Wireless router configuration problem?

I may have a stupid question or a bad router. I have a wireless router that was purchased in 2006 and connected to an existing router. It worked okay, until I tried to enable the WEP security on it. Then it started dropping connections and locking me out so that I couldn't access it anymore without resetting it by using the pin-switch. It was a gimmick, so I eventually stopped using it.

Now I want to reinstall it. I set it up with WPA security, and connected it to the main router in a daisy-chain configuration. The lights show ready, the wireless router insists that the Internet connection is good, and it shows the IP address of the main router as the gateway. The trouble is... I can't do anything from there.

I have no Internet connection, I can't see the other machines on the wired network, and although I can authenticate wirelessly, I also can't do anything from the wireless connection. I can access the main router, but I can't get out and nobody else on the main network can see the wireless router.

I have tried different IP configurations, disabled the DHCP server, and tried other things that I remembered to do when confronted with a network problem. Nothing worked. Then it got worse. I just tried to get back into the router by connecting to it through an Ethernet cable again and was locked out. I had to reset the router to get back in, and it still doesn't work.

Am I missing something obvious here, or is my router bad? I'd say that it's bad, considering that it's blocking me from accessing its configuration screen.

 

The reason is that the office connections are wired Ethernet, and wireless routers don't have support for those requirements. Even so, the wireless router by itself doesn't work. I can't see other machines on the same router, and the router occasionally locks me out and prevents me from changing its configuration. The only way to get back in is to reset the router with the pin switch. I can keep trying different configurations, but I do wonder if the router isn't working when it's only connected to two machines and nothing outside of my room, how is it going to work when it's connected to the larger network and the Internet?

 

I just tried the wireless router by itself again, without a WAN connection. I have the DHCP server turned on by default, the connection to the WLAN looks active, and I have a laptop connected to one of the wired ports, which also looks active. Shouldn't I be able to see across the WLAN? Well, I can't get out.

A second laptop can't see the wired laptop and I can't see anything past the wireless router. The Apple AirPort card can see other area networks, but it can't access mine, other than connecting to it and telling me that can't get an IP address and that it is self-assigning an IP address to the local machine. I'd say that's the first problem that needs to get fixed. I don't understand why it worked in 2006 but it doesn't work now. I'm using the plain default configuration, no security, and no custom IP addresses. It should be very simple to connect two machines, but it doesn't work.

Please correct me if I'm totally misunderstanding how a wireless LAN works in a standalone configuration.

 

Yes, I've done a hard reset at least ten times, most of them because the router locked out my access to its HTTP-accessed administration screen. The router is currently using its default configuration, but it's not routing any data as far as I can tell. There is also no new firmware available.