23.09.2019

Tl wr841n does not work wan. The computer does not see the ethernet cable. The router does not see the Internet cable. WAN port not working

Hello friends! A month ago, our reader Vitaly ran into interesting problem, after a thunderstorm, his router stopped working. What exactly happened, and most importantly, what solution was found, today's article is about all this. The story is told in the first person.

Somewhere in July of this year there was a severe thunderstorm and that day my microwave oven, music center (which I used to play sound from a computer) and the Internet went out of order. What is interesting - I checked the fuses at the furnace and the center - they are whole! I handed it over for repair: in both cases, the windings of the transformers burned out. I am not particularly special in electronics, and it remains a mystery to me why the fuses are intact, and the windings of the transformers burned out. By the way, they have already been repaired and they are back in operation.Began to deal with the Internet. My Internet is distributed through a Zyxel Keenetic GIGA router. I clicked on the network troubleshooting, I got an error DNS server is not responding.I googled possible solutions to this problem - rummaged through the entire Internet in search, but nothing helped. Tried really everything that dug up on this problem. Interestingly, I could enter the router settings interface, change settings, save them, do other actions, but there was no Internet access, although the network was working.

I contacted the provider, he shamanized at home, he says that everything is fine on his side. I contacted Keenetic technical support, described the problem - they advised me an unusual solution. It consists in the following: when buying a Zyxel Keenetic GIGA router, it had the firmware of the first version, it has such an interface.

Everything is very clear and informative and I got used to it, but there was also an experimental firmware version v2 for Zyxel Keenetic GIGA (on GIGA II and GIGA III it became the main one) and I was advised to flash it. The idea was that the second version allowed assign one of the four LAN ports as WAN to which the Internet cable is connected. I flashed the router for the second version and in the settings I assigned the first LAN port as the WAN port.

In principle, I could assign any of the LAN ports. I plugged the cable from the computer's network card into the third LAN port.

I checked the network diagnostics - the situation is the same - the DNS server is unavailable. I contacted the provider again - after three minutes the Internet worked for me! Nevertheless, in this situation, I again tried to assign the WAN port of the router to connect to the Internet, but the result was negative - the network worked, but there was no Internet.

That is, as a result of a thunderstorm, the WAN port of the router failed, and if it were not for the unique opportunity to reassign the port, it would hardly have been possible to return it to service. By the way, this router has two USB ports, which greatly expanded its capabilities, but as a result of a thunderstorm, they, unfortunately, also failed. But most importantly - I'm with the Internet!

This article describes how to fully use a TP-Link router with a burned out WAN port, we will restore the router and all its functions to working order.

It is possible to restore operability if only one port burned out.

Installing OpenWRT firmware on the router

1. We find out the model of the router, this information is indicated on the box from the router, or on the sticker from the router itself. Next, we need to find the latest firmware for the router on the official website, and update the router.

To find out what firmware your router needs, look at the sticker on the router for the version you are using. For example, I have TP-Link WR841N V8, that is, on the official website I need to download the firmware for my router, version V8.

2. Next, we need to update it to the newest official firmware.
Enter in the address bar of any browser on your computer “192.168.1.1” or “192.168.0.1”, when at one of these addresses you will be knocked out a page or window where it will ask for a Login and Password, in both lines (i.e. in in the Login line, and in the Password line enter “admin”.

In the router menu, we find the item “System Tools” and select “Firmware Update”. When you go to this control point, everything is extremely simple - select the firmware file that you downloaded and click "Update". Now you just have to wait for the router to reboot!

3. After a successful reboot of the router, and checking its performance by accessing the Internet, start looking for the OpenWrt firmware for your router. I can’t throw off the links, since the search for the firmware is very individual, and someone finds his own, and someone in the open spaces of the next forum on routers. Once the firmware is found, proceed to update the router, in exactly the same way as you updated the router to the factory firmware in the second step. After rebooting the router, you will no longer see the standard interface, but the OpenWRT interface.

Note 1. The name of the firmware file should not be too large, otherwise the router will not see the firmware and will not be able to update. If the name is painfully large, you can rename the file using English alphabet characters.

Note 2. Before installing the firmware, check on the Internet whether your firmware has a graphical interface so that your router does not suddenly become a “brick”.

4. We are half way to success, comrades! The router has been updated, and we need to start setting up the Internet on our updated device. The essence of the recovery will be that we will transfer this burned-out WAN port to the LAN port and so we will have 3 LAN ports and one WAN.

