Why TP-Link Archer C5 router can't restablish without mac cloning

Ken Cito · 2016-01-25T23:55:38+00:00

Anyone else have a TP-Link Archer C5 (AC1200) router that permanently loses it's connection the moment you unplug either it or the cable modem (for example, to move it) or whenever the Internet goes down and comes back up. Basically, if you interrupt power to the router, it can't re-establish a connection with the Comcast cable modem. When I call customer support for Comcast, they tell me the Internet is working fine (and plugging the computer into the modem confirms this). Comcast doesn't care what mac address is downstream of it, so, there should be absolutely no need for any mac cloning whatsoever. When I call customer support for the router, they had me connect the computer to the router and then press the mac clone button. On then, after cloning something, does the router work again. I'm confused what is going on. TP-Link support barely speaks English so I'm just asking if you have the same problem and if you can explain what is really going on. TIA

Jan 25, 2016 22 Replies

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Ken Cito 10 years ago

Thank you for that explanation. It had never occurred to me that the ISP (in this case, Comcast), was requiring, for authentication, *two* MAC addresses!

Apparently the second MAC address is that of the router because I looked up the OIC which shows it to be a TP-Link MAC address:

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So, the cable company is *indiscriminate* in that they'll take *any* Mac address, probably set up at the time we started the service.

Sheesh. Why didn't they just tell me this?

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Gab 9 years ago

replying to Ken Cito, Gab wrote: I have same problem in Canada, work at an ISP which is also my cable provider, ONLY ARCHER C5 have that problem, will try to make a firmware update on it

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