# 2 internet connections



## greif (May 31, 2009)

hi

windows 7, althought this might not matter what operating system

I have a cable connection hardwired with eiternet and I also have a hot water solar controller that puts out a wifi signal

I am connected to both eiternet and wirelss at same time but IE and chrome both look at eithernet first

in order to look at the webpage (althought it's not on the web) on my solar controller I need to unplug my eithernet and . I can then type in url and it conects

is the a way to make it look at wireless when I type in said url?

thanks
gary


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

You shouldn't need to unplug the Ethernet cable in order to reach your solar controller, as long as the Ethernet and the wireless networks have unique IP address ranges (they should) and you fully qualify the URL.

What URL are you entering in your web browser to reach the solar controller?

There is some other info that would be helpful in diagnosing your connections. Click Start and then type "cmd" (less quotes) into the box and press Enter. At the DOS prompt, type "ipconfig" (less quotes) and press Enter. Now look for the IP4 address for the wireless adapter and also the IP4 address for the LAN adapter. It will be a number like 192.168.1.5 and should be different for each device. You many need to slide the bar in the DOS window up to view all of the information. Those two addresses will help us provide you with the correct URL.


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

bridge the connections

http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/bridge-network-connections-in-windows-7/

make sure that every thing is in the same ip range and subnet mask

example- gateway is 192.168.1.1 pc is 192.1.100 controller is 192.1.101 all on subnet
255.255.255.0
192.168.1.XX is your ip range but you can make it anything you want as long as all your devices share it, if it does not conform to the rules you will be told its out of range or how it conflicts.
the last number (XX) is device unique and can only be used once. other wise you will get wierd stuff going on.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

||Downhome|| said:


> bridge the connections
> 
> http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/bridge-network-connections-in-windows-7/
> 
> ...


Since we're talking about the solar controller using a different network adapter, the solar controller will almost certainly be on a different subnet. It's reachable, but the URL needs to be fully qualified.

I suspect that the network is mistaking the solar controller URL as an unknown domain, so the LAN adapter sends it out the Internet gateway as a new DNS lookup request (which fails, of course). If the URL is fully qualified with the solar controller's IP address then the request will be routed out the wifi card like it should be.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Your controller should connect be wifi connect to the router and anyone on your network would go through the router to to connect to the controller. You should not need both network on your computer on at the same time.

You need to make sure your controller is talking to your router and its getting a valid IP address.


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## greif (May 31, 2009)

Hi Guys, thanks for the help sorry I did not get back sooner

Ok, sorry I'm not that great with the ol' ip/internet hooking up stuff

when I go yo view my solar controller the adress I use is http://169.254.148.50/

I did the command propmt and got

wireless
IPv4 addres 169.254.43.193
subnet mask 255.255.0.0
default gateway (nothing in this field)

ethernet

IPv4 adress 192.168.1.104
subnet mask 255.255.255.0
default gateway 192.168.1.1


hope this helps
thanks
gary


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## greif (May 31, 2009)

I just went and read the link and did the bridging a connection and it worked

thanks
gary


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

NP problem some people get caught up in the details and got to get complicated about stuff lol ! I'll take simple any day....

I have a setup like that for my xbox (xbox is connected to a lan cable and that connects to the lan card in laptop) as I do not have a wireless adapter for it I use the lap top (laptops wireless connects to network) to connect to the network and that is the only way I could work out both lan adapters being used at the same time, I have xp but I figure windows is windows.

if the xbox was pluged in no internet or network for that matter, must be a bug in windows.

I tried everything including internet sharing. a network bridge was the only thing that worked for me. 

glad it worked for you!


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Okay, I see what it's doing. You have an Class B IP address on the wireless network, which is identified with the first 2 numbers instead if the first 3 numbers. We know that for several reasons.