Steps to transfer the WAN port to the LAN port:

1. We go to Network - Switch, and create two vlans.

In the first vlan - near the CPU, select " taggeduntaggedoff“.

In the second vlan - near the CPU, select " tagged“, next to the port that should be the WAN port, select “ off“, next to all other ports, select the value “ untagged“.

And click "Save".

Note. For example, if you select port 4 as the new WAN port, then the first port will be the new WAN port, since the numbering starts from the 4th port.

4 port in settings - 1 physical port
3 port in settings - 2 port physical
2 port in settings - 3 port physical
1 port in settings - 4 port physical

2.Go to Network - Interfaces, and delete the old WAN. We create a new WAN, with a name, for example, InternetWAN, and select the vlan on which this WAN will work, i.e. select VLAN Interface: "eth1.1" and configure the type of Internet connection you need.

We return back to Network - Interfaces, and start editing the LAN.
In the “Physical Settings” item, the checkboxes should only be opposite VLAN Interface: “eth1.2” and Wireless Network: Master “OpenWrt”.

3. Opens Network - Firewall, and start editing WAN, on the “General Settings” tab in the “Covered networks: InternetWAN” section, make sure that there is a checkmark only in front of “WAN” (if it is not there, then we put it), and save everything.

Note. At the top of the router settings window, if there are unsaved changes, a plate appears, click on it, save everything and apply it.

4. We reboot the router, and everything is ready - the router is working again and the port is forwarded.

What is a LAN port in a router

The term LAN, as such, is an abbreviation for Local Area Network, which translates as "Local Computing Network» (LAN). This is a broad name that combines a group of computers and peripherals connected into one common network through switches, cables and wireless connections.

LAN port - this connector is used for organizing a local network, all equipment is connected through it using network cables:

Computers
Printers
SIP phones
other technique

It is also called an Ethernet port. Do not confuse a hardware LAN port with network ports such as HTTP port 80.

This connection is used to organize a network in an apartment, office, country house, that is, when the connected computers are located at a close distance.

Now let's figure out how to set up a LAN on a router. First, you need to assign an IP address to the router, where you can connect to it from other computers.

The router will not always respond to a connection check with the “ping” command, some routers do not support this option, and some it is customizable.

As well as setting DHCP: enable - disable the server and the range of distributed IP addresses.

To avoid possible confusion when using DHCP, it is advisable to manually reserve IP addresses on the router that it will distribute for all equipment on the network. To simplify this, you can look at the table of clients, and rewrite from it the MAC addresses of the connected equipment and the IP addresses assigned to each, so reserve them.

If the number of LAN ports is not enough to connect all the equipment, then you can use the switch, having previously configured it: by setting the IP address, network mask, as the default gateway, select the IP address of the main router with Internet access.

When using a switch, do not forget to disable the distribution of IP addresses via DHCP on it.

Of course, the local network also includes the wireless connection of devices with various mobile devices, but this already applies more to the Wi-Fi settings.

What does WAN mean on a router

The term WAN is an abbreviation for Wide Area Network and translates as "Global Computing Network" (WAN), is a geographically distributed network that combines several local networks. Thanks to this, it is possible to connect from one local network to the resources of others, if, of course, access is granted to them.

The WAN port is used to connect the router to an external network, in particular to connect to the provider's network in order to access the Internet. Usually it is highlighted in a different color and marked with the inscription "WAN" or "INTERNET".

That is, this connection is used to connect remote computers located in different buildings, cities, countries.

Some models have two WAN ports, or even their number is configurable. Their presence is not very important for the average user, but, for reference, they are used for backup Internet access through another provider or for load balancing.

Indication

Each of the WAN and LAN ports has two LEDs that can show if there is a link (link) - whether the response device is connected, the connection speed, usually:

Green - 1 Gbps
Yellow - 100 Mbps
Off - 10 Mbps

During communication, the indicators may flash.

Some devices may not have the yellow LED at all. It can be arranged so that one indicator lights green only in the case of a 1 Gbps connection, and the indicator on the right lights up when a data packet is transmitted.

In addition to indicators on the connector, indicators are often made on the case, for WAN it is usually depicted as a planet, for LAN it is depicted as a computer. If all is well, it lights up or flashes green.

One fine sunny summer day, rather quickly (as it usually happens in summer), a thunderstorm was organized over my area of residence. And of course, what kind of summer thunderstorm is it without thunder and lightning. After one of the lightning bolts, my TP-LINK841N router completely lost connection with outside world, in other words - his WAN port burned out.

