Vodafone THG3000 with Netgear G5608 ethernet switches

[mackerG4]

Hi,

I've just had a Vodafone THG3000 installed (replacing BT broadband). I have a couple of ethernet connected devices local to the router which work fine. Everything Wi-Fi is fine. However I also have two locations at my home in and outside my house which have ethernet cables going to them, one end of each cables is now plugged into the new router. The remote end of each cable has a Netgear GS508 8 port ethernet switch connected.

This used to work absolutely fine with the previous set-up but the Vodafone router does not recognise the devices (Apple Macs and a Synology NAS) connected to the switches. All the lights on the switches flash as expected but the Macs and NAS aren't appearing (to the router) on the network. Strangely enough, one of the switches has a printer connected and that works but not the Macs or NAS. I'm guessing there's a setting in the router I'm missing? Any help much appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Netgear has apps for Macs, PCs, and Mobile devices that allow you to manage your switches.  Use the app to log into your switches (due to a bug you sometimes have to log in twice).  When you've done this, you'll probably find that the switch exists on the 192.168.0.x or 192.168.2.x blocks and with that info to hand you can log directly into the switch web admin page instead of using the app.  You should now also be able to see the IP and MAC addresses of your connected devices, I'd bet that the devices you cannot see are not within the 192.168.1.x/24 managed by the Vodafone router.

*It's often useful (if not a necessity) to reset network switches when your network changes!

**By having the switch sit outside of the IP range managed by the router, it's (normally) impossible for the switch to be accessed from outside the local network - it's a security feature (amongst other things)!

[mackerG4]

Thanks for your reply. I got to the bottom of the problem.
The MacBook attached directly to the router was working from the very beginning. Everything else LAN connected wasn't. So I tried carrying the MacBook to one of the switches and plugging it in there . . . and it worked. The router could see it just as if it was directly connected. I went into the other Macs and looked at the Ethernet  connection in System Preferences and they were self-assigning themselves with a random IP address. A bit of Googling indicated that this happens when the router's DHCP is not functioning properly. I did a reset on the router and everything came up as it should. My concerns about the switches and NASs were unfounded. So I'm happy.
Thanks again for taking the time to try to help.