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Internet connection problems
This thread has 11 replies. Displaying all posts.
Post 1 made on Tuesday April 14, 2009 at 11:25
kstrange
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A customer of mine has complained about having to reset his modem and router several times a day. He "had" a RCA type modem from Comcast cable and it was tied into the can mountable leviton gateway and fed to 5 of the 10/100 type leviton 8 port switches.

I told him that it was probably an issue with the modem and it has been replaced with a Motorola Surfboard. He still has the same issues and Comcast tells him that it's an issue with the router.

I will try replacing the router with another one but I wanted to run it by everyone because my networking experience is limited and I have no idea why he has to reset so often.

Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.

-Kevin
Post 2 made on Tuesday April 14, 2009 at 22:30
internetraver
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You could have him hook up 1 computer to the modem and bypass the router completly and see what happens. 
Post 3 made on Tuesday April 14, 2009 at 23:27
Daniel Tonks
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I think he should check if he really needs to reset the modem OR the router.

And while this is happening, does the network otherwise work? Can he get to the router's administration page? If so, what does it show regarding the IP lease from the modem? Does renewing the IP in the router fix anything?
OP | Post 4 made on Wednesday April 15, 2009 at 16:58
kstrange
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On April 14, 2009 at 23:27, Daniel Tonks said...
I think he should check if he really needs to reset the modem OR the router.

And while this is happening, does the network otherwise work? Can he get to the router's administration page? If so, what does it show regarding the IP lease from the modem? Does renewing the IP in the router fix anything?

I'll be on site sometime next week and will check this.

You mentioned the lease from the modem, do modems have lease times or set-up pages? If renewing the IP in the router works, will it need to be replaced or could it be a configuration problem?

Typically I just set static devices on the network out of the pooling range of the router and call it good. Sometimes I'll have to forward a few ports too. I'm somewhat of a noobie to networking.

-Thanks
Post 5 made on Wednesday April 15, 2009 at 23:20
Daniel Tonks
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The cable modem obtains a dynamic IP address from the cable company and then passes it to whatever it is connected to, either a PC directly or the WAN side of a router. Some cable modems have router capability built in, so hopefully if it does that's disabled so you aren't doing double NAT translation (which should still work, but it's another potential layer of problems). So, first make sure the router is getting a routable IP (not an internal one like 192.168.1.1) from the modem.

The next time everything stops working, first see that there's no obvious problems on the cable modem (ie its LEDs say it's online and maybe there's some blinking going on to indicate traffic). Then see if you can get to the router's administration page and see what IT says about everything. Does it have an IP? Does it indicate any issues? If everything looks OK, does releasing the IP and renewing it make everything work again?

Of course if you CAN'T get to the administration page, then it's time for a new router. Or if the cable modem indicates a problem and/or things only start working when the modem itself is reset... then it's probably a cable problem (bad line quality or a misconfiguration somewhere).

(Also as an aside, some cable modems have web interfaces you can access, ie. my Motorola SB5100, where you can see online status, signal levels, as well as a log of any errors, although sometimes the cable companies disable this or there may not be one at all.)

I've heard some stories about certain routers handing leases/renewals in a way that the cable company's equipment doesn't like... what's coming to mind was one that was always renewing itself to the point where it was eventually ignored.

If the client just wants something cheap, the Linux-based Linksys one should be good. Myself, I use a Zyxel Zywall 35 that has been utterly reliable (and the *original* Linux-based WRT54GS for wireless).
Post 6 made on Wednesday April 15, 2009 at 23:29
Daniel Tonks
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One other thought comes to mind - you could have some other device that's causing network issues. I had a Maxtor network-based backup drive (horrible, horrible product) that would occasionally crash and become unresponsive. The problem is, when it crashed it would sometimes take down the entire network with it - it seems it was randomly flooding SOMETHING that would cause all other traffic to slow to a crawl.

