Difficulties with Connectivity.

Question

Alright. So my family and I purchased a brand new iMac a few days ago and we love it very much. We had hoped that we could get the Mac and keep our 3 year old Dell desktop, as well, so that we could have more people working at any given time. I did all of the necessary research beforehand, so before we got the iMac, we wen out and purchased a new Modem and a Router. We hooked the Mac up the day we got it (by feeding the internet first through the Modem, then through the router, and finally into the computer) and everything worked fine. However, as few days later, we attempted to connect the PC to the same router and it did not get a connection. We called Dell, Apple, our service provider, and the makers of both the Modem and the Router, and no one could really help us out.
If it helps at all, the Dell is a Dimension 3000, the Router (or "Switch" as it said on the box) is a Netgear 5-Port, and the Modem is a Motorola SB5101.
Does anybody have any idea why this isn't working?
One of the phone support guys said something about our modem possibly not having a DHCP connection or something. Does it have anything to do with that?
Please help!
Thanks.

Answer 1

mHMM,
Yes, you can use any wireless devices, like the iPod Touch or Phone, on your wireless network. I do recommend that you secure the network, if you go wireless. You must read the documentation that comes with whatever wireless router you get to determine exactly how to set it up; usually we must log into the router's web interface to set it up properly. The documentation will provide instructions on doing this, and give you the correct IP address to use in your browser (usually 192.168.x.x).
All the modem does is translate the network traffic to a signal appropriate for transmission across whatever infrastructure it connects to (cable or DSL). In doing so, it connects to your provider's DHCP server, gaining an IP address for whatever is in turn connected to it. When a modem is connected to a single computer, everything works fine, but if you attempt to connect multiple devices to it (as in the case with a "switch"), the additional devices will not get an IP address.
When you use an actual router with the modem, the router is the "device" that gains an IP address from your provider, and it in turn serves as a DHCP server for your network, providing "private" IP addresses for the connected computers.
Scott