What Was Happening
A customer in Barnes SW13 called us about a Netgear VPN router that wasn’t behaving.
The description was precise, and precise descriptions are worth a great deal on network faults. The Netgear’s Wi-Fi network appeared in the list of available networks. You could select it and connect to it successfully. And then nothing worked — no web pages, no email, nothing reaching the internet at all.
The household also had a Virgin Media router in place, which was working normally. So there were two routers on one broadband line, one of them fine and one of them offering a network that led nowhere.
That combination — a joinable Wi-Fi network with no internet behind it, on a line with a second router — describes the fault almost completely before anyone looks at a setting.
Sound like your problem?
Bring it to our Putney workshop or message us a photo and we will give you a straight answer and a quote before any work starts.
Our Diagnosis
The key insight is that “I can see and join the Wi-Fi” and “I can reach the internet” are two entirely separate things, and people reasonably assume they’re the same.
Broadcasting a Wi-Fi network is a local function. A router will happily advertise its network name, accept your password, complete the connection and issue your device an address on its own local network, all without any working connection to the outside world. Everything the user can observe says success. The part that’s missing — routing traffic out to the internet — is invisible until you try to use it.
So a router in this state isn’t broken, and its Wi-Fi isn’t broken. What’s broken is the path onward.
With a second router behind an ISP hub, that path depends entirely on how the second router has been set up in relation to the first. The Netgear needs a correct connection to the Virgin hub, and its own local network has to be arranged so that traffic knows how to get from one to the other. On this installation that configuration wasn’t right — the Netgear’s network settings didn’t line up with the Virgin hub’s, so although it was busily running a Wi-Fi network and handing out addresses to anything that joined, none of those devices had a usable route out.
There are two classic ways this happens when someone adds a router themselves, and both produce this identical symptom:
- The cable is in the wrong socket. A router has one port for the incoming internet connection and several for local devices. Connecting the Virgin hub to the wrong one changes the whole relationship between the two routers.
- Both routers are running the same local network range. When the second router’s network overlaps with the first’s, traffic has no unambiguous way out, and the router cannot resolve where to send it.
Neither produces an error message. Both produce a Wi-Fi network that joins perfectly and does nothing.
How We Fixed It
We reconfigured the Netgear’s network settings so its relationship with the Virgin hub was correct — the connection between the two routers set up properly, and the Netgear’s own local network arranged so it didn’t conflict with the hub’s and traffic had a clear route onward.
With that corrected, the Netgear stopped being an isolated island and started doing what a router behind another router is supposed to do: accept local devices and pass their traffic upstream.
We then tested it properly rather than declaring victory at the first loaded web page. That meant checking from both a wired connection and over Wi-Fi, because the two take different paths through the router and a fault can affect one and not the other. We also confirmed devices were being issued sensible addresses and could reach the internet consistently, not just once.
The Result
Devices joining the Netgear’s network reached the internet normally, with both routers coexisting on the single broadband line as intended.
Nothing was replaced and no new equipment was needed. The Netgear was never faulty — it was configured in a way that couldn’t work in the position it had been installed in, which is a very different problem and a much cheaper one.
Why This Happens
Adding a second router to a home broadband line is more common than it used to be, and the reasons are usually good ones: better Wi-Fi than the ISP’s hub provides, VPN capability the hub doesn’t have, more control over the network, or better handling of a home office. The equipment is capable and the intention is sound. The difficulty is that broadband providers supply a hub that expects to be the only router on the line, and adding a second one is a configuration exercise rather than a plug-in-and-go one.
The underlying issue is that a router does two jobs at once. It creates a local network for your devices, and it passes traffic between that network and the internet. Put two routers in series without telling them how to relate to each other and you get two local networks, one of which has no properly defined way of reaching the other. Devices on the second network can talk to each other perfectly happily — which is why the Wi-Fi appears to work — but can’t get out.
Virgin Media hubs have a particular reputation here, and it’s deserved but not really their fault. They can operate as a full router or be switched to pass the connection through to your own equipment, and which mode you want depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Adding a capable router behind a hub that’s still fully routing produces a layered arrangement that works for basic browsing but tends to break exactly the things people bought the second router for — VPN connections, remote access, some games and video calling.
For anyone in this position, the diagnostic worth knowing is simple. If you can join a Wi-Fi network but nothing loads, the fault is upstream of your device, not on it. Reinstalling drivers, forgetting and rejoining the network, or replacing the laptop will achieve nothing, because your device is doing its job correctly. The question is what’s between that router and the internet.
Local Help in Barnes SW13
If you’ve added your own router to an ISP line and ended up with Wi-Fi that connects but doesn’t work, it’s a configuration problem rather than faulty hardware — and it’s usually sorted in one visit without buying anything new.
Barnes is close to our Putney workshop and easy for us to reach. Call 020 7610 0500 or arrange network setup in Barnes — tell us which broadband provider you’re with and what router you’ve added, and we can usually tell you what we expect to find before we arrive.
