Finding Your Router
What is an ADSL router?
Your router is the device which connects your computers to the ADSL service. It connects to your ethernet network on the inside, and to the DSL phone line on the outside.
If you have only one computer you MAY have instead of a router a device called a USB Modem. The way to tell them apart, if you have a router, it will be connected to your computer's NETWORK port. If you have a modem, it will be connected to a USB port. A router can connect multiple computers, and usually has at least four network ports on the back. A modem can connect only a single computer.
Even if you only have one computer you may still have a router, however, as they are easier to use and make your network more secure from viruses and worms.
How to find your router - physically.
We may ask you to tell us what the lights on your router are showing. We may ask you to turn it off, and back on, or to leave it off for a while, or to make sure the cables are still properly plugged in.
The picture on the right shows a selection of Zyxel Prestige series 600 routers. If you obtanied your router from Wizards it will probably be one of these. Other brands will look somewhat similar. Note the wireless antenna is only preseent on "Wireless" equipped models.
The best way to find your router is to trace the wires from the phone line which provides your ADSL (Broadband) service. One wire, at least, will go to the "DSL" port on the back of the router.
As well as the DSL wire, the router will have at least one, possibly more Network cables plugged in to it, and also a power cable.
There should be SOME lights on the router. Even if everything else is disconnected or not working, there should at least be a POWER light.
How to find your router on the network.
We may ask you to log in to your router and change a setting. To do this you will first need to know where on your network the router is.
For 95% of you, the default settings will apply and the IP address of your router will be 192.168.1.1. This is so likely, that it's worth trying no - just launch your web browser and put "192.168.1.1" on the address bar (where you would normally put the name of the website you want to visit.)
If that doesn't work, you need to find out the address your computer is on and what it's Default Gateway is.
| Windows XP or Vista | Mac OSX, Linux |
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First open a command window. |
Find and open the TERMINAL window. |
| Type "ipconfig /all". Look in the results for a section like this: |
Type "ifconfig" Look in the results for a section like this |
| IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.20 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.100.240 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.100.254 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.100.249 |
en0:flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu1500 |
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If this were your output, your IP address would be 192.168.100.20 Your default gateway is 192.168.100.254 |
If this were your output, your IP address would be 192.168.100.59
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The top few lines of your output should look like |
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| Your Default Gateway is 192.168.100.254 | |
| To close the command window,. click on X or type "exit" |
to close the Terminal window, type "exit". |
Now you have your IP address and your Default Gateway. Your Default Gateway is the address of your router. So, as before, put this in the address bar of the browser and you should find you are looking at your router's login screen.
