Help please !? 2 different networks / adapters

[drawflex]

Bit stuck, been playing trying to get two seperate adapters / networks to play nice on win7 .....

1. Got a WIFI router with NO INTERNET CONNECTION ( not connected to modem ) which is hard--wired to main PC, laptops / iPhone connect via wifi for file sharing and lan games and wot-not..

2. Got a USB WIFI adapter connected to main PC which i connect to an AP in my block to get internet on main PC.

When both adapters are enabled i lose internet connectivity even though the WIFI adapter which gives my MAIN-PC internet still shows as connected to the WIFI AP in my block.. i've tried bridging the two connections, but it doesnt help...

I'm guessing theres a problem with me having two IP addresses on main PC or two DNS or two gateways or whatever, but i'm stuck as to how i get windows to use the USB adapter as an internet gateway and use the hard-wired router for local network connections.. idealy i'd like to share the USB's WIFI on main PC with MY router over MY WIFI with the rest of my gadgets...

Anyone make sence of this ??

[Mjolinor]

This is what I think you ahve

internet ---router wifi ap ----- usbwifi on main pc--2nd net card in main PC ---router (wired?)-----some other computers

If that is correct then soem things need clearing up. Do you want internet on the "some other computers"?

If not and they just need to talk to the main PC so that it can join in games and file share, video serving and sutff then you need to make sure that teh two networks are completely seperated int eh IP space that they use

I would suggest for example that the first part is

192.168.0.XXX, 255.255.255.0

And the second part is set up to be 192.168.1.XXX 255.255.255.0

You may need ot add staic routes. Normally the PC tests an IP to see if it is within the IP address space of your normal computer adn if it is not then it sends the requests to the router and that will send it out over the net looking for what you need. So in this case you need to add a static route to your internet router to tell it that if network 192.168.1.XXX is asked for tehn it is in side "main computer (eg, 192.168.0.10)"

Once that is done all traffic for the 192.168.1.XXX network will be sent to teh main computer.

Now that will get packets fmor the internet router to the main computer but the 192.168.1.XXX does not know how to get data back to the 192.168.0.XXX network so your router (non internet) needs a similar static route to tell it that all 192.168.0.XXX traffic has to go to "main computer (eg 192.168.1.10)"

That si the basics. I do not know how to do such things in Windo$e but I am sure it is all possible.

[Mjolinor]

I forgot. Once you have the static routes setup then the default gateway in "non internet router" should be the main PC address.

It may or may not be necessary, its hard to know with windows.

Once it is sorted correctly all computers will have internet.

If you don't want that then you should go read about Vlans problbly and that will bake your noodle.

[Egren71]

Hello drawflex i read what you have slightly differently to Mjolinor and as i have said in other posts networking is not my strongest area.
Added to that i have never run window7, but i did do what i think you are trying to do using XP, so you may want to completely ignore me.
However what i think you have is:-
Internet -- USB Wifi adapter -- main PC -- WIFI Router -- All other devices (Laptop, iPhone, etc).

So what i think happens is
1. Your USB adapter gets its IP address off the AP in your block. (I assume you don't use the Router to do this because the router is old and doesn't support the security the AP uses or some other reason.)
2. Your hard wired connection gets its IP address off the Router as does all the other devices Laptop,etc.

If this is correct then your problem is that (at least when i did this with XP) when you enable network connection sharing (USB WiFi adapter) to the local LAN (network in your main PC) then the Network Card on your Main PC becomes your DHCP server for everything on the WIFI router part of your network. You can check this by opening a Dos window / Command prompt (if such a thing exists on Windows7) and typing in ipconfig and hitting the return key. If you do this with internet connection sharing turned on and then with it turned off you should see you network card's ip address change and this will show you that internet connection sharing is moving your network card out of you own network range which is why you loose connection to everything. Pay careful attention to the IP address as it is possible that both DHCP servers are using the 192.168.0.xxx range. But what should happen is that if you turn internet connection sharing on your IP address should become 192.168.0.1 (or possibly 10.xxx.xxx.1 or something else completely) which is probably the WIFI Routers IP address.

Your options are, therefore to stop your Main PC from trying to be the DHCP server, and again as far as XP was concerned this wasn't easy to do but i think could be done. Or stop your WIFI Router from being DHCP server, which is easier, as there has always been a check box in the router config pages to turn on or off DHCP server on any router i have ever had.

If you take the second option then your main PC will need to be switched on before your network devices for your network devices to get an IP address. But after that you should be able to access the network with them.

As i said networks are not my strong point so if all this sounds like rubbish then ignore it, but it worked for me,which is no guarantee that it will for you.

Good Luck
Egren