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[SOLVED] Network breaking when multople routers setup

1K views 13 replies 3 participants last post by  Wand3r3r 
#1 ·
Hi all, hoping someone can help me resolve an issue I've been frustrated by for the past couple days. Here's a description of the setup I've been using for the past several months, which was working flawlessly:

Modem: standard internet gateway from xfinity set in pass thru mode

Routers: 3x Cisco e2500

Additional: 2x powerline adapters

I had all of these set up with the main router attached to the modem and configured to be the DHCP server, consistent with the tutorial sticky at the top of the page. This router was connected to the 2 powerline adapters, which were then feeding internet directly to the other 2 routers, which had DHCP server disabled. They all ran the same wifi network settings and everything was working great.

Then a couple days ago, it just stopped working. I've been troubleshooting to see if a bad router was the culprit, but it doesn't seem to be the case. I've reset the routers and reconfigured them multiple times with no luck. I've been able to set up each of the 3 routers as the main router connected to the modem, and each of them independently works fine. However, as soon as I reconfigure one to extend the signal and hook it up to a powerline adapter, the network stops working. My devices can see the network but can't connect to it. I've confirmed that I can connect directly to the powerline adapter without issue, but there is no internet passing through the second or third routers, wired or wifi.

Any ideas what may have caused this? I thought for sure I had a bad router but they all seem to work fine when set up on their own. The fact everything was working perfectly and then suddenly stopped has me at a complete loss.

Halp!
 
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#3 ·
Re: Network breaking when multople routers setup

Thanks Old Rich!

Yes, it was set up just like that - and was working perfectly. I was quite proud of myself for setting it all up, until it broke and became a troubleshooting nightmare. :(

It was working fine for at least 4-5 months.
 
#9 ·
Re: Network breaking when multople routers setup

When you say gateway, I'm assuming you mean the main router that is connected directly to the modem - that is set at 192.168.1.1.

For the other routers, to be honest I don't recall what they were set at when they were working properly (should have checked before resetting them) but since everything broke I have tried setting them at a number of different addresses. Thinking about it now, I'm not sure if I've set them specifically within the DHCP range of the main router, think it has generally been outside of the range that the main router may assign. I would have had it previously set that way as well when it was working, but I can try setting them within the range and see if that helps.

You are correct on the setup - I'm connecting them via lanport to the powerline adapters. I most likely won't have a chance to mess with them tonight but it strikes me that I need to try hooking up router to router directly in order to make sure it's not the powerline adapter causing issues. I'll have to try that tomorrow when I'm able to mess with it again - since I've been able to successfully get internet through the powerlines the whole time, I didn't try bypassing them as I assumed they were doing what they're supposed to do.
 
#10 ·
Re: Network breaking when multople routers setup

You would want to assign ip addresses to these routers that are not in the dhcp scope. you can't set them to use dhcp since that is only a function available on the wan port not the lan ports. You also want their dhcp servers off so as not to cause a ip conflict on the network.
 
#11 ·
Re: Network breaking when multople routers setup

Thanks Wand3r3r, it sounds like I had them set up correctly then.

I'll try hooking them up router to router and see if bypassing the powerlines still yields the same problems.

I did notice when resetting the routers that each of them was having difficulties when I assigned a new IP address - I had to try multiple times to get them to change the IP and restart successfully so I could get logged back in as administrator. They seem to be getting hung up when I change the IP sometimes and I'm not able to reconnect to them until I reset. Makes me wonder if the thunderstorm we had the day before everything stopped working may have caused a power surge and broke something in one or all of the routers.
 
#13 ·
Re: Network breaking when multople routers setup

Thanks to all for their help - after a good bit of research and a lot of messing around, I was finally able to get everything back up and running by flashing all 3 routers with Tomato and setting them back up to run together. Not sure what caused them to break previously, hopefully this will last.

Thanks
 
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