I would appreciate the help of all you Slackers in solving an odd issue.

My mom's hosuse is quite ample. THerefore, in order to offer connectivity, there are two wireless routers there offering WPA2 access. One is the main router, directly taking its signal from the ADSL connection, is connected via Ethernet cable to the house's main PC (a win7 box). The second router is also connected via an Ethernet cable to the first router.

The problem is, I can't connect to the second router. Wicd complains that it can't get an IP address.

However, if you turn the win7 box on, even if you only do it for just a moment enough for it to boot properly, the second router starts to behave properly and serves wireless connectivity like a champ.

I'm puzzled and don't know what the problem could be. Any help or pointers would be aprreciated. Thanks in advance!

Are you sure your 2nd router got an ip from the first one?

Check 'route -n ' and note the gateway, make sure your 2nd router isn't on a different sublet. Also try using static vice dhcp with wicd-client. Hope that helps a little.

I cannot recall if my 2wire router, in its config/settings, has an option to check when there is a router behind this router.

I saw some setting, off by default, in one of my routers over the years that had to do something with that, router behind router.

I've just one router. But over the years I have experimented with a different router.