I need to improve and fix our home network somehow as it does not work well. I’m not very versed in what I need to do or fix but understand some of the basic ideas. On the network is a mix of Windows 10, 11 computers, couple of Linux machines, a couple Truenas scale servers and various phones and other devices.
There is a EdgeRouter Pro 8 Router, which connects by wired ethernet to the Cox internet modem. On the router Port 0 is WAN and Port 1 is lan connection to a switch. The Wizard Wan2-Lan2 defaults were used as a setup originally. The firmware is current.
The router was connected to an EgdeSwitch 24 Pro until until recently when the Edgeswitch died for no apparent reason. This is when major issues started, I think the switch was set to hand out ip addresses. So now it is connected to a Netgear switch which I had around. The Netgear is not handing out ip addresses and the router is now supposed to be doing this. I’m also not sure if the Cox modem is somehow interfering with things through the router somehow. Cox should be giving out only one address; the one to the router itself, but I see it knows there are other computers and devices on the local network.
Issue is since the failure of the edgeswitch happened, all of the computers on the network have basically disappeared from the Windows 10/11 network view and most have disappeared from the network including both Truenas servers. The router was set to do the ip addressing to the local network according to their docs. The servers have always been static addressed and are available only by mapping and only if you already know the ip address. They never show up anywhere including in the mapping app, so nothing is resolving correctly if at all The weird thing is if I spin up a Truenas virtual machine using Vmware or VirtualBox I can instantly see and access that machine on the network and can instantly see it disappear once it is shut down.
Opinions on why are existing computers not showing up even after reboot, when new Virtual ones do?
How can I make my local network work without spending an arm and a leg? I’m retired so don’t have a lot of extra money to throw around.