Ok i am tired of wasting all my time and it still doesnt work. There goes another 2.5 hours of my life i will never get back. I could have bought a new one by now.

 

internal traffic is different than outgoing. you are on the same network and it doesnt block internal traffic the same way. did you try the rules?

BIOS -

Acronym for basic input/output system, the built-in software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk. On PCs, the BIOS contains all the code required to control the keyboard, display screen, disk drives, serial communications, and a number of miscellaneous functions.

The BIOS is typically placed in a ROM chip that comes with the computer (it is often called a ROM BIOS). This ensures that the BIOS will always be available and will not be damaged by disk failures. It also makes it possible for a computer to boot itself. Because RAM is faster than ROM, though, many computer manufacturers design systems so that the BIOS is copied from ROM to RAM each time the computer is booted. This is known as shadowing.

Many modern PCs have a flash BIOS, which means that the BIOS has been recorded on a flash memory chip, which can be updated if necessary.

 

I can not find anything in my router for "rules" I believe that is for a different model of router. I searched everywhere.

 

damn, i didnt see it switched models. i got it here:

http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/n101145.asp

without having experience with that specific model, its hard to troubleshoot.

 

Ok first aol blows. Second I'll help you if your girlfriend will set up her webcam for me too! ;D

 

Lol! I'll be surprised if she sets it up for me! I have tried the port forwarding stuff and none of that worked. BUT I GOT IT TO WORK!!! I upgrade the router and cleared out all the settings and started from scratch. Reset everything and put everything back in and it works now. At least for now.... No idea why all of a sudden it wouldnt work and then erasing everything fixed it, i guess they must get bugs and crap like everything else. Thanks everyone for everything! P.S. I'm not a fan of AOL either but thats what the gf has...

 

One comment on port forwarding.

Port forwarding in this case is to get around NAT issues. That is Network Address Translation.

Both your laptop and desktop have internal ip's. When you go onto the internet you create a connection using your external ip. The router using NAT records an entry of the destination ip (the webpage's server's ip address), it's port, your internal address, and it's port.

When ever the router gets a message back from the webserver, it looks up the ip and port and sees the internal address and port to forward it to.

A NAT record is created when you create an entry FROM INSIDE your network to OUTSIDE your network. The router is not pyshic so it can't create an entry from an inbound connection, because it doesn't know which address to send it to on the internal network. This is where port forwarding comes in.

Port forwarding tells the router that whenever you get a connection that comes in on port X, send it to this specific computer - say your desktop. This means if ANYONE tries to connect to your router on that port, it will forward it to your desktop. Your laptop on the other hand will NEVER receive a connection on that port - unless it creates the connection from inside. All outside starting connections will go to the desktop.

So - for your aol problem.

First find out if this is a Firewall ( blocks all connections on certain ports, or vice versa, only allows connections on certain ports) problem or a routing (NAT) problem. You said it works when you turn the firewall off, but not when the firewall was on. That is a fairly clear indicator it is a firewall problem and not souly a routing problem. IF you were playing with port forwarding at the same time you might have made it harder to diagnose.

First lets get it to work.

Turn off the firewall, delete all port forwarding rules.

Decide which computer you want to use AOL on. Set your IP to static. Get the IP address of the computer you want to use.

Test AOL - it probably didn't work.

Find out ALL of the ports that the software requires. Also note that there is a difference between UDP and TCP/IP. For voice I would suspect they are using UDP... although lately that's been changing. Forwarding port 8088 UDP for instance won't open 8088 TCP/IP...

Add each port AOL requires to the forwarding table. Forward that port to the IP address of the computer you want to use.

Test AOL - it should now work. If it doesn't you either haven't found all of the ports you need... or the computer it is forwarded to has it's firewall on as well.

If it isn't working - check the firewall of the computer you are using. It should allow these ports.

WHEN it is working, turn the Router's firewall back on. Most firewalls will allow the ports specificed in the port forwarding table, so you should be ok.

IF turning the firewall breaks it, then it is either a port that wasn't forwarded or your router isn't playing nice and also needs the required ports to be added to the firewall's allow list.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head...

 

I got it to work after upgrading and restoring my router. Thanks

 

So what do you and your girl plan on doing with that web cam anyway?[sm=drooldude.gif]

 

Just talk of course....