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TrueMobile1184 lost connection with internet
I am at the end of my capablilities. I have networked a Dimension8200 / XP - Wireless Inspiration Laptop / XP - Dimension XPS / ME.....with the 8200 being the host computer. They are all connected to a TrueMobile 1184 Wireless Broadband Router that connects to a cable modem. I had everything working perfectly for about 2 weeks....then all of a sudden, they lost connection. I have tried just about everything I know to do with no luck. I talked to Dell tech support today until it just got silly. Forever waits, then passed along to 3 different people. Bottom line....they can't help me and since my router is more than 30 days old, I can't get an adjustment or replacement, but they would be glad to try and get my 1184 working with my computer. They also noted there was no known problems with the 1184. Na-na I say, from all that I have read in this forum, I believe there might be. They finally told me to call my ISP provider.....ATTBI.....well....struck out again. They cut me off really quick telling they don't support networking. So I'm left out here with no help and useless equipment as far as I'm concerned. I have read everthing I can find, have followed all the links and tried all the tweaks, tips and instructions to no avail. I have DHCP enabled, have checked all my settings and believe they are correct. I'm assuming if it worked once, why won't it work again? I'm not involving the other computers until I can connect to the internet through the router with the host computer. Once I can do that, I have no problem with networking the other computers to share the connnection. If I let the router choose the MAC address, I get pc to router to no internet. When I change the MAC address to my modem address, I get pc to router to internet. All systems look good, all lights on, etc. But......I can't open a webpage or anything else. It's like ATTBI is blocking the connection. Has anyone had this type of problem?
If the cable modem ever gets turned off, you need to turn off the router and the computers. The modem should first be powered on and then allowed to synchronize with the ISP - this may sometimes take as long as five minutes. Next the router should be powered on and allowed to synchronize with the cable modem. This may take up to 1 minute. Finally, the computers should be powered on. Remember that the cable modem gets its IP address from the ISP, the router has to see this IP address, and then the router has to assign IP addresses to the computers. I don't know if this the problem you are both having, but it is always a good idea to keep this in mind whenever you are troubleshooting problems like this.
Steve
- Tried that serveral times. No Joy. I get DHCP from the router to the PC just fine. I have reset the router serveral times too. For some reason, I am getting no DHCP from ATTBI to the 1184. I am pretty good with this stuff but nothing works. Very frustrating... It all started with a simple cable modem off for the night. This has worked a thousand times before. Anyone else have any ideas?
- Thank you Steve, for your help. I have tried this many times with many different variations. I tried once more per your instructions, just in case I had missed some little step in all previous attempts, but alas...I got the same results. The only clue that I have....and this could be a coincidence.....when I lost connection, I was on the wireless laptop. I had ZoneAlarm activated and had removed some TCP flags from the trusted zone. I thought maybe I had caused the problem by changing some settings I shouldn't have. So I turned off the firewall. Tried to re-connect. I went a step farther and uninstalled the firewall. Still no connection. At that point, I powered down the laptop and the other wireless desktop and concentrated only on the host computer. I hadn't messed with any settings with this computer. Even though I hadn't had problems with the firewall before....I unloaded it just to be sure. Still no connection. I have reset, hard reset, resync, renewed both cable modem and router, system restore, checked and rechecked settings, etc. I don't think there is anything left for me to do. I'm afraid I will keep tinkering with stuff until I eventually mess up my direct connection from the host to modem to internet. That would really put me over the edge. The router is unplugged and unloved at the moment. I'm beginning to think since jhbjr is having the same problem, there could be a Attbi / Comcast issue. Yes, I agree jhbjr....something smells fishy. It's odd that it works and has worked many times before and now, all of a sudden......nothing seems to work.
This may help..see my last post
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_network&message.id=18703&page=6
Steve-
- Thank you Steve-, yes I have read and followed this thread with great interest. However, I'm sad to say, it didn't work in my situation. I printed out everything you did and tried to do the same, but no luck. I appreciate you trying to help and I'm glad you resolved your problem.
The same problem appeared here (attbi/Comcast Northwest Chicago) overnight after having worked perfectly since Christmas with the default dynamic DHCP settings. I'm unaware of the cable modem or the 1184 having been powered off as the cause. The 1184 configuration status page showed no Internet connection. The Renew button timed out and displayed a new status with still no IP address.
attbi does not support home networking, so I connected the Ethernet port on my Inspiron directly to the cable modem to prove that out before calling their T/S. Sure enough it worked perfectly after running ipconfig /renew to obtain a configuration for that connection. No help there.
This morning, Dell T/S coached me through writing down that configuration obtained from ipconfig /all and setting the 1184 to the same fixed IP, subnet mask, gateway, DNS, and MAC addresses. With the 1184's uplink port connected to the modem, it worked immediately and has been working since this morning. I also tried it with the 1184's WAN port MAC address instead of the Inspiron's and it also obtained a lease and worked.
I am concerned that this is a poor solution as the attbi lease expires in 4 days and I presume that with fixed settings, the 1184 will not renew or extend. This may cause a problem if and when the cable system reprovisions the modem. Anybody know how frequently IP addresses are reassigned or reused?
It will be a real hassle reconfiguring the 1184 every four days to keep it working and that will be a big disappointment with the 1184. This deserves a better response from Dell, since if the Inspiron can obtain a lease, but the 1184 cannot with the same (Inspiron's) MAC address, it seems to me there must be a fault in the 1184's DHCP client implementation that was exposed by some configuration change within attbi/Comcast.
jhbjr
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Posted February 14th, 2003 03:00