 is different than DHCP, though. It only allocates addresses so that attached devices can configure the WNCE2001. The devices that end up connected to the WNCE2001 can access the WNCE2001 configuration program/URL and my home router, but they cannot access the internet. The documentation leads me to believe that all configuration of the WNCE2001 needs to be done through a wired connection, so I believe there is an error that leads the WNCE2001 to connect to my wireless devices.
I can find no configuration setting that allows me to prevent this wireless connection configuration behavior. The only solution has been to turn off the WNCE2001.
My WNCE2001 is currently unplugged and my home network is operating properly again. I am unlikely to use the WNCE2001 again unless a fix for this is posted. :( If you have a concrete recommendation, please accompany it with instructions for implementation. I still cannot figure out how to "do a back trace" on my network. I'm a home user, not a network administrator.