Linksys Technical Support

Trotter

Just a quick question.. I had the problem today of my net connection working fine if I plugged the modem direct to the PC, but when I used the linksys wireless router connected to the modem I could only get webpages to go to

Finding site.... www ..whatever .. com and then time out.

I had a full signal strength on the connection and could log into the router setup wirelessly.

When I rang linksys tech support (Im amazed it was a 1800 number) they got me to go into the router setup and clone my MAC address.. then power off the PC, router, and modem, in that order. I had to wait 30 seconds and then reboot them all in the opposite order.

It worked fine! What exactly was the cloning the MAC address all about?? I had rebooted everything loads of times before resorting to calling them. She said something about with NTL as the ISP they always get the user to clone the MAC address first.

Any ideas?!

MunsterCycling

Cloning the MAC (Media Access Control) address in this case is a way to get NTL to authenticate your connection using the MAC of the modem that they gave you, they filter connections by MAC so that it prevents people connecting, hence why you were not getting any web connections. I would hazard a guess that you were using the modem in bridge mode when the Linksys was connected?

Trotter

MunsterCycling wrote:

Cloning the MAC (Media Access Control) address in this case is a way to get NTL to authenticate your connection using the MAC of the modem that they gave you, they filter connections by MAC so that it prevents people connecting, hence why you were not getting any web connections. I would hazard a guess that you were using the modem in bridge mode when the Linksys was connected?

By bridge mode do you mean that the modem was connected to the router and then wirelessly to the laptop?
If so.. yes

irlrobins

Lol. MC is getting confused with bridging a DSL modem.

The problem is that the NTL modem is "married" to the first device that it connects to. So in this case you connected it to the PC and after that it would only assign an ip to the mac address of that PC. If you connected another PC or router, it would not assign an ip.

What linksys did was to get the router to "pretend" to be the PC by cloning or coping it's mac address. You're basically fooling the modem into thinking it's connecting to the PC.

A simplier way to get it working is just to power the NTL modem off for 10-15 mins. It then forgets what mac address is it married to, so you could then connect it to router and it would work.

Hope that makes sense.

Trotter

irlrobins wrote:

Lol. MC is getting confused with bridging a DSL modem.

The problem is that the NTL modem is "married" to the first device that it connects to. So in this case you connected it to the PC and after that it would only assign an ip to the mac address of that PC. If you connected another PC or router, it would not assign an ip.

What linksys did was to get the router to "pretend" to be the PC by cloning or coping it's mac address. You're basically fooling the modem into thinking it's connecting to the PC.

A simplier way to get it working is just to power the NTL modem off for 10-15 mins. It then forgets what mac address is it married to, so you could then connect it to router and it would work.

Hope that makes sense.

Yep.. Im completely with ya. That said, if the modem now thinks that the linksys is the PC and will talk to it fine.. how come the Laptop upstairs worked perfectly on wireless immediately after also? Just curious!

irlrobins

Cos the laptop is connected to the router. Once router has connectivity any device connected to it will also have connectivity.

Trotter

irlrobins wrote:

Cos the laptop is connected to the router. Once router has connectivity any device connected to it will also have connectivity.

Nice one. Im with ya now! Thanks!

MunsterCycling

Well you didn't spend 9hrs on the road yesterday did ya??? Well did YA? LOL

What irlrobins said! :rolleyes: