(OT) Geeksquad and ISP

[Vaelix]

I have comcast.. and heres the Situation..

A few days ago i started having network issues (Router)..

Basically my Wireless Cards could never Identify a Network, while my Direct Line (My PC) Did just fine..

Well I went to work/sleep Who knows.. And Came back and My Router had completely stopped working..

I was still able to Connect with my PC With a Cable directly to the Modem.. But the 2 Laptops with Wireless cards, could never Connect Via Cable .. because of DNS Issues. (Even to the Modem)

Well basically.. I went though my Router and Checked all Settings, Access list, DNS Settings.. Everything was fine.

So i tried the usual.. Power Down Each... Power Down Router with Modem on to Try to connect.. nothing...

I even did a /ipconfig renew though my cmd in hopes of IP/DNS Fixes... nothing..


So we call Geek Squad.. They come out... Power down the Router then back on and it works just fine.. And they make 100$.

Now heres my Question.. Is there a way for an ISP to send a specific signal to your Modem which enables a Connection though a dirrect line to the modem, but will disable/block any connection attempted though a network?

Because honestly, I seems like they called comcast.. said fix it.. Arrived.. Did the "Power Down Pretend Like i did something to anyone who doesnt know computers" deal.. Then Walked out with 100$.

Or am I just really unlucky?

 

[Lorddog]

aint that how it always works?

my car wouldnt start in my driveway. It starts up and imediatly would shut down. I think it has emergency overrides that do this so the engine doesnt break.
I finally had it towed to shop and they called me and said the car started up fine.

(ended up being bad gas I was putting in it and just needed the engine cleaned out)


Lorddog

 

[Lorddog]

btw if i just guessed then perhaps your router wireless is messing up when it heated up?
there is a hole in the back that factory resets it. do you know if they stuck a pin into that hole?

Lorddog

 

[Vaelix]

btw if i just guessed then perhaps your router wireless is messing up when it heated up?
there is a hole in the back that factory resets it. do you know if they stuck a pin into that hole?

Lorddog

No i did a Default reset 3 Days before they came.. and reset everything.

All they did was Power down the Router with The Modem still up and connected, then power'd the router back up.. Which i had done multiple times..

They did not power down Both and let them Both connect.. Which i had also done several times.

 

[Vaelix]

btw if i just guessed then perhaps your router wireless is messing up when it heated up?
there is a hole in the back that factory resets it. do you know if they stuck a pin into that hole?

Lorddog

Pretty much it seemed like The only thing that could connect to the Modem (With the Router Completely Disabled) and Get a Connection was my PC, because i dont have a Wireless card for it..

However My Router, and Both Laptops couldnt even connect to the modem With an E-Cable..

Which is why Im asking about the ISP Signal to Network/Alike Connections..

 

[Critical Gaming]

lol, you nub.

All that comes through to your modem is an IP address. From there you can do whatever you want with it. It's your IP address.

Sounds like to me you never did a power cycle (even though you did hold the reset button in). Power cycles are the first step to troubleshooting after a release/renew.

Also, a release/renew won't work if you have your NICs set up statically for obvious reasons, so make sure you have them set to pull an address from your DHCP Server (router)

If it happens again, just disconnect your modem from your wireless router, then power the router off and on, and see if you can connect and pull addresses from it. After that, you can safely connect your modem and power it on.


NOTE:

If you have a verizon DSL modem (Westell) - those things make up their own class C network for some reason (even if its just 1 port..) This can cause conflict between the router and itself, so you have to disable the LAN side and bridge the connection over to your router. I did that and I've had no connectivity issues since. Very solid.

 

[Vaelix]

Heres the thing Crunch.. All they did was unplug fromt the Power supply for 10 Seconds.. While still connected to the Modem (With the Modem Active) then Plugged the Router back in and let it Cycle though..


Which I have done.. With the Router and Modem / Both at the same time / Router Only.. About 10 times within the past 5 or so Days at 10 Seconds, 30 Seconds, 1 Min, 3 Mins, 10 Mins.. Ect.. over and over..

 

[Chardonnay]

Did you just try to say geeksquad and your cable provider was in cahoots with each other so geeksquad could get you for $100.00?

 

[Wulf2k]

It sounds like you had MAC cloning enabled in the router. The router is pretending to be your computer when talking to the modem.

The modem is only programmed to give out one address to one machine at a time, so it doesn't know the difference between your computer, and the router pretending to be your computer.

As for the original problem with the router, I dunno. With all your powercycling and computer swapping it could have been assigned a 192.168.100.3+ address (as some modems are fond of doing to machines requesting a 'second' address after its already given one out), which it kept being assigned after powercycling and requesting it again. After waiting for Geeksquad to get there, the DHCP lease for that address could have expired, allowing the powercycle to give it a new one.

