cannot ping router (long-ish post)

Hia folks, I hope that you can help me with a problem that I have.

This weekend after a months wait I finally got my AMX-CA64E ADSL 4,port router.
Our household has 4 pc's- 3 win 98 desktops and a win2000 desktop, 2 of the 98 pc's have 3c509b combo ISA cards, the other 98pc has a standard 3com ISA card and the win2k pc has a Genius/Realtek gf100txriii nic PCI card.
I installed the cards in the mistaken belief that once I had my router I would just have to plug in the cat5 cables and away I would go.
The modem/router came and I spent an age getting my win2k pc to see the router by pinging its default gateway, anyway I finally pinged it (Idon't know how I managed it ! ) and once that was done I was able to use the routers web style interface to access its menus - this was like at 4.00am on Friday morning.
I was tired and a lot overwhelmed by what I still had to do so I closed everything down with the intention of finishing off the configuration after some much needed sleep.
When I next tried to access the router by either pinging its gateway or by typing its address in the web browser the router just couldn't be found at all.
I have tried to connect to the router on each pc, I have swapped the nic cards between pc's - but even these I don't know if I am setting up right, I also thought that I may have mistakenly changed the routers default gateway address and that was why I couldn't ping it now, but I looked back in my pc's web cache and the routers config pages that I visited still show that it is still on its default setting.
My problem is (me;-) ) is that if I have really changed a setting that I shouldn't have, then a system reset back to factory defaults is done in software - so you have to be able to get into the dammed thing to reset it.
Can I not see this router because I haven't setup the nics correctly, or do you think that I have changed something within the router?
If I have changed the routers address (which I don't think so ) is there a way to fire loads of addresses at it untill it responds to one - or am I living in cloud cuckoo land??
Can anyone help me at all with these problems that I have given myself?
All positive / constructive answers greatly recieved
Paul

[glc1]

Welcome to SpeedGuide.net...

Before a computer can access a router's config. pages, it's TCP/IP stack must be setup according to the router's internal IP. The following example assumes the router's internal IP is 192.168.1.1.

Computer #1
IP address: 192.168.1.2
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway: 192.168.1.1
DNS: 192.168.1.1 or ISP's actual primary/secondary DNS servers

Computer #2
IP address: 192.168.1.3
Subnet, gateway and DNS same as above

You should be able to continue from there.

Thanks for the quick reply.
I have had another go and these are my settings:-

Default IP of the router 10.0.0.2

pc1

nic card (genius)
early TX threshold =38
link speed/duplex mode =auto
network address = 10.0.0.1

Internet protocol TCP/IP properties
IP address = 10.0.0.1
subnet mask = 255.0.0.0
default gateway = 10.0.0.2
prefered DNS server = provided by ISP
alternate DNS server = provided by ISP

Under Advanced - what is WINS ??? as when I close the settings boxes it says..... 'This connection has a empty WINS address, do you want to continue?' I click yes to this as I dont know what to put in there.
Anyway, I have tried pinging the router with the above settings but it still doesn't work' local area connection shows 90 packets sent but 0 recieved.
When I try to ping the router I disable Zone alarm pro and Norton antivirus just in case these affect things.
Many thanks for your help so far - any more suggestions???
Paul

[glc1]

Try 255.255.255.0 as the subnet mask.

WINS = Windows Internet Naming Service
On networks that use WINS, a 2K or NT server maps an IP with a computer name to ensure unique computer names on the network. It's for use with DHCP. Anyway, in your case WINS needs to be left to the default settings.

Since my last post I have tried 255.255.255.0 as the subnet mask - but still no joy, I just get 'time outs'
many thanks any more ideas???
Paul.

[glc1]

You can't even ping the router (10.0.0.2)?

[qball15j]

If he can't even ping the router..... hmmm try resetting th router back to it's original settings. You may have changed something when in the router config that you forgot about. Atleast if you reset the router you will working with something with default settings

Thanks for the input

glc1

No - at the time I couldn't ping 10.0.0.2

qball15j

I couldn't reset the router as I stated in my 1st post - the router has only got a software reset. i.e you have to be able to access the router to reset it - although I have read today that if you open up the case and short a certain jumper - then this resets it back to factory default.(because of what I have learnt today I am not going to do this as I have already started to make arangements for a replacement).


I decided to take it into work today to let our IT dept test it,
Because it has been a quiet day today they have had plenty of time to test the unit, but even they couldn’t ping or access the unit in any way.
A £3500 tester called a FLUKE was attached to the router and all tests were done on the unit – no router – hence no IP address could be found, the hub part worked perfectly as it (the FLUKE) saw and named all the IP addresses of any pc that was attached to this router (including a pc connected to the router via USB cable only - both the router and the FLUKE saw and classed the USB cable as a nic)
Obviously something has gone wrong between the hub and the routing ADSL part, another thing noticed is that the unit seemed to run very hot which seemed a little worrying as it is designed to be constantly turned on, could this be a factor in it not working as should?
I have to say that I was mightily impressed with this FLUKE as it can find the IP address of almost anything, I was having a play with it this afternoon and it was giving me cable lengths, time in ms to travel, type of equip past through en route etc.
Anyway, thanks for the help, if you want I will let you know how I get on as regards getting a replacement.
Paul.