Who understands computer networking?

[kingtroll]

Thats address sounds correct. Dhcp lease renewaL is after a certain period your router gives out a new ip address. You can also force a new address if everything is working properly by typing in the cmd window ipconfig /release then type in ipconfig /renew.
You should have your router or other device setup for NAT. Nat basically uses one network connection to the internet and shares it by using internal network addresses like the one you already have starting with 192 in this case. If you are connected with a 192 address try to go to the cmd window and type in ping 4.2.2.1 to see if it gets a ping reply back. If you get a reply back then it is probably a DNS issue. Also your gateway setting should be your routers address.

[miketyler]

Most everything is DHCP these days. You shouldnt have to mess with any of those TCP/IP settings.

Personally, I have never seen valid internet IP's as low as those 4.2.x.x that you have listed.Not saying they dont exist, but they are very unusual.

[ChallengerHK]

My internet research in my limited free time has basically pointed me to:

1) This is a fairly common issue with Comcast (there are at least a couple dozen threads on it)
2) People who know this topic much better than me are saying that the routers are not able to renew the IP lease (which I think is DHCP-related, right?)
3) No one seems to have found a solution.
4) A lot of folks seem to think that Comcast is doing this on purpose as a traffic limiting measure, particularly for accounts that have two or more computers connected to one line.

[Bullitt-]

Have you contacted Concast about the problem?...Would they possibly issue you a static IP address?

[ChallengerHK]

The very first call I made was to Comcast.

1) They cannot use static IPs (or so they say)
2) My router was supposedly bad (pisses me off, because they swore their tests proved it was bad and I threw away a perfectly good router)
3) They would issue me a new, free router...which has never arrived.

Again, my online reading says that they're doing the same thing with bunches of people, i.e. no static IP and "your router is bad."

I also called Cisco. This is one of those companies whose tech support is in India and their English was very bad. The tech rep went through my routers settings and swore he had fixed the problem, but 2 hours later it did exactly the same thing.

[geminiviper]

Unfortunately I don't have any websites or official word from anyone within cable companies but,  I have heard that all the major companies use bandwidth throttling to limit how much you can take in or put out, which wouldn't likely cause an issue here, but could be a factor.  Also if you are identified in their system as being a high bandwidth user they will set your modem to renew it's IP address more often forcing your downloads to drop.  I have also heard a rumor floating around that if you don't use their equipment then you can have issues similar to yours. 

I have constant link drop at my place.  Well, I did for a while.  I called my company and they told me everything was fine.  I called everyday and bugged them till I could convince them to send a tech out to test the lines coming into my house.  What they found was a significant amount of "noise" on my lines.  Basically all they did to fix it was go to any spot on the line that had a screw connection and reseated it and tightened it up.  Short of having a noise tester your best option to find out if that's it is either try reseating and tightening or getting a tech out there.  This is probably not an issue since being connected directly to the modem "solved" the issue. 

Did you say your modem came with a built in router?  If so, try getting into it's settings and find out if it's DHCP is turned on.  If it is, what could be happening is you have two routers running DHCP, one on the other which can cause problems.  If there is an option on your router to use as a waypoint or access point then turn that option on and turn the modem's router option on.  This will eliminate two routers working at the same time.  If you cannot turn off your modem's router option and your router does not have an access point or waypoint option then set your router's IP pool to something other than a 192.168.x.x.  What could be happening is the modem is assigning 192.168.1.101 to your router which is in turn assigning the same IP address to one of your computers.  So when you send information out it registers on other systems with the IP address of the modem and the subaddress of your computer which is the same as the router.  So the data that is supposed to be routed to your computer is stopping at the router and the router doesn't know how to handle certain data coming down because it wasn't meant for the router.  I personally use 10.0.0.100-10.0.0.110 for my pool because I have no need for more than 10 devices on my router and it doesn't conflict with default settings of any modem out there.  Give that a whirl and let us know.

[ChallengerHK]

I *believe* that the modem includes a router, but the modem control page is very simple. There's literally only two switches. I've been thinking about buying another modem, i.e. one that didn't come from Comcast and may not have their issues.

[geminiviper]

Buying your own is not a bad option.  Especially because if you fry theirs due to something you do or did they will charge like $400 for it.  Modems are anywhere between $60-$100 on average and they go up from there. 

Also, does your router have QoS Packet Scheduler(Quality of Service)?  If it does and it is enabled and your computers have it disabled or not installed or vise versa it could be causing some issues.  For a long time in the early XP days QoS did more harm than good because routers just didn't have the support for it.  So check those settings. 

If you're not using security for your wireless you should set that up.  Security Tip of the week for ya...

[ChallengerHK]

Thanks for the info. Can you clue me in as to where I'd find the QoS scheduler? I am using XP with both computers.

And I definitely have security enabled on the system, BTW. Wouldn't do it any other way.

[ChallengerHK]

I hate to say this, having been led down the garden path by my machines so many times, but this may be solved.

I went looking for the QoS controls, and found them. I shut down the Qos on my desktop, the wired machine, and immediately lost signal, so I re-established the QoS. Then I shut down QoS on my laptop, and the work laptop. So far, it's been running continuously for two days without a break in service.

Wish me luck.

[geminiviper]

Good luck with that, I mean that sincerely.  I hate network issues.  So, for some FYI for you, QoS Packet Scheduler is a protocol designed to funnel and time the delivery of data by delaying the delivery of the packets.  So it basically uses a FIFO (First In First Out) process of holding back packets to ensure they deliver correctly, in a scheduled manner not conflicting with other data deliver or within certain time constraints.  Modern networks are built with QoS to, hopefully, make the network run smoother with high volumes of data streaming accross.  In all likeliness you could uninstall it from all your computers in your house, reboot them and they should reconnect just fine.  In general with small networks there is no real need for QoS because the amount of traffic on a single home network isn't enough to cause any significant slow downs.  When speed is in question, it's really not a bad idea to just remove any protocol that isn't needed on your network.  The more protocols the more network overhead there is.  So if you don't need it, don't use it.  On my home networks running XP in the past I ran TCP/IP and Print/File Sharing and that was about it since nothing else was required.  Good luck with your settings and I hope everything continues to run well.

[geminiviper]

How's the network running these days?  Still stable?

[ChallengerHK]

Funny you should post this. No, I'm still having problems, and have been all along. I just don't have the time to really get into doing much with them.

One thing I noticed during my last foray into the router's menus is this: the group key renewal is set to 7200 seconds, or two hours. I suspect that it's no coincidence that the router goes out ever two hours. I'm going to set that timer to a radically different value this weekend to test it, but assuming that the key renewal is the issue, and idea what I can look at as a root cause?

[geminiviper]

I'll do some digging around if I can find some extra time.  Instead of putting in a ludicrously large number put in 0.  Zero should allow the key to never be renewed.  Meanwhile any information or change in performance keep me updated so I can follow your progress or lack thereof so we can find the answer.

[ChallengerHK]

Actually, I took it from 2 hours to ten minutes. Didn't appear to make any difference. I thought that the two hour figure was unlikely to be a coincidence, but it looks like I was wrong.