A customer was struggling to get her new dlink dvg-2001s voip adapter to work with a new dlink dsl-g604t wireless modem-router.

Since she is using a laptop over an unsecured wireless link, I decide to first get the wireless working securely.

I connect to the router, change it to WPA–PSK(as usual, the router doesn’t tell you if it will use WPA-PSK-TKIP, or WPA-PSK-AES)… So after restarting the router, I find I cannot connect using either TKIP or AES. But its happened to me before: its just a case of being patient.

In the meantime, I take the laptop over to the DVG unit, and connect to it via ethernet cable (disconnecting it from the router).

But I can’t connect to it. I cant even ping it.

I manually enter the appropriate IP settings for windows and then restart the PC and the DVG.

But I still cannot connect to it. I figure the customer must have mucked up something while trying to get everything going. So all I can do at this stage is reset to factory defaults.

I can connect now. Since the DVG happens to default to the same IP address as the DSL-g604t, I decide to try something simple: I change it to a fixed IP (10.1.1.253… it was 10.1.1.1).

But now I’m back to where I started: I cannot connect to the DVG… So, factory reset again, and then do the job properly, get it to obtain its IP address from the router, and configure the router to always give a specific address to the DVG. I pick address 10.1.1.222.

So, I connect the PC to the router, connect the DVG to the router, power-cycle everything, then connect to the router and see whats going on (the wireless network still hasn’t kicked in yet… So I’ll look at that again).

Looks like the wireless security is now on WEP… I’m sure I set it to WPA… So I set it back to WPA, apply the change, go to settings, click “save and reboot”, click on reboot button (dlink should rename these buttons: are you sure… are you really, really sure… etc).

After the restart, XP detects the wireless network… at last.

I try connecting to the detected wireless network, but it fails (both tkip and aes)… I connect to the router again, and I see it is still on WEP… I repeat this cycle about 3 times, until the WPA settings finally “stick” Grrr.

Ok, I get XP to connnect (after restarting XP and waiting a few minutes…)

I now unplug the ethernet cable between the PC and the router , restart the router and laptop, and look forward to some wireless computing from a more comfortable position.

But when XP restarts, It doesn’t find the wireless network anymore… Huh?

I go over to the router (I’m almost ready to yell at it!). Hold on, the router WLAN light is off… it shouldn’t be off. All the other light are working correctly. Why has only the wireless decided to fail?. Anyway, I try restarting the router (again! except this time, I wait 15 seconds before reconnecting power).

OK, the WLAN light comes on now…

The laptop connects to the router correctly again.

I setup the router to hand out IP address 10.1.1.222 only to the MAC address of the DVG adapter, so it should always have that address. I save the settings and restart the router and the DVG.

I then setup the router “virtual server” (otherwise known as port forwarding), so that port 5060 is allowed to pass through the router firewall, to the dvg adapter. Save and restart.

Once I’m sure all the settings are correct and I can connect to both the router and the dvg, I then try the voip phone… I hear a dial tone, but cannot call out…

Now we call the voip company, and it turns out the DVG was pre-configured with the customers details (passwords, etc) (all lost after the factory reset). So we connect to the dvg and enter the correct details and restart it.

pressing **1 on the phone gets the dvg to “speak its IP address” to you over the phone… neat.

Anyway, we make a call, and it seems to work.

I thank the voip technician, and a short while later, try to call my mobile… there is a disconcerting delay between the mobile ringing, and the voip phone sounding a ringing tone. I hangup the voip phone, but my mobile keeps ringing… what?

OK, I’ll power-cycle everything again, just to be sure.

But now, the voip phone doesn’t play a dial tone then the receiver is lifted… I start hearing Yoda saying “patience young jedi”… but I snap out of it when I hear the phone make a short ring… hmmm

I eventually figure out that once the DVG is up and running, it will usually take 1 or 2 minutes before it logs in to the voip server (and gives a quick ring when the phone is ready to be used)…

Some instructions on all this would have been nice!

Anyway, after the power-cycle and the delay waiting for the voip to activate, everything seems ok. I try ringing a few numbers and it’s all working well (at last… after 3.5 hours!).