E1200 - can't access internet through Tooway satelite modem

Question

I have a working satellite system (Tooway, KA-SAT) set up. Linking a laptop direct to the satellite modem lets me access the modem itself (address of 192.168.100.1) and through that the internet and web. That all seems to be working correctly.
However, I simplly cannot get the E1200 to provide internet access.
In turn, I can connect the laptop to the E1200 (address of 192.168.1.1) whether by using a Cat5 cable or wireless and I can successfully change the various settings, save them and reboot the router.
On the router information page the settings are shown as:
Firmware 2.0.04 build 1 July 30, 2012
(IPv4) Connection type Automatic Configuration - DHCP
Internet IP address, subnet mask and Default Gate - all 0.0.0.0
DHCP Lease Time is blank
However, on the Setup page the settings shown are:
IP address - 192.168.1.1 with usual subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and the start IP address ... 50 and range ... 50 to 99
DGCP server - enabled
Lease time - 0 (one day)
I've been through the process of resetting the router to default and then reentering or resetting this relevant data several times but to no avail.
When I connect the Cat 5 cable from the modem to the Internet access port of the router the light flashes, presumably indicating traffic between the modem and router. I'm running Windows 7 on the laptop. Wireless connectivity between the laptop and the router is 'excellent' but the router is shown as not having internet access. Same applies if I connect the laptop and the router using Cat 5 cabling.
It must be some minor error I'm overlooking despite having pored over everything for hours - or perhaps a faulty router. Laptop access using ADSL and another router entirely is perfectly straightforward whether wireless or by cable.
Lastly, I can see that the laptop IP address changes between 10.100.nnn.nnn (connected direct to the modem) and 192.168.1.nnn (connected direct to the router with the router also connected to the modem) so that appears to be working as it should.
Any help/advice would be much appreciated. TIA.
MurdochM

Answer 1

Thanks for the suggestions. In fact I took over the equipment from a colleague and as he'd had the router set to -254 I was hopeful your suggestion might fix things. Unfortunately, nothing has changed although following the update I both turned the router off for a while and checked that verything else was unchanged.
Basically the router continues to show No internet access when identified by Win7.
As for allowing routers, no, that's fine. As I say a colleague used it (for around ten months) and it came originally from the top-level ISP (then my colleague's ISP, though not mine).
It's a dynamic IP address on a standard lease, DHCP managed, and I can't set a static one (at least not on the ordinary package I'm on, though possible on some hgh-level ones).
As for the cable I made that up myself yesterday and I'm pretty sure it's OK. It's about 18m in length but as I mentioned there's no problem in my connecting the laptop direct to the moment, using that specific cable (as well as another older one of similar length I tested earlier) and that it connects the laptop to the modem and thence to the internet suggests to me that it's fine. In fact I'd earlier tried the same set up with a couple of different short cables and that didn't work either.  I did wonder whether it should have been crossover but I was assured that wasn't the case.
MM