The initial examination of the victim showed that the patient is more likely alive, although not all organs are working. With the WAN port, everything is clear - it is not subject to resuscitation, but the LAN ports seemed to even show signs of life, although two of them, the 2nd and 4th, were not able to pull more than 10Mbps (see the pickup in the provider's cable during a thunderstorm gave a good on the brains of the router), Wi-Fi worked properly and all wireless devices saw the network and successfully connected to it.

The situation is certainly sad, because in a month it was already the second victim. Going to the store for the third, without prior preparation - lightning protection on the provider's cable, and it pulls grounding, etc., in general, somehow I didn’t want to potentially give another 400 hryvnias at the disposal of nature.

As a result, as a result of talking with my friends on this issue, I was advised to try reassigning one of the 4 LAN ports as a WAN port. Why not.

To get the firmware we need, do the following:

Go here http://download1.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/ .
We select the current year (at the time of writing it is 2014).
We select the latest version of the release (at the time of writing it is 06-23-2014-r24461).
According to the router model and hardware version, we find the corresponding section (in my case it is tplink_tl-wr841ndv8).

As a result, we will get (for my router) this path http://download1.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/downloads/others/eko/BrainSlayer-V24-preSP2/2014/06-23-2014-r24461 /tplink_tl-wr841ndv8/ .

Because previously my router ran on factory firmware, to switch to DD-WRT you will need a microcode file called factory-to-ddwrt.bin .

After you have downloaded the required file, go to the web interface of the router - if the router has standard settings (and non-standard settings can always be reset with the reset button), then enter 192.168.1.1 in the address bar of the browser, answer the login/password request admin/admin, respectively who has the router flashed for the provider, the standard login and password can be found on the back cover of the router). Go to System Tools-> Frimware Upgrade.

Router firmware update page on standard TP-Link firmware

We select the factory-to-ddwrt.bin file downloaded earlier for loading. Click on the Upgrade button and wait five minutes, after the update the router will reboot. After rebooting the router, we go to the address 192.168.1.1, as a result we will see something like this:

Initial window after flashing dd-wrt

Actually, we were asked to specify a user and password for administration through the WEB interface, the password specified here will also be for the root user when working with the router through the console. After saving the data you specified, the router will immediately ask for them when entering the WEB interface. On this, the procedure for changing the firmware can be considered complete.

Now, in fact, let's move on to the procedure for setting up ports. I shoveled quite a lot of pages both in Google and on the DD-WRT forum, but I did not find any working recommendations (maybe I did something wrong, but nothing worked - the LAN port at point blank range did not want to work as WAN), yet did not come across a comment to one of the articles on a similar topic. Unfortunately, I can’t provide a link to the source (lost in time :)), but the essence of the advice was that in order for the LAN port to become a WAN port, it was proposed to execute the following set of commands on the router (to execute commands and display the result of their work, use the page Administration->Commands):

vconfig add eth1 2
vconfig add eth1 3
ifconfig eth1.2 up
ifconfig eth1.3 up
swconfig dev eth1 vlan 2 set ports "0t 4"
swconfig dev eth1 vlan 3 set ports "0t 1 2 3"
swconfig dev eth1 set enable_vlan 1
swconfig dev eth1 set apply 1
brctl addif br0 eth1.3
brctl delif br0 eth1
stop service wan
sleep 10
start service wan

Page for executing commands in the router shell

To execute commands, they must be written (pasted) in the field Commands and press Run Commands.

I can’t say how “according to religion” this is the right way, but it worked for me after executing these commands 3rd LAN port the router was assigned as a WAN port, received an external IP from the provider and everything worked.

In order to not have to repeat all this "business" every time the router is loaded, it is worth adding this set of commands to Startup. To do this, paste the above set of commands into the field Commands and press the button Save Startup.

As a result, it should turn out something like this:

This is what the page should look like after saving the commands in Startup

On this, the port forwarding procedure can be considered completed. Next, you just have to configure the router to work with your provider, I didn’t have a chance to do this. the connection to my provider is via TFTP, i.e. I get the address from the provider's DHCP server.

I would be glad if you, like me, helped this solution.

So, you have configured your wireless router, but for some reason something is not working. I will try to consider the most common problems with Wi-Fi routers and how to solve them. Most of the problems described can equally occur in Windows 10, 8.1 and Windows 7 and the solutions will be similar.

From my experience, as well as from the comments on this site, I can single out the following typical problems that users face when, it would seem, they set everything up exactly and according to all kinds of instructions.