The subnet mask (255.255.0.0) tells the network to search both the 3rd and 4th numbers for your device.
The first number in the IP address (169) is in the range of 128 through 191, which indicates a Class B IP address (well, sort of).
The solar controller address of 169.254.148.50 is reachable when only the wifi card is active, which has an IP address of 169.254.43.193. For a Class B license those numbers are both in the same range (that is, the first 2 numbers are the same).
What I can tell you now is that you are setup correctly for what you want to do. The network should look for your solar controller on the wifi connection regardless of whether your Ethernet cable is connected. But instead, your Ethernet card thinks that your solar controller (169.254.148.50) is not in the same range as your wifi card (169.254.43.193), so the request is being referred out the router to the Internet instead of to your wifi card.

If I were at your location I would study the routing table in your computer, but it's possible that your routing table is also setup correctly. I suspecting a stupid Ethernet card (or possibley a glitch in your version of Windows networking) that doesn't expect a local area network that has a Class B IP license, so anything that doesn't match the first three numbers is referred to the Internet. If I'm correct then a different Ethernet card might cure the problem, but I can't promise that.

If you can, maybe you could change the IP address of the controller to something that would match the first 3 numbers of your WIFI adapter. Alternatively, you could change the wifi IP address to match the first three numbers of your solar controller. That would be something like 169.254.148.193 for the new wifi adapter IP address (note that I only changed the third number to match the first 3 numbers of the solar controller). You might contact technical support for your solar controller for help in doing that.

With this new information I'll stand back and let Gary & Kung think it over. Maybe something will readily come to mind to one of them. In the meantime, you can rest easy in the knowledge that you are setup correctly. It's your network that isn't routing as it should.

As a final word about this, it's esoteric problems like this (where everything is correct but the network still isn't doing what it should) that separates the men from the boys in networking. That's what they get paid the big bucks for (tongue in cheek, of course). There's a solution, but it will take a little experimenting.


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## ||Downhome|| (Jan 12, 2009)

greif looking at the ip info, you have three different Ip ranges,

if you have a wireless router then like gary says your router should pick up the controller and make it accesiable on the network

default gateway 192.168.1.1 <---- consider this you master IP range
your ethernet is already in that range, IPv4 adress 192.168.1.104

but your other two devices are not 
wireless IPv4 addres 169.254.43.193
solar controller 169.254.148.50

if you reassigned a new ip for each, the wireless you can do through network propertys
not sure on the controller but I would change it first as two devices on the same network but differnt ip ranges will not play nicely.

example 
wireless IPv4 addres 192.168.1.105
solar controller 192.168.1.106

then all the devices are in the same ip range


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

greif said:


> I just went and read the link and did the bridging a connection and it worked


That's fine if it works. I'll have to think about that one. I'm wondering why Windows Networking recognizes the Class B license range with the bridge in place but doesn't when it's not.

The bridge is simply routing software that allows a device on one subnet connected to your computer to communicate with other subnets you are connected to. But the fact is that your computer is connected to both the wired and wireless subnets, so your computer should be able to communicate with either subnet without bridging software.

But regardless of whether I think it should have helped, we'll take any success.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

||Downhome|| said:


> greif looking at the ip info, you have three different Ip ranges,
> 
> if you have a wireless router then like gary says your router should pick up the controller and make it accesiable on the network
> 
> ...


Only two IP ranges:



192.168.1.xxx
169.254.xxx.xxx
The wireless adapter and solar controller are both in the 169.254.xxx.xxx IP address range.

If the network properly respects the 169.254.xxx.xxx Class B license range there should be no router or routing software necessary. It should be within the capabilities of the network to handle finding the solar controller by itself. For whatever reason, the network wasn't doing that.


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## greif (May 31, 2009)

thanks guys..... this stuff is over my head


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

greif said:


> thanks guys..... this stuff is over my head


In a nutshell, you were setup properly but it did not work because of some networking quirk. I'm not sure what caused the quirk, and I'm not sure why configuring the bridge solved the problem.


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