wierd problem here with dsl/router/hotmail

[spanky]

i'm visiting my sister for the weekend and they're having a problem that is mighty strange to me. she has dsl in her apt, and is using a netgear wgr614 v6 (running latest firmware) to to share the network connection. her desktop is wired to the router, and running win xp pro with wirewall disabled. the problem is... when she is behind the router, she can load hotmail.com intermittently, but signing in will always fail (time out). other websites (yahoo mail) appear to be fine.

before i headed over to her place, i got a call from my sisters husband telling me about this problem, so i brought along another router, thinking her netgear may have some issues. when i got to her place, i saw the problem and hacked around but could not figure out what was going on. so i swapped the netgear with a linksys wrt51ab... same problem. poked around the config of the router and i dont see anything in there that may be blocking traffic to hotmail.

so.... just for kicks, i eliminated the router and connected the desktop directly to the dsl modem. eureeka. problems went away. i'm not sure what it is that is causing the problems signing into hotmail when using a cable/dsl router. has anyone ever ran into an issue like this before? any suggestions on how i can approach this? i'm stumped.

😱

 

[skyking]

did you get a private IP from the DSL device when plugged directly into it, or a WAN IP?

 

[spanky]

Originally posted by: skyking
did you get a private IP from the DSL device when plugged directly into it, or a WAN IP?

it looks like a private ip to me. does it make a difference?

 

[tweekah]

Bridge the modem and let the router handle the PPPoE

 

[spanky]

Originally posted by: tweekah
Bridge the modem and let the router handle the PPPoE

i'm not quite sure how this is done. could you elaborate a a bit? thanx 🙂

 

[spanky]

ok dudes, thanx for your contributions. i got this thing kind of squared away.

skyking made me realize that the dsl modem was actually doing dhcp too... so disabled dhcp on the netgear and only enabled it as an access point. then i got an 8 port switch and connected it to the dsl modem... now i have a "home made dsl router" 😛

so seems like hotmail didn't like the double NAT... so i got rid of the second NAT and now all is well (knock on wood). thanx guys 🙂

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: spanky
ok dudes, thanx for your contributions. i got this thing kind of squared away.

skyking made me realize that the dsl modem was actually doing dhcp too... so disabled dhcp on the netgear and only enabled it as an access point. then i got an 8 port switch and connected it to the dsl modem... now i have a "home made dsl router" 😛

so seems like hotmail didn't like the double NAT... so i got rid of the second NAT and now all is well (knock on wood). thanx guys 🙂

I figured you'd get that hint😉
double NAT should not be a problem, but it is regarding home grade routers.
You don't need that 8 port switch in there unless you need the ports, by the way. The 3 remaining LAN ports on the netgear ar just switch ports, you can use them as you wish. The only non-usable port is the WAN port.