Hi everybody,

A client of mine has just given me a wireless router to check (US
Robotics 5462). He no longer is able to connect wireless with a USB key
(also US Robotics, 5422) to the router.

So first things first, I tried hooking up my own machine via LAN cable to
the router, in order to get access to the configuration of the router.

Here, I noticed that the router just passed through the IP that was given
to the router to the first LAN connection! My ISP assigns me an IP in the
range 84.x.x.x on my own router, and the wireless router got the same IP.

When I checked the IP on my machine, connected to this router, it was the
same as the IP given to me by my ISP! This should not happen, should it?

Naturally, this meant I was not able to connect to the configuration
screens of the router (192.168.2.1), so I disconnected the ISP cable and
connected to the router with my machine set on a fixed IP of 192.168.2.2
.. No success.

I've tried resetting the router, to no avail.

There is no way to connect to the router, no way to get a decent
(internal) IP from the router, and when it's turned on I cannot see a
wireless router nearby with a US Robotics ID.

Does anybody have any idea as to what is going on here? I'm starting to
think the router might be damaged, but then again: why would it pass
through the ISP's IP?

Thanks in advance,

Ikke