I had an Ambit modem from Charter Communications, my ISP, that I traded for a Motorola Surfboard SB5120 cable modem. It works great when it is connected to my computer, but it won’t work when I have it hooked up to the router. I tried changing the Ethernet cables, reconnecting the coaxial cable and restarting the computer, modem and router. Also, it doesn’t want to work right away when I hook it up to my computer (I have a Mac G5 running 10.4.8). I have to shut off the modem after connecting the Ethernet cable. Renewing the DHCP lease in the network control panel does not do anything. However, this does not work when connecting it to the router.
Is it possible that the modem is incompatible with the router? It is a Belkin F5D5230-4 (not fancy, but the speed I get with no router is essentially the same as with it, unlike other routers I’ve tried). With previous modems, it has simply worked when you connected the cables without needing to be restarted or anything else. Thanks very much for any help.
I’d say you need to talk to your ISP helpdesk. Depending on your ISP, they may have locked your service to the MAC address of your G5, meaning nothing else can get online. If no other network device can use the modem, I’d bet on that.
There are some alternate configurations for routers that could cause problems, but if it worked before, chances are it would work now.
S/he should be able to detect problems by logging into the router web configuration screen (google gives me 192.168.2.1 for Belkin routers). Though I’m not familiar with Macs anymore, what is the three first figures in the IPs assigned to your router and your Mac when you’re unable to connect? IPs beginning with 10, 192 or 169 are local.
Yeah, I get local IPs when I cannot connect. They change depending on whether the modem is on, connected to the coaxial cable, whether I’m connected to the router and such. I do not think that the problem is that they have the Mac IP address of my G5 because I gave them the address of the new modem and they put it in and I can connect with my laptop. I’ll see if I can check out what the router tells me.
I would ask Charter for more help, but they have a policy of not helping you when a router is involved. I might be able to get someone to help me anyway, but I am doubtful, especially since the calls are monitored and I’ve gotten such extreme reactions upon the mention of “router” in the past. I do not tell them that I have a router when I can avoid it, but I do not see how that is possible in this case.
Update: the login to the router failed (correct password, but the next page never loaded and timed out, and reloading did not work), so I turned the router off and then turned it back on. It let me login that time. It was giving me my Charter IP address on the status page, so I tried connecting to the Internet again and it worked. I’ll check with my roommates when they get back to see if it works for them.
I hope that it works and keeps working because the modem is fast and connects very fast if it gets disconnected. Also, the Ambit was temperamental and would stop loading web pages at random. If you tried one page, it would give an error message and if you reloaded or went to a new page, it would go through. This would happen over and over again. Also, I won’t have to pay to lease the modem anymore. Thanks everyone.
Because the cable is a “shared medium” (as opposed to DSL which is unshared - one wire, one account) a lot of cable companies require you to log in for the connection to be activated.
As a result, most broadband routers provide connection type options, and when you select the appropriate type for cable, you’ll get fields to enter your user name and password. There’s also usually an option to “clone” your computer’s MAC (essentially the serial number of your network hardware) so the cable company thinks it’s talking to a computer and not a router.
I’ve noticed just the opposite; Shaw cable doesn’t require it, and neither does Comcast. You set up your account and bind your modem MAC to your account details and you’re done. (Unless you swap modems, but they handle that).
Telus, OTOH, you need to log in to before it’ll work.
It did not work this morning. I had to restart the router for it to let me log in and then once I did, it started working again (I do not know if logging in did anything or if it was just the restart because I did not try connecting to the Internet before doing it). I don’t know what’s up. It’s looking like the router might be at fault, since it won’t let me log in unless it is restarted, but I’m suspicious about the timing. I tried the cloning option on the router, but I could not connect to the Internet while it was on. Are there any other suggestions? Thanks
It’s been working for the last couple of days. My roommates are gone for the holidays, so I’ll have to see if it works for them when they return. Thanks for your help, everyone.