Howdy all,

We've just got cable internet from Telstraclear at my flat. It requires the computer plugged into the modem to have a static IP, which means I can't just use a switch like I did in the network I setup at my dads house.

From what I can gather I must have a router inbetween the cable modem and the switch, and then all the local computers can just use DHCP or local addresses like 192.168.x.

I have got one first and one second generation D-Link DSL-G604T "Wireless ADSL Routers" but after a week of hell with the web interface I have had zero luck although it seems like it SHOULD be able to do everything. Others I have talked to have said they have had trouble with some D-Link routers on Telstraclear.

So I decided to use the old 800MHz machine I have sitting around as a linux router, I have installed Smoothwall and it all seems to work nicely, the web interface shows me pretty statistics and has the ability to block stuff and all the computers plugged into the switch seem to have internet... But the quality is SO LOW. When I watch the graph of data coming in and out of the modem, it seems to get a few kilobytes every minute or so. When I unplug it and go back to just one computer into the cable modem it is super fast. I have tried a different switch and no luck so the problem obviously resides at the router. I know one of the network cards in the machine is a bit old, is that likely to be the issue?

I would also like to know how to just open it up a bit more, at the moment the only way I can seem to get a computer to have internet accessability is to specificly allow its IP address, I guess I can live with that but I'd prefer it if it just allowed all local addresses...

If anyone has any ideas as to what is causing my problem, please let me know! Any other solutions you can suggest will also be appreciated. Ideally I'd love to get the D-Link routers working so I didn't have to have a computer churning away costing power.

Thanks in advance,
Austin.

I would search the providers site for tech support or possible router configuration docs. First thing you may do is reset the router back to factory setup. Then configure the wan interface per the providers requirement. You may need to define the mac address of the single computer on the wan interface. I know some providers authenicate based on the mac.

Brian