Do networks suddenly break for no reason?

[jon112981]

Okay here's what happened. I go home for winter break for like a month. Come back to my house in RI and plug the computer in, no internet. The setup in the house is cable modem>router>some comps and a hub>more comps. Of course I assume that the modem just needs to be resynced or the reset button on the router needed to be pushed. Tried those and nothing. Then I get the brilliant idea to move the cable modem into my room and try it(without the router). I hook it up to my computer and of course it works. I am still able to log into the router but I have no real idea what I'm looking for. I'm assuming it's either his cable jack or the router. If it's the cable jack then the TV attached to it shouldn't work right? If it's the router what can I do to fix it? Or am I stuck buying a new one? Its a lynksys 4 port router by the way

[ObiWan_Kenobi]

i had that happen to me. It was my cable modem that went bad, seemingly all by itself. One day the signal just wasnt strong enough and the modem shut down. As this is on a different frequency then your TV, your TV will most likely function.
This problem acording to Time Warner was caused by a signal fluctuation, such as a neighbor signing up for cable internet on the same section that i am on. As my signal was on the razors edge of useability before, this was the straw that broke the camels back.

Anyway, call your ISP. they will have some techs come out and rewire your home from the pole, and install a signal amp. Normally this is all free.

[jon112981]

Okay slight modifcation to the problem. I think it might have something to do with my router. I have the modem perfectly working on my computer but no router. when I plug the router in and log into it I can't get an IP address for my WAN. It just comes up as a string of 0s. Any idea if this can be fixed or do I need a new router?

[GroundZero3]

when you plugged in the computer did you plug it into the slot next to the modem is plugged into the router?? i would try to update the firmware for the router

when you plugged the computer in the network the first time did you plug it into the hub? your post is kind of hard to read so forgive me. does the other computers have internet? im assuming no?

[RAR]

I'm having the same problem with a wireless router hooked up to a cable modem. I tried two different wireless routers, one was a Microsoft router and the other a D-Link. It doesn't seem to like to grab an ip from the comcast cable modem. Even when I clone the MAC address from the original nic card that works fine when plugged straight into the cable modem. I had to unplug the cable modem and reset it a few times for it to finally pull an ip. Then my friend calls me back the next day and said it lost the ip again. The only way to get it back is to keep unplugging and resetting the cable modem. Unless there is some other way to do it.

So I don't think it's your router cause I already tried two different ones with the same result. I think it has something to do with ObiWan said above - signal strength, fluctuation, etc.....

Anybody else have any ideas for jon112981 and me??

[jon112981]

Okay so here's what I got so far... No other computer has internet access unless I plug it directly into the cable modem. what I don't get is if it is the signal strength, then how come I can get access with one computer in the modem but one computer through the router and modem, which has nothing else even on it is not working. Could it really that close to failure that the router drains that much of the signal? I mean I know we go through the same thing with electrical test equipment, it drains a little voltage and adds a little resistance whenever you use it but that just seems odd that it's so close. Also if it is signal strength then I probably can't get them to install an amp since Cox cable openly discourages the use of routers and will offer no support for them, which means they don't gotta do jack **deleted** for me.

I ran xp's network setup several times. The computer has been on quite a few networks but even so, I should be able to read an IP from my router when I log on. What do I have to do to update the firmware of the router? That doesn't really seem possible since no computer can be on both the router AND the internet at the same time. I suppose I could pull a second NIC out of a computer and temporarily put it in another computer. As of right now though I have 6 computers in the house on a network and one can access the internet(7 comps total) so they other six have no interent access at all.

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[jon112981]

Victory. I was able to fix it completely. It turns out I did just need to clone the MAC address. I overlooked it because when I FIRST installed it on my computer and then moved it to the router I had no problem at all. Oh well I guess it just goes to show you that just because something wasn't a problem in September doesn't mean it won't be a problem in January. Thank you guys for all your help again. I dunno where I'd be without a bunch of people to bitch to about my problems that understand what the big words mean.