ACIII setup help

[Lunker]

I certainly could use a phone call from someone who could possibly help me connect my PC to the ACIII.

 

Currently I have my PC connected to a 3ComHomeConnect switch box and the switch box to the ACIII. It doesn't appear that I can connect via the web when entering the ip address of the ACIII into the web browser.

 

I have setup the ACIII IP address to be different from the PC's IP address, as instructed. Also, have ensured that the Netmask, Gateway Address, and DNS on the PC and ACIII match. The addresses on the PC look something like the following: 192.168.1.1, but on the ACIII I'm unable to remove zeros, so on the ACIII the addresses look like: 192.168.001.001... Not sure it matters, but I'm no IP expert.

 

If someone could give me a call this evening before 9 pm that would be great. If that is not possible maybe we can set another time for tomorrow.

 

My phone number is 703-444-0026.

 

I certainly would appreciate someones hheellpp.

 

Ron

[Jon Lazar]

I think the default internal address for the AC is 192.168.1.50. I would try entering that into the AC through the panel buttons. Remember to activate the AC reset command through the front panel after you make a network change.

[Lunker]

Jon, The ACIII default address indicates 192.168.001.050

 

Do the number of zeros in .001 make a difference or do I try and change it to .100?

 

Thanks

[Origami]

The zeros don't make a difference, Ron. I'd love to help but I have to head out of town for the remainder of the week. Good luck. I'll be following your thread. Tom

[johnnybv]

The zeros don't make a difference, Ron. I'd love to help but I have to head out of town for the remainder of the week. Good luck. I'll be following your thread. Tom

Ron, if you bring the unit into the shop in the next couple of days we can get it all set up. Bring the switch and the acIII, thats all we need.

john

[Jon Lazar]

For me to access my AC3 from inside my network, I have to type http://192.168.1.50:1234/ where 1234 is the port I set on the AC panel.

[jnimtz]

I believe the default port on the ACIII is port 80, so unless you changed the default port, entering http://192.168.1.50/ (or whatever IP you set your ACIII to) should work (without the :port# at the end), since port 80 is the default for http.

 

Major assumption: When you say you can't access your ACIII from inside your network, I'm assuming that both the ACIII and your PC are on the same network (physically connected via ethernet or Wi-Fi to the same network). Otherwise, there's router port forwarding and firewall rules that need to be taken into consideration.

 

Some things to try:

1) Check that the switch ports light up when your PC & ACIII are connected to it (link active, which verifies that the physical connection is okay)

2) Check to see if the activity lights flicker, to see if data is being sent (do a ping test: see below)

3) As someone else mentioned, when you change the network settings on the ACIII, there is a "restart network" or something similar that you need to do from the front panel. I've found that there is also an "init" setting that will clear/reset the programming on the ACIII (which I've done twice by accident...when you get around to programming the ACIII, make sure you save a backup of the program so you can reload it easily later).

4) If you have a firewall on your PC, try disabling it temporarily. (I've seen Zone Alarm do some interesting stuff that has caused me hours of headaches)

If everything works, re-enable it, and try to lower the firewall 'security threshold' (or something similar) until it works again.

 

Ping test (verifies that the device is on the network and you can communicate with it):

With the firewall disabled, try pinging the IP address of the ACIII:

In Windows: Start Menu > Run > cmd (type 'exit' without the quotes to close the command prompt window)

type: ping <ip of ACIII> (e.g. ping 192.168.1.50)

You should get a reply. If not, there are bigger issues.

 

If you get a reply, try unplugging the ACIII from the switch, and run the ping test again. If you still get a reply, it means there is another host (computer/laptop/wii/xbox/etc.) on the network that is using that IP address. If that's the case, select a different IP address for the ACIII, do the "network restart" and try again.

 

If you can ping the ACIII, then you can move on to trying with the web browser. Until you can do a basic ping verification, trying with the web browser is just adding complexity and hiding the real problem. (Note: there are cases where a system is reachable, but blocking or not responding to pings (ICMP echo), but I don't think the ACIII has that capability, and it sounds like your network setup is pretty straight-forward).

 

Another thing to try, after you can ping the ACIII, is telnetting into the ACIII.

In Windows: Start Menu > Run > cmd

type: telnet <ip of ACIII> (e.g. telnet 192.168.1.50)

Telnet will use the default port of 23, which should be fine unless you changed the telnet port on the ACIII.

 

I don't remember what the different commands are for the ACIII via telnet (since they are not documented), but you can try entering one letter commands, like: c or s to see different things in the ACIII configuration, but basically, if you can telnet to the ACIII, you've verified that the network isn't your problem.

 

Sorry if this information is overwhelming, but it's the process I'd use if I were to call you. If you're still having issues after trying some of these steps, or if you're totally confused now, you can call me sometime between 8 and 9 tonight (Wednesday) @ (703)772-6317 and I'll see if I can help.

Edited July 29, 2009 by jnimtz

[jnguyen4007]

I notice that you mention that your pc is connected to a home connect switch box. I'm not familiar with that. Do you use a router at your house or do you connect everything through this switch box?

[Lunker]

Thanks everyone for your input. It looks like that the main problem of connecting the PC via the Ethernet switch hub has been solved thanks to John at BRK. IP type of problem.

 

The only problem that I now seem to have is that when my cat 5 cable is connected between the hub and my PC I can't connect to the internet even though the indications says that my wireless connection is up and operating. If I electronically disable the LAN then I can access the internet.