New Envisalink 3 Cannot Obtain IP Address

[lesdsc]

Hello everyone,

Glad your helpful forum is here. I just got a new Envisalink 3 and am excited to get it working, but for the life of me cannot get it to obtain an IP address and show up on the network. Either it's defective or there's something I'm missing. My network has computers, cameras, and TV's, and none has any problem working.

The EL3 is being used with an older PC1555MX panel. I installed the hardware per instructions.

The onboard lights are as follows:

KEYB flashing (no IP address)
OPER flashing (normal)
ACT flashing (activity)
LINK on (link established)

The EL3 doesn't come up in my Windows 7 network device list, doesn't show in the router service list, and doesn't show when I use commands like netstat. My router is a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH. I've tried restarting the router. I've tried restarting the EL3 by disconnecting the red power lead and then reconnecting it.

I'm stumped. Any ideas? Thank for your help.

Les

[GrandWizard]

Is there a LINK LED on your router? It may be your cable.

[lesdsc]

Yes, the switch it connects to is lit up.

I tried a different cable and still nothing.

It looks like the new EL3 is defective, right?

[GrandWizard]

No, it looks like everything is normal. You need to figure out why the router isn't giving the module an IP address. Do you have another router you could try? Is you DHCP server in your router?

[lesdsc]

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it.

Yes, the DHCP server is in the router. Everything else I've ever tried has worked with this router.

I may have another router to try, will look.

This is a gigabit router - could that have an impact as the EL3 is not gigabit? I'd think not.

Anyway to troubleshoot the problem more, why it's not getting an IP address?

[GrandWizard]

Do you know how to run a packet sniffer like Wireshark?

You could try and find the DHCP (bootP) packets and maybe that would put you in the right direction.

[lesdsc]

I got it working! Thanks for your help. For others who have a similar problem, here's what I did.

The problem apparently arises because either my gigabit switch or router (or both) cannot recognize an older 10 mbit device such as Envisalink. Elink is the only device I have that is that slow.

I hooked up the Envisalink directly to an older router I have and DHCP in the old router auto assigned an address right away. That confirmed that the new Elink I had was working.

Once I was in with the old router, I tried forcing Elink to a static IP address that would work on my gigabit network, and then reconnected Elink to my gigabit network. It still didn't work. So the problem is not just DHCP, it's getting my gigabit network to recognize a 10 mbit device.

So, I turned the old slow router into a switch by disabling DHCP and setting it to a static IP address just outside my gigabit router's range. Then I connected the Elink to the old router (now a switch), and connected the old router to my gigabit network.

Everything works fine.

Thanks for all your help.

Les

[NonTech]

I know you have the problem solve, but it sounds as if the Gigabit Switch is the source of the problem. Did you try connecting the EnvisaLink 3 directly to your Gigabit Router, excluding the Gigabit Switch?

[billyrusa]

Gigabit router should not be the problem.
My EnvisaLink 3 is connected to a Gigabit router, RT-N56U. The EnvisaLink board uses a static IP. Did not test if DHCP can assign IP to it. But, do not think it is a problem.

[lesdsc]

I'll try to bypass the gigabit switch and see if the gigabit router can recognize the Elink by itself. But I need the switch for other network devices so I'd have to figure out what to do. You know, I also should check the settings of the router because maybe by default it has turned off 10 mb devices??? I hadn't considered that possibility before.

Thanks.