Again, all theory here, hard to tell without a detailed log of everything exactly as it happened.

edit:

Well I went to work/sleep Who knows.. And Came back and My Router had completely stopped working..

I was still able to Connect with my PC With a Cable directly to the Modem..

Or, at this point, you have no MAC cloning and your main PC has just claimed the address the modem is willing to give you. You swap back out the router, and the modem gives it a non-public ip address. Geek squad arrives, powercycles the router, and the modem's had enough time to forget your PC has the address so it gives out a new one.

 

[Vaelix]

Sigh.. Thanks wolf.. alot of that sounds pretty accurate..

I'm unlucky it seems...

I was having Cable issued where my Cable/Modem would go out for a bit.. This past week..

So i'm guessing that might of been the cause of the problem to begin with..

The question now is.. Now that Ive paid Geek Squad.. Will my cable have issues still (It always happened around 2pm Mst).. Or will it work just fine.. Lol

Cable being.. Tv comcast whatever.

 

[Wulf2k]

Do you have one of these, or similar?

Try going to http://192.168.100.1

It may work now, or it may not. Some ISPs disable local access to the status page, but it forgets this after a powercycle. Next time you have an outage, powercycle just the modem and go to that page. It should tell you what it's doing as it's doing it, along with the signal levels and such. It may not mean much to you if you're not technically inclined, but....

Whatever, it'll have numbers, and then you can look at the numbers, write down the numbers, and call your technical support to ask what the numbers mean. After Tier 1 support has no clue what the numbers mean and suspends your account for being a dirty hacker, you can call back over and over until Tier 2 tells you that the numbers were perfectly normal, and the actual cause of the problem is that your router's resting on your 20 year old microwave without adequate shielding, and you warm up your hotpockets at the same time every day.

So, in conclusion, you probably don't have a surfboard modem, you may not have access to that page, but I have just successfully traveled 3 minutes into the future and am thus that much closer to the end of my workday! And nobody can stop me!

You also might want to remove any unnecessary splitters on the coax cable coming into the house, and have the cable modem connected as close to the incoming 'source' as possible, and not on the 7th split of the 7th splitter.

 

[N49ATV]

aint that how it always works?

my car wouldnt start in my driveway. It starts up and imediatly would shut down. I think it has emergency overrides that do this so the engine doesnt break.
I finally had it towed to shop and they called me and said the car started up fine.

(ended up being bad gas I was putting in it and just needed the engine cleaned out)


Lorddog

Did you have an engine light on. All new vehicles kill the autostart immediatly if an engine light is on.

 

[Vaelix]

Do you have one of these, or similar?

You also might want to remove any unnecessary splitters on the coax cable coming into the house, and have the cable modem connected as close to the incoming 'source' as possible, and not on the 7th split of the 7th splitter.

Yes this is My Modem, and yes i have the Connection very close to the incomming source.. Lol


Blah

 

[Wulf2k]

Another thing to check is to always log into your router after a powercycle and check its WAN address. If it's 0.0.0.0 or 169.x.x.x then it didn't get an address from your modem or ISP. If it's 192.168.100.x, then it got an address from your modem, but not one capable of communicating to the internet. Most likely cause is because it already thinks it gave away the good address, but it will also give this if the connection between the modem and your ISP is down.

 

[Wulf2k]

Now that Ive paid Geek Squad.. Will my cable have issues still (It always happened around 2pm Mst).. Or will it work just fine.. Lol

Cable being.. Tv comcast whatever.

What Geek Squad did will fix nothing, long-term.

At 2 PM each day, do you lose internet and cable tv? Or just cable tv? Is it for a few seconds/minutes/hours?

Is it completely predictable? Can you set your clock by the outage? Sounds like some form of electrical interference. Could be anything in your neighbourhood, but also check for anything in your house that might surge at the time.

If it happens at the same minute each day, start calling support around that time, and ask them to watch the signal levels as it happens.

 

[Vaelix]

What Geek Squad did will fix nothing, long-term.

At 2 PM each day, do you lose internet and cable tv? Or just cable tv? Is it for a few seconds/minutes/hours?

Is it completely predictable? Can you set your clock by the outage? Sounds like some form of electrical interference. Could be anything in your neighbourhood, but also check for anything in your house that might surge at the time.

If it happens at the same minute each day, start calling support around that time, and ask them to watch the signal levels as it happens.

It would happen around 2-3 PM Mst.. My Cable would be Pixilated on Some channels.. Some channels would be Unavailable.. and My Modem would Drop..

Usually the Cable Part was down/wonky for 5-10 Mines, and my Modem Connected right back up after a Power Cycle.

