Ok, so I don't have a great amount of experience with network related issues and while looking into a reported problem for a local business I came across a really odd problem that I've never encountered before. The configuration page for the router will not load at all. They mashed in the http://192.168.2.1/ address (which worked perfectly fine 6/7 months ago when it was last accessed), we watched the page try to load for 2 minutes and then the usual 'unable to load page' screen came up. They need to get access to it to add a MAC address for a new wireless device (they have MAC filtering turned on). Now the computer is connected to the router via Ethernet and the Internet is working perfectly fine, but the router's own configuration page just refuses to load. They tried unplugging everything, switching off the router for a while and even pressed the hard reset button (though I told them there's a chance they won't be able to get back in to re-apply the ISP settings, oddly the router didn't do a hard reset and the settings stayed) but nothing made a difference. Has anyone ever come across something like this before and know any method of getting the config page to load again?
check the ip configuration, to make sure the dhcp server(hopefully router) is still using 192.168.2.1 also if it is, i've seen the login pop up actually pop behind the browser, so try alt-tabbing
Ran an ipconfig while I was there and it said it was pointing to 192.168.2.1 We couldn't see any pop-ups, or any sign of one being blocked and tried to go to the address on IE7, Opera, Firefox and Chrome. I'll swing by their building again during the day tomorrow and double check for pop-ups though just to be sure.
Just got back after another round with the router. It seemed to work briefly after doing the flush, loaded up the configuration page but then after trying to log in it died and wouldn't load the homepage again. I have a feeling that possibly the part of the software that controls the web utility has gone faulty but left the applied settings intact. I've swapped it over with one of my spare ones kicking about at my place for now and brought their dodgy router home so I can fiddle with it without worrying about killing it and locking them out of the Internet. It is a re-branded Philips SNK5630NS/05.