Cherry Hill, NJ - Comcast

Cable modem or router?

I thought the cable modem hooked directly to the PC worked, and the problem was when the cable modem was connected to router connected to PC.

What made you look / think of a battery?

The cable modem had the battery.

Correct. Laptop to cable modem = OK. Router connected to Cable modem = toast

I didn't. Somebody my brother works with had the exact same problem and same type of cable modem. This alien type of cable modem seems to be common in the Cherry Hill, NJ area.

So what does the cable modem battery have to do with the router failing ?

Most cable modems with built in VoIP terminal adaptors have batteries in them. That way, the phone service stays up when the power goes out (or when the modem is unplugged....). The battery is a good thing.

You could have figured a lot of this out remotely by visiting Arris' web site:

they do have a paper clip activated reset button; save this info for next time...

-Gary

The router didn't fail. Because he didn't pull the modem's battery or hit the paper-clip reset, the modem was never reset. Thus, it did not pick up the MAC address of the router.

Once the modem was actually reset by removing mains and battery problem, it saw the router. No more toast.

-Gary

Where are you getting the router failed?

So the question is why did it have problems to begin with? There is no such thing as random or one time problems. All it means is that you have not figured out the sequence of events to recreate the problem.

If it was working ... cable modem with battery, connected to router, connected to pc ... and as you stated - all of a suddden, one day, the router stopped working (appeared that it did not get it's IP address renewed) ... what changed? Especially since when you disconnected the router and went directly from cable modem to PC it worked.

We understand resetting the cable modem via paper clip or complete powerloss (ac and dc) fixed the issue ... it really does not explain why it stopped working with the router, but it continued to work directly connected to the PC.

In theory - going from router to direct PC should have never worked without the cable modem reset.

Wrong.

It wasn't working. He went from having one laptop directly connected to the cable modem, then once he got a desktop he wanted to use both at the same time.

I think it boils down to not getting all the correct info posted.

I think it boils down to not getting all the correct info posted.

I disagree; I thought I was quite clear. Gary didn't have any problems understanding.

You never stated that the test of cable modem to router to pc, and cable modem to pc were two different pc's!!!!

That makes a huge difference. That's where I mentioned that the modems remember who they were last connected to connected to.

You also stated that it was working cablemodem to router to pc, and then it suddenly stopped.

So much for methodical troubleshooting.

you are 100% correct

Gary is psychic - the rest of use were misinformed.

Apparently.

No.

I'm not very chic, psy or otherwise. Nor am I physic.

I didn't help solve the problem either. Once the information about the battery solving the problem was shared, I tried to provide some helpful hints for the next time somebody has a problem like this.

In particular, Justin wondered why cable modems have batteries, so I answered that. I also provided a link to the user's manuals for the Arris VoIP modems. I didn't do it earlier because I assumed a search had been done. Appararently it wasn't.

-Gary