I also had a PC crash once taking out the network - I was on my laptop surfing, and suddenly everything died. Rebooted the access point, nothing. Got on my desktop and everything was dead there too. Couldn't get to the internet, couldn't access the router's page, couldn't access any other PC. Rebooted the router, cable modem, switch... nada.

Eventually I just started disconnecting everything from the switch, and it turns out that one line in particular was the problem. Connected and nothing would work, disconnected and everything was fine. I went over to the PC hooked up to that line, and it turns out it had locked up. Rebooted it and suddenly all was fine.

Just some more food for thought!


Typically I just set static devices on the network out of the pooling range of the router and call it good.

Hopefully you're doing these static assignments through the router itself?
OP | Post 7 made on Thursday April 16, 2009 at 11:28
kstrange
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On April 15, 2009 at 23:20, Daniel Tonks said...
So, first make sure the router is getting a routable IP (not an internal one like 192.168.1.1) from the modem.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by routable IP. The Leviton router comes with an address of 192.168.0.1 and I left it at that. Should it be different?

There are 3 TiVO HDXLs, an ICRealtime Flex series DVR, and an Escient FP-1 set to static in the components setup area. The static addresses are eg: 192.168.1.101,.102,.103 etc.

This is outside of the routers pooling range of eg: .2 through .99.

That was an example, not sure what the pooling range and actual IPs were.

You said the static should be set through the router, I'm not clear on how to accomplish that. Is there some way to set a static IP to mac address in the router? If so, do I leave the component set static to the same IP or configure it as dynamic since the router knows what IP to assign?

Thanks much,
Kevin
OP | Post 8 made on Thursday April 16, 2009 at 11:51
kstrange
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Sorry, eg: 192.168.0.101, .102, .103 etc. not 192.168.1.""

Also, to answer the other question: I have no problem getting to the router's administration pages.

Thanks again,
Kevin
Post 9 made on Thursday April 16, 2009 at 17:04
Daniel Tonks
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On April 16, 2009 at 11:28, kstrange said...
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by routable IP. The Leviton router comes with an address of 192.168.0.1 and I left it at that. Should it be different?

That's the LAN address... it also gets an WAN address (your IP on the Internet).

For example, my SB5100 cable modem - if it is not connected to the internet and doesn't get a routable IP (one usable on the Internet), it will pass a 169.254.xx IP to the router. 169.254 is a special IP range, and intended to show an IP error.


This is outside of the routers pooling range of eg: .2 through .99.

OK, that's fine, I actually misread that line and thought you were putting them INTO the pool range (bad things would of course happen if the router didn't know about them).

In my home if I want something to have a static IP I will generally let it get one via DHCP, and then custom configure it in the router to whatever IP I want (even out of the pool range). The only problem with this is if you change routers, your pseudo-static configuration disappears and everything resets back to automatic (not an issue for me since I don't plan on changing ever).
Post 10 made on Thursday April 16, 2009 at 17:54
Tdurrant20
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I have found the best way to deal with this is the following

If you can have the cable company turn off the user name and password set to the cable modem if you can't log in to the modem itself.

Use the router to then use input the correct login info. I do this becuase most routers I have dealt with will allow you to check to see if it is still online at a set interval (mine is 30seconds, linksys wrt54g) and if it is not it will reauthenticate. This has solved 99.9% of my reset problems.
OP | Post 11 made on Thursday May 21, 2009 at 19:02
kstrange
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Ok, still having issues. The router has been replaced with another (same model). I've tested every cable and cable-run on the job and they passed (wiring and speed test with a Validator).

The modem has been swapped for a Motorola surfboard and it works fine connected directly to the PC but when I run it through the router, the network has to be reset daily. I'm heading there tomorrow and I'm going to swap the router for a linksys model.

Tdurrant made mention of setting the router to reauthenticate more often?

Kevin
OP | Post 12 made on Monday June 1, 2009 at 15:03
kstrange
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The Leviton router needed a firmware upgrade.....all is fine now. Thanks for all of the responses!


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