Linksys Router on RoadRunner

[kevnich2]

I need a direction to go on this. Sorry for the long post but here's what's happened.

I originally had one computer on a cable internet connection to RR. This worked perfectly fine. I then got a WRT54G router for wireless internet on my laptop. It at first didn't work so I thought it was because of the MAC address, so I turned on MAC cloning, did that and it worked ok, for a while. I noticed a week after that, the internet stopped working. I plugged the cable modem back into the computer, and voila, it got an IP. I switched it to the router and it too had internet now. But just to test, I released and tried renewing the IP on the WRT54G, and it didn't renew. I plugged the computer back into the modem and again it got an IP. Switched to the router (and I am referring to the WAN port, and it had an IP (same as the computer had). I released it and tried to renew, again, wouldn't renew. I then turned off MAC cloning ran the software Road Runner installed on the PC (while the router was plugged into the cable modem) and miraculously it got an IP on the non-cloned MAC and the IP was extremely different. At this point I assumed the WRT54G's actual MAC registered with RR and we were good to go. Well this worked for several weeks until just last week I guess RR changed their setup in the night and again I lost internet. Now the same thing is happening again. I tried rerunning the software on the computer and now it doesn't do a thing. I even turned on MAC cloning and it still doesn't work. The ONLY way I can get it to work is to hook the cable modem directly to the PC and let it get an IP from RR, then immediately switch the ethernet back into the WRT54G, this works for about a week until RR re-leases the IP's again and I lose it in the middle of the night. I've done some looking and I've heard of some people having problems and it having something to do with RR's DHCP server.

Does ANYONE have any ideas about what I should do here? And I am running the sveasoft firmware, but just to see I switched it back to linksys firmware and it didn't work either. I tried calling road runner but their support sucks and they don't have a clue what I'm talking about. The guy actually asked me what a router was. I hung up after that.

Summary
- Have WRT5G on RoadRunner cable
- Every week when RR re-leases it's IP's, I lose the IP on the router until I hook the computer directly to the modem, then switch the ethernet cable back into the router giving internet for another week.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Set WAN side of router to automatically assigned IPs and DNS. Shut down both the modem and router for 10 weeks and turn them back on. They should be good to go.

 

[kevnich2]

Did you just say to statically assign an IP and DNS on the WAN side then turn off the modem and router for TEN WEEKS. I don't think so.

 

[InlineFive]

You can't use a static IP unless you have been granted one by RR. If your router is set to acquire an IP via DHCP then I would suggest trying another firmware and see if that solves the problem.

As for the DNS issue, it seems that Verizon's DNS servers are popular as backup DNS servers. I have it setup as my 3rd DNS server although my ISP is very, very reliable.

Verizon DNS IPs are:
4.2.2.1-4.2.2.6

 

[kevnich2]

This has nothing to do with the DNS servers and I have tried different firmware's and that hasn't made a bit of difference. As a side note, RR was having problems with their DNS servers earlier so I put in 4.2.2.1-4.2.2.2 as DNS servers which fixed that problem but once RR re-leased their IP they assigned me, I was down again. As I said, this has nothing to do with the DNS. I'm fairly certain it has something to do with the WAN side of the Linksys router and some type of configuration of the RR DHCP servers, but I'm looking for other's input to see if that is the case and anything I can do to fix this problem.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Woops. I meant 10 minutes, not weeks. Use DHCP on the WAN side of course unless you have a static IP account, which I highly doubt. I too have RR and besides the DNS issues I had up until a few days ago, it's all good. The connection has always been quite reliable and fast. Somewhere in the networking forum, I posted a bunch of DNS servers that I've had better luck with than L3's and that included Verizon's dial up DNS servers.

 

[kevnich2]

So does anyone have any ideas or recommendations for my situation of losing my IP and connectivity when either RR re-leases it's IP each week or whenever my router is rebooted?

 

[kevnich2]

Well I just got an email back from RR tech support. Their email support people seem a lot more knowledgeable than their phone support. He told me that they do not do any MAC authentication other than the cable modem. So I returned my router and got a replacement and guess what, after leaving my equipment off for about 2 minutes, I plugged in my new router and low and behold, it worked the first time. What sucks is now it's a version 3 WRT54G and my sveasoft firmware is no longer compatible.

 

[kevnich2]

Oh, and DNS IP's 4.2.2.1-4.2.2.6 are not Verizon DNS server's, they are Level3 DNS servers (explains why they have a constant uptime)

 

[RBBRMADE]

I know this is a bit late, but....
You have to unplug the power to the modem whenever plugging a different device to it with RR.
Your best bet is to unplug the modem and router (power).
Let sit for 1 minute.
Plug in modem. Let sit for 1 minute.
Plug in router.
All should be good after that. Release and renew will not normally work with RR if the MAC address has changed on your end.
On My RR account, my IP changes when I plug something with a different MAC address to the modem. It only changes every few months otherwise.

RR tech support may be right, but the modem definitely cares what MAC is attached to it.

Ron

 

[kevnich2]

I was doing exactly that with the first router, but it would refuse to obtain an IP, even after letting the cable modem sit for about 2 hours once and then trying it. It works like a champ with the new WRT54G attached though so I'm good to go.