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I have the GS108 Netgear 8 port Gigabit network switch and the WRN2000v2 Netgear wireless router. The problem I am having is that anything conneted through the Gigabit switch is not being assigned an IP address through DHCP. If I connect directly to the router it will assign an IP. I originally had a Linksys Wireless G router that used these same switches, but recently swapped it out, since I was having problems with the wireless. I decided to go with the Netgear since I had been pleased with the Gigabit switch I had purchased, and figured it would be the least headache to swap in.

So here is what I know:

  • the lights between the router and the gigabit switch indicate a 100MB connection (1 light)
  • the lights between the laptop and the gigabit switch indicate a gigabit connection (2 lights)
  • Tried assigning a static ip to the laptop, and that did not work either
  • Swapped out cables, still no change
  • Connected laptop wired directly to the router(it assigns the ip address)
  • Connected laptop to gigabit switch that is connected to the router(it does not assign an ip address)
  • Double checked the router configuration page, and DHCP is turned on

So I figure I am missing something, and hope someone could point me in the right direction.

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  • Have you tried pinging the router from the laptop?
    – Hello71
    Aug 3, 2010 at 17:56
  • What does "tried assigning a static IP to the laptop" mean exactly? Are you sure you have a solid connection between the laptop and the router through the switch? If you put two computers on the Gigabit network with static IPs can they communicate?
    – heavyd
    Aug 3, 2010 at 22:45
  • Sounds like it should work. The switch doesn't work on any of the 4 ports on the router?
    – hyperslug
    Aug 4, 2010 at 3:46
  • Sorry, I hadn't checked back. I actually figured it out just now. See my answer. Aug 6, 2010 at 19:27

1 Answer 1

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So after some more troubleshooting I found the problem. I needed a crossover cable between the router and the switch. Apparently the OLD Linksys router that worked had some type of automatic feature that did this, while the NEW Netgear router did not have this feature.

So in assuming things get better over time, I assumed the Netgear router, that was probably made a good two years after the Linksys router would have the same feature. I was wrong, and wasted a good bit of time in figuring this out. I have basic networking knowledge, and new that you used to always have to use a crossover cable between switches, but glossed over it since the old one worked with standard cables. Lesson learned.

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  • Makes no sense to me. If I understand auto-MDIX correctly, only 1 of the connecting devices needs it, and the switch has it. Something else is afoot.
    – hyperslug
    Aug 7, 2010 at 23:02
  • All I know is that once I swapped out the standard ethernet cable to a crossover cable it worked correctly. So I am happy. It did seem weird to me also though. Just for the record I did try multiple ethernet cables before the crossover, so I am fairly certain that it was not a bad cable. Aug 9, 2010 at 17:26

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