'Dual' network question

Call me mad, but this is how things have ended up and I don't have the patience to keep messing about.

I'm on Virgin's L30 service with a Superhub. It was running in modem only mode with a Belkin F5D8233 router serving the wireless devices and a couple of cables off that to two Tenda 4 port hubs in other parts of the house, such as the smart TV and DVR.

The Belkin router has been going nuts since a firmware update went wrong. I followed the instructions and updated it with a file downloaded from the Belkin site, but then it worked only in wireless mode, no wired ports. I went back to the old version and everything was working fine, except now it was updating the DHCP from the ISP and disconnecting frequently.

So I bought another router, this time a Tenda W307R. That ran for a few days, then developed a fault and was sent back.

So, in desperation, I reset the Superhub and used the ethernet ports off that, which actually work OK. But, the wireless devices had problems. So, I put the Belkin back in service, plugged into a port of the Superhub. The wireless on the Superhub is switched off, I've no issues with Wireless really.

It works, but now we have two networks with different IP address ranges. This is where I can't work out what I need to do and need the help. The superhub is on 192.168.0.1 and anything connected to that, via the hubs too, have addresses 192.168.0.x and any connected to the Belkin are 192.168.2.x

I'm disabled and can't move about a lot, rather than go from my PC to the wife's in another room, or the daughter's laptop upstairs, I use Real VNC (a virtual viewer, like Teamviewer) to access them. It works fine, my PC is on 192.169.2.53 and I can VNC to 192.168.0.54, my wife's PC, quite happily.

We used fixed IP addresses for the VNC software to work, it needs a fixed address and port number. That left lower numbers available for laptops and phones to use without affecting the virtual viewer connections.

The problem I have is when I want to pass a file over, a letter or spreadsheet. Before I just used the basic Windows networking and the Public folders. Drop a file in there and it was available on the other PC. Now we are not connected and I'm banging my head trying to figure out what I need to do to sort this out.

I can connect between PC's using the VNC software. I can ping each PC from the other, but I don't know how to put everything on one network, even though they are sharing the same wires and Internet. I can access both routers from my PC as well, using the same web browser.

All I've managed so far is to turn off DHCP with the Belkin, which means I have to obtain IP addresses dynamically - I was using fixed addresses for the VNC software, it has to have an address to connect to. When I tried to put the DHCP back on it wouldn't work as it's range was set to 192.168.0.x 's and I can't reset that.

I have an old PC with 2 network cards that I connected up just to experiment, one cable to the Superhub and one cable to the Belkin, I connected to both networks and was able to transfer files to either - but that seemed silly. I then tried changing the network card settings on my PC, it was getting an IP address 192.169.2.x from the Belkin, as that's what it is physically plugged in to. So, I tried various options of setting it to look at 192.168.0.1, the Superhub - no chance, it just would not work. Seems silly, as I can connect to the Virgin router and change it's settings and I can connect to the other PC's using the VNC viewer, just not the network.

I fear for my sanity now, has anyone any suggestions please?

I'm guessing the Belkin is still working as a router and so issuing it's own IP address to devices that connect to it, when really all you need is a simple wireless Access point, so the Superhub issues all the addresses.

If this is the case, disable DHCP on the Belkin, then use one of its LAN ports (not WAN port as now) to connect it the Superhub.

Everything should then be issued with IP addresses in the 192.168.0.x range.

Ah, but then we lose all the wireless devices because they are all configured to specific IP addresses in the 192.168.2.x range

There are a lot of wireless routers in our area, so I have used MAC specific address access and given each device it's own identity, mainly to allow me to connect using the virtual viewer (VNC), which has to have a specified IP address on the network.

DHCP is disabled on the Belkin, but it was allowing the connections to happen as before. When I swapped the cable over as suggested, none of the wireless devices had a connection

Yes, I can see how the change works and did test it on my PC. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.

If we want to stick with that then I must re-set all the wireless boxes to have 192.168.0.x addresses. Maybe I'll have to, but I was in head-scratch mode why I could ping devices on the 'other' network, and even connect the virtual viewer, despite not being in the same IP range, yet could not link the two together.

I've come up with an alternative solution, inspired by using the old PC with 2 network cards. I have a USB-LAN gadget, I've plugged that in and hooked a cable to the Superhub. My PC is now on both networks I'm the only one who needs to link to all the other devices so this works for me.

I still don't understand why I I couldn't achieve something similar without having to add hardware though...?

In reply to a post by TMCR:

I still don't understand why I I couldn't achieve something similar without having to add hardware though...?

Because some protocols such as ICMP (ping) and VNC are routable and work quite happily across different networks - indeed they are intended to do so. Windows Shares & SMB do not - or at least functionality is reduced.

Yes, you would either need to change the static addresses to within the 192.168.0.x range, or you could instead change the network addressing on the Superhub from 192.168.2.x to 192.168.0.x.
I'm not familiar with the capabilitites of the Superhub though, so I don't know whether the static addresses need to be outside of the DHCP range or whether they are allocated from the same pool.

As long as you are happy that you have a working solution is what matters though.

Yes, to change the Superhub default to 192.168.2.x seems a good idea.

The static addresses are allowed as long as they are within the range defined on the superhub. By default it will allow 100 users from 192.168.2.1 to 192.168.2.101, but that can be changed. You can also allocate an IP address to a known MAC address.

The max lease time is only 1 week, on the Belkin I could have 'forever'. What I'm trying to avoid is any forced disconnects as that upsets things. The Belkin was causing problems with the wired connections, but isn't worrying anyone on the wireless side.

At least I know now that it's not just me going mad, it's because Windows can't handle it but other things can. What I have now is working for me, even if it does seem like belt and braces with 2 network connections open on one PC...

Thanks again.