The router status indicates that the WAN connection is down
Laptop, tablet, smartphone does not see Wi-Fi, but sees access points of neighbors
Constant disconnects
Local city resources of the provider, torrent, DC ++ hub and others are not available

If I think of other typical things like the above, I'll add to the list, but for now let's get started.

(provided the router is configured correctly)
What to do if, when connecting, it says:
What to do, if .

The Wi-Fi connection is lost and the download speed is low through the router (everything is fine through the wire)

In this case, changing the wireless network channel can help you. We are not talking about those situations that also occur when the router simply freezes, but only about those when the wireless connection itself disappears on individual devices or in specific places, and it is also not possible to achieve normal wifi speeds connections. You can read more about how to choose a free Wi-Fi channel.

WAN is broken or the Internet is only on the computer

The main reason for such a problem with a WiFi router is a connected WAN connection on the computer. The meaning of setting up and operating a wireless router is that it will establish an Internet connection on its own, and then “distribute” access to other devices. Thus, if the router is already configured, but, at the same time, the connection of Beeline, Rostelecom, etc., available on the computer, is in the “connected” state, then the Internet will only work on the computer, and the router will take practically no part in this. In addition, the router will not be able to connect to the WAN, since it is already connected on your computer, and most providers allow only one connection from one user at a time. I don’t know how clearly I managed to explain the logic, but even if it’s not clear, just take it for granted: for everything to work, a separate provider connection on your computer must be disabled. Only a LAN connection should be connected, or, in the case of a laptop, etc., a wireless network connection.

Unable to access the address 192.168.0.1 to configure the router

If you are faced with the fact that when typing the address to access the settings of your router, the corresponding page does not open, do the following.

1) Make sure that in the LAN connection settings (Your direct connection to the router) is set: get an IP address automatically, get DNS addresses automatically.

UPD: Check if you enter this address in the address bar - some users, when trying to configure the router, enter it in the search bar, getting something like "The page cannot be displayed" as a result.

2) If the previous item did not help, use the run command (Win + R keys, in Windows 8 you can just start typing the word “Run” on the start screen), enter cmd, press Enter. And in command line mode, type ipconfig. Pay attention to the “Main Gateway” value of the connection used for configuration - it is at this address that you should go to the router administration page. If this address differs from the standard one, then the router may have been configured earlier to work on a particular network with certain requirements. You can reset it to factory settings. If there is no address at all in this paragraph, then, again, try resetting the router. If it didn’t work out, you can also try disconnecting the provider’s cable from the router, leaving only the cable with which it connects to the PC - this can solve the problem: make the necessary settings without this cable, and after everything is configured, reconnect the provider’s cable. Pay attention to the firmware version and, if it is relevant, update it. In the case when this does not help either, make sure that the "correct" drivers are installed for the computer's network card. Ideally, download them from the manufacturer's website.

Settings are not saved

If for some reason the settings are not saved after entering them and clicking "save", and also if you cannot restore the settings previously saved to a separate file - try to do the operation in another browser. In general, in the case of any strange behavior router admin is worth a try this option.

Laptop (tablet, other device) does not see WiFi

In this case, the most different variants and they are all about the same. Let's go in order.

If your laptop does not see an access point, then first of all, check if the wireless module is enabled in it. To do this, look in "Network and Sharing Center" - "Adapter Settings" in Windows 7 and Windows 8, or in Network Connections on Windows XP. Make sure the wireless connection is enabled. If disabled (displayed in gray), then turn it on. Perhaps the problem has already been resolved. If it does not turn on, check if your laptop has a hardware switch for Wi-Fi (on my Sony Vaio, for example, there is).

Let's go further. If the wireless connection is enabled, but constantly stays in the “No connection” status, make sure that the drivers you need are installed on your Wi-Fi adapter. This is especially true for laptops. Many users, having installed a program to automatically update drivers or having a driver installable operating system Windows automatically considers that this is the correct driver. As a result, they often run into problems. The required driver is the one that is located on the website of the manufacturer of your laptop and is designed specifically for your model. Notebook computers often use specific hardware and using drivers (not just for network equipment) recommended by the manufacturer avoids many problems.

In case the previous option did not help you, we try to go to the "admin panel" of the router and slightly change the wireless network settings. First: change b/g/n to b/g. Earned? This means that the wireless module of your device does not support the 802.11n standard. It's okay, in most cases, this will not affect the speed of access to the network. If it doesn’t work, try manually specifying the wireless network channel in the same place (usually it’s set to “automatic”).

And another unlikely, but possible variant, which I had to deal with three times, and two times - for the iPad tablet. The device also refused to see the access point, and this was solved by setting the region in the router United States instead of Russia.