Linksys → BEFW11S4 w/2 ISP assigned Static IPs

First off a little background:

There's two desktops in the house, one is wired through Ethernet, the other is using an Asus WIFI-B card, and although on the other side of the house reports having an excellent signal.

The wireless computer (the newer one) can connect to the Internet, and can connect to MSN. But within 2 to 3 minutes MSN kicks off, although you can almost instantly reconnect. The older/wired computer has no such problems, and is plugged into one of the LAN ports on the router.

Using Shaw cable up in Canada, the router is setup for DHCP starting at 101+, the older computer uses DHCP to gain access. The wireless unit we tried with DHCP, then giving it a static IP of 192.168.1.100, then setting it as the DMZ, then forwarding all of the correct ports for MSN. It still kicks out like clockwork. I've verified the times for the lease from Shaw and from the router, neither have renewed, so I know that the IP addresses assigned didn't change.

1) Does anybody have any idea what would be causing this? I'm about 3000 miles away from the computer, so it's difficult for me to work with it over the phone, but I've tried everything I can think of that would be causing it.

2) Shaw offers extra IP addresses from them, since there's only the 2 computers in the house, and they offer a free 2nd IP address, do you think that simply setting both computers up to use the Shaw IP addresses rather than the router's "fake" 192.xxx.xxx.xxx IP addresses would help?

Any help would be appreciated, it's not fun sending an $800 present across the country only to have it not work properly

If you have a router, computers on the LAN side have to use the 192.168.x.xxx IP format. If Shaw will give you WAN IP addresses, you'd want to get rid of the router, buy a switch to plug into the cable modem, plug the desktop into the switch, and an access point into the switch to send out the signal to the wireless client computer. Make sure you have some kind of firewall running in the computers, of course. With the access point and the wireless computer properly configured to match each other, the wireless computer would communicate directly with the cable modem without the router interfering, using the Shaw supplied IP address.

Now, things you might want to check on your router before you ditch it:

1. Make sure it's set to "gateway" mode, not "router" mode which mean NAT will work. Since you've tried putting the wireless computer into the DMZ, I doubt this is the solution.

2. When the wireless computer loses it's connection, open a DOS windows (click start, run, and type in "cmd" and press enter). Try pinging the router. For my router, the DOS command would be: ping 192.168.1.1 If the ping is successful, then you know it's still connected wirelessly to the router. Then try pinging the cable modem (you'll need to know it's IP address). If that ping works, then it must be something in your computer I'd say. If the ping fails to the cable modem, then the router is not letting the data through.

You don't mention what kind of setup you have, like if the router has the AP built in. But if Shaw lets you have two external IP addresses, I think I'd go ahead and use the cable modem to switch to AP scenario (no router) and see how that works. If you get the same results, then it's the wireless computer with the problem.

The computer uses ASUS's WIFI-B add-on card, and has its own monitoring software, which we used during one of the drops. The signal/link stayed strong, and it was communicating with the router, it was just the Internet portion that dropped out for a split second.

After reading through the BEFW11S4 thread for a while, we tried a few of the things people suggested in there, from changing the MTU values, updating the firmware to the May '04 version, and setting the mask to 255.255.255.128, nothing seems to help it any.

So at this point they'll be purchasing a nice shiny new Netgear to replace it, and I've given them instructions to box up the Linksys and put it in a closet until my trip next year, at which time I'll pull it out and curse at it for a while to see if I can get it working right.

if you are going to use one pc to DMZ. you need to remove the ports that you have forwarded under port forwarding. a computer on a DMZ is somewhat opened..meaning a PCs ip address that is static and was registered to the DMZ tab of the router... the ports are all open for this computer...if you're going to set a static ip, disable the DHCP capabilities of the router...or you might as well plug your computer to the uplink port of your 11s4 bypassing the NAT firewall. and your router will now be a wireless access point switch.