Finally making my first post here after extensive abuse of the search function.

I'm yet another one of those people having odd issues with WiFi connections and the 770 who can get on after rebooting the router. This is getting to be ridiculous. Sometimes I can get a few days between reboots, sometimes it's A day. I also have problems getting onto various public WiFi spots like coffee shops and such.

Numerous posters here seem to be satisfied when they discover that rebooting the router makes things better, so I have either missed any other solutions entirely or most everyone else just accepts frequent reboots as the cure to what ails their 770.

ifconfig gives me this (I hope I don't have too many typos) when trying an unsuccessful connect to the home network:

lo Link encap: Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:25.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

wlan0 Link encap: Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:A7:FA:DB:5A
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

I am using the latest 2006 OS, not the 2007 HE.

Router is: U.S. Robotics Wireless MAXg Router (USR5461)


Now, I'm a bit of a Linux n00b as I'm one of those Ubuntu users that gets to hear the "Can't configure Debian" joke from time to time, but I'm typically good at following decent directions.

I can't reboot the router just now since we have some things going on here, but I figured I'd post this thread now, in hopes that there is some sort of hack or script or ANYTHING that can tell me whether there is a workaround to this silly repeated rebooting of the router. That's really not an acceptable solution.

Please, please help, as I otherwise enjoy the heck out of this device and the ability to customize it.

Are you using DHCP on your network or static IP addresses? If you're using DHCP, perhaps the DHCP server on your router is getting in a mess after a few days - try assigning a static IP address to your 770 and see if the situation improves. Also make sure you are running the latest firmware on your router.

We're DHCP and have been discussing going static, but we have a LOT of devices (including, um, our neighbors that we've hooked up for a bit), and I'm getting resistance from the husband for wanting to change the whole network for this one 'toy' of mine. The firmware is up to date on the router.

None of the other wireless devices are having any sort of a problem. I rebooted the router this morning and was online instantly.

I suppose I'm looking for a solution that is performed on the 770 and not dependent on any other hardware that it might have to interact with. :/

Is there something I can check now that I have a connection that could shed any light on what's going on? Run ifconfig again, perhaps?

I thank you for your response.

You don't need to change the whole network - just your 770. Your DHCP server will be allocating addresses within a fixed range, eg. x.x.x.1 - x.x.x.50, in which case you just need to configure your 770 with an address outside of that range, eg. x.x.x.51.

Just determine the range your DHCP server is using, and choose an address outside of that range for your 770.

Not sure how to tell this easily, but do you know what the lease time is for your DHCP server? The lease time determines how long each address is allocated - when the lease expires, the DHCP server and the client (ie. the device, be it a 770 or a PC) will re-negotiate a new address and lease (usually getting the same address again). However if this negotiation is somehow broken, you might end up failing to get a new address whenever the lease expires. Just a theory.

Okay, let me see if I am understanding this correctly...

I can assign the 770 an IP by configuring the 770, and not having to mess with the router. I can give it an IP that is outside the range of what the router is doling out to the various devices that connect to it and the router will go along with this? I'm pretty sure we shouldn't have any more than, say 15 devices to be concerned about.

I know the IPs expire after 7 days. I just connected and took a look at the router, and under clients, I'm listed, along with everything else hooked up at the moment, and I've got a touch under 7 days. (6 days, 59 minutes, blah).

However, and I don't know if this is at all related, under the WAN info listings, along with MAC address, Gateway, IP address, DNS servers 1 and 2, it has Lease expires: expired

Does that have any significance?

Correct.

Not sure about this tbh. The Gateway/IP/DNS addresses are provided by your ISP again using DHCP (your router acting as a client in this case, being given the addresses by your cable/adsl modem) so it's possible they've expired yet may still be valid - you can probably force a renewal of the addresses using the GUI in your router. If there was a problem here it would affect all devices on your network and not just the 770 so chances are it's not part of the problem you are having with your 770.

Okay, so I'll disregard that notation for the Lease expires: field.

So, the million dollar question: How do I assign my arbitrary static IP to the 770? Connectivity > Connections > Edit > Connection Setup > Advance > IP Addresses and then add whatever x.x.x.x based on and beyond the router's range? If so, then what entries do I need to make in the rest of the fields?

You've been a ton of help so far, I really appreciate that.

Correct.

For Gateway and DNS server (one should do), try using the IP address of your router - i.e. your router is your gateway and DNS server (although the latter assumes your router is running a simple DNS server which is often the case). If you have problems resolving hostnames when using your router as the DNS server, substitute one of your ISP DNS servers for the router IP address.

Alternatively, identify your current DHCP gateway by running the following as route on your 770:
Your gateway IP address is the line which has flags "UG".

For your DNS, type the following command on your 770:
and the nameserver IP address is the DNS address being used by your 770.

Set the static IP address for the 770 to something unique on your network and not managed by your DHCP server, and set the Gateway and DNS addresses as determined by the above two commands.

Woo-ha! I gave myself .20, entered the Subnet Mask address from the LAN, put in the Router IP, used the DNS server address from what was listed under WAN, and got on!

Freaking awesome! Okay, so, does this at least make it less likely that I'll be staring down the barrel of a router reboot? Maybe?

After having fought unsuccessfully with an X server meltdown for the past couple of days on my silly Ubuntu machine, this feels like a much needed victory.

Milhouse rules! \o/

I'm not suggesting this will fix the problem, but it should help rule out DHCP as being the culprit - if the router needs another reboot in a few days we'll know it's not a DHCP bug, bu if it doesn't then we can probably point the finger at DHCP.

I guess we'll know in a few days?