Among the other things I do at work, I look after a small network with a variety of machines, OS’s and connection methods (four wired connections - 2 PCs running XP, 1 PC running Win98SE, 1 Mac Powerbook running OS 10.3.3; and two wireless connections - 1 PC laptop running Win98SE, and 1 Mac iBook running OS 10.3.3).
The other day I was reconfiguring the router - a Netgear MR814 - for greater wireless security, to apply the latest firmware update, and to enable the iBook to see the wired machines on the network. I had just finished setting everything up, and all appeared to be working just fine, when a thunderstorm came through and the power went out a couple of times. The router was on a surge protector, not a UPS, along with a phone/answering machine and the cable modem (both these other items are fine).
Since then, I have had a variety of problems, including:
- getting the wireless devices to sync up with the router
- being able to see and/or access other machines on the network (often getting error messages in OS X that tell me the “original item (server) cannot be found”)
- consistently being able to see all attached devices from the router interface, even when individual machines have access to the internet
- the router will not consistently recognize the correct admin password if I try to access the interface from the Mac Powerbook
The most frustrating thing is that all these problems seem to be intermittent. A given problem can resist all my efforts at fixing it, but waiting a few hours somehow lets the problem resolve itself.
I’m guessing that the router may be hosed as a result of the power outages, but I just wanted to confirm that there’s nothing else I can do before I give up on it. Thanks.