It also happened Last night at 3 AM.. Which has never done before.. And today after the Geek Squad fix ( Its 1:52 pm so now is around when it might happen, but hasnt ) I havent had any troubles.

 

[Chardonnay]

Do you have one of these, or similar?

Try going to http://192.168.100.1

It may work now, or it may not. Some ISPs disable local access to the status page, but it forgets this after a powercycle. Next time you have an outage, powercycle just the modem and go to that page. It should tell you what it's doing as it's doing it, along with the signal levels and such. It may not mean much to you if you're not technically inclined, but....

Whatever, it'll have numbers, and then you can look at the numbers, write down the numbers, and call your technical support to ask what the numbers mean. After Tier 1 support has no clue what the numbers mean and suspends your account for being a dirty hacker, you can call back over and over until Tier 2 tells you that the numbers were perfectly normal, and the actual cause of the problem is that your router's resting on your 20 year old microwave without adequate shielding, and you warm up your hotpockets at the same time every day.

So, in conclusion, you probably don't have a surfboard modem, you may not have access to that page, but I have just successfully traveled 3 minutes into the future and am thus that much closer to the end of my workday! And nobody can stop me!

You also might want to remove any unnecessary splitters on the coax cable coming into the house, and have the cable modem connected as close to the incoming 'source' as possible, and not on the 7th split of the 7th splitter.

Yep, that's the one i use the time warner basic junkomatic...

 

[Critical Gaming]

Comcast was apparently incapable of installing a new repeater in the pole for me. I had a problem of intermittent connection and "pixely" cable for awhile, so I called a technician out. He ran his tool (I guess it checks how much signal is lost through all the splitters) and to the end point (cable in each room connecting to a TV or my modem) the signal was fine. Then he climbed the pole and said the signal was HORRID coming from the pole.

So he said maintenance will come fix it!

2 weeks later... no maintenance.

Another tech guy comes out, I point at the pole. He still checks the house, THEN the pole. Same conclusion.

Maintenance will be out this week.

2 weeks later... no maintenance.

I call comcast and say GET THIS REPEATER FIXED TODAY OR **** YOU

They killed my connection, I went to verizon DSL. No problems since!

I still see plenty of comcast vans on my street to this day though, lawls.

 

[Chardonnay]

Comcast was apparently incapable of installing a new repeater in the pole for me. I had a problem of intermittent connection and "pixely" cable for awhile, so I called a technician out. He ran his tool (I guess it checks how much signal is lost through all the splitters) and to the end point (cable in each room connecting to a TV or my modem) the signal was fine. Then he climbed the pole and said the signal was HORRID coming from the pole.

So he said maintenance will come fix it!

2 weeks later... no maintenance.

Another tech guy comes out, I point at the pole. He still checks the house, THEN the pole. Same conclusion.

Maintenance will be out this week.

2 weeks later... no maintenance.

I call comcast and say GET THIS REPEATER FIXED TODAY OR **** YOU

They killed my connection, I went to verizon DSL. No problems since!

I still see plenty of comcast vans on my street to this day though, lawls.

Moral of the story comcast sucks balls...tru story...

 

[Critical Gaming]

Do you have one of these, or similar?

Try going to http://192.168.100.1

It may work now, or it may not. Some ISPs disable local access to the status page, but it forgets this after a powercycle. Next time you have an outage, powercycle just the modem and go to that page. It should tell you what it's doing as it's doing it, along with the signal levels and such. It may not mean much to you if you're not technically inclined, but....

Whatever, it'll have numbers, and then you can look at the numbers, write down the numbers, and call your technical support to ask what the numbers mean. After Tier 1 support has no clue what the numbers mean and suspends your account for being a dirty hacker, you can call back over and over until Tier 2 tells you that the numbers were perfectly normal, and the actual cause of the problem is that your router's resting on your 20 year old microwave without adequate shielding, and you warm up your hotpockets at the same time every day.

So, in conclusion, you probably don't have a surfboard modem, you may not have access to that page, but I have just successfully traveled 3 minutes into the future and am thus that much closer to the end of my workday! And nobody can stop me!

You also might want to remove any unnecessary splitters on the coax cable coming into the house, and have the cable modem connected as close to the incoming 'source' as possible, and not on the 7th split of the 7th splitter.

Wulf, if that's manageable and has a class C address, wouldn't bridging the connection to the router bypass NAT/PAT bull**** going between 2 devices solve a lot of issues? *methinks ISPs are trying to make home network users rage*

 

[Wulf2k]

It will bridge the first device connected to it, for all intents and purposes. It's only when you request a second IP address that you get into the 192.168.100.x crap.

You can still access the 192.168.100.1 status page while bridged, even with your 24.x.x.x or whatever address. (Unless disallowed by ISP provisioning to modem)