DHCP on AT&T's 2WIRE Router = Cluster****

So I am 18, living with my mom and sister, soon leaving for Beijing to study Chinese and then going to University in New York or Chicago.

I am the networking tech of the house since we have a major, major, MAJOR problem with AT&T. Every tech they send is approx. 20 years old, has the lowest tech degree available, and all he does is reset the damn router 5000 times. Then comes international tech support which takes a whole lifetime and a half.

So basically, I know a lot about computers and networks since I had to fix it all myself. When I am gone, I will be getting calls, emails and texts from my mom and sister about constant problems, whether it's the NAS not backing up, internet acting weird, or some driver issue and whatnot.

The first issue I want to tackle is this god forsaken router/modem combo from AT&T which is branded 2WIRE. It doesn't allocate any darn IP's so every device that comes into my house needs to be manually configured (by me) before it can connect to the internet. What is going wrong? I cleared all my Network information on my MacBook and all I get is the dang 169.254.158.63 IP address, how do I fix this without touching the MacBook? I want it to be AUTOMAGIC, no more dang manual IP's and Addresses etc...

 

Check to see if the router is setup in "Bridge" mode if so it needs to be changed to router. Then router will hand out IP's.

For some reason they do this to have only 1 pc connect to there network. You will need your login credentials in the router.

 

It's in "ATM Encapsulation: Bridged LLC" mode

 

Oh, by the way, I just upgraded to 6Mbps down and 768kbps up for only $5 more :]
I like AT&T (for now) hahaha

 

Bridged LLC pertains to how the LAN packets are transfered once they've left your router and on to the ISP. This setting will have little to do with your local network.

The settings we are looking for are DHCP. This is the service that automatically assigns IPs, gateways, etc to computers on your network without having to manually configure them.

There really shouldn't be any major settings to mess with other than turning it off and the network segment. Especially considering it is a 2Wire, which has mad basic settings. If you aren't sure of any settings, post a Screenshot and we'll explain them and what settings to put in.

It is real odd to get such incompetent techs. I've heard horror stories, but have not experienced them myself.

 

There are no DHCP settings anywhere man, I know what you're talking about, but it's just not available...

This is what I have it set to:

Private Network
Router Address: 192.168.1.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
DHCP Range: 192.168.1.2 - 192.168.1.250
Allocated: 13
Available: 236


And I also installed dd-WRT on a Netgear or Linksys router somewhere around here and tried to use it as a repeater and it just didn't work man, I followed all the steps and whatnot but once it connected to the repeater it would disconnect and automatically connect to the main router without a password and then fail...

 

Well, lets work on one thing at a time. Get the internet up first, then lets add on the repeater.

I say ditch the 2Wire. Tell AT&T those things are notoriously unreliable. Usually I'd try to make everything work before suggesting a scorched earth alternative, but in this case, network connectivity isn't the issue, the DHCP service is an issue.

 

You will not have DHCP till you get the router out of Bridge.....

If your going to run in bridge you will need to connect a router (that's worth more than scrap plastic) to it.

 

It doesn't look like it is in bridged mode. Sometimes it is called gateway mode. I don't even recall the 2wires having a bridged mode setting. But then again it has been a while since I've had them.

 

Which model of 2Wire do you have?

It's been over a couple of years since I set one up.

Did it come with a installation Setup CD?

• Open a Web browser and access the 2Wire gateway user interface by entering
http://gateway.2Wire.net.
• Click the Home Network tab.
• Click the Advanced Settings link under the tab to open the Edit Advanced Home Network Settings page.

This is where the DHCP server settings are.

 

Just based on a quickie google, it would appear to be the case that the problem is having the "Bridged LLC" mode enabled. That is causing the modem to essentially act as nothing more than an invisible bridge, and appears to be disabling its routing functions, as blue68f100 suggested.

That mode does, indeed, have an effect on how packets are transmitted across the modem and into the ISP's systems, but from what I gleaned in my quickie google, that basically allows the public IP to sit further out along the chain from PC -> modem -> ISP so that the public IP doesn't in effect get you right to the WAN side of the modem.

I would follow blue's suggestion and, since you're there in the house right now, you can afford to experiment with disabling the Bridge LLC mode and then trying to see if you can get it to hand out an IP to one of your systems that's been set to get its IP info via DHCP.

 

If it set in bridge mode you need mdc password if anything like telus here

you cound problay try hardware reset depend on isp it might default to dhcp enable


http://mdc or http://gateway/mdc i can,nt rember top my head

 

I have the 2WIRE 2701HG-B Gateway from AT&T.

I used to have a router connected to it, but it just cluttered up the desk so I figured I could just take it off since the 2WIRE is a router too.

So do I just switch the Mode to Routed LLC? There are "VC-MUX" options too fore both Bridged and Routed.

 

I'm going to take a very slightly half-educated stab in the dark and say "yes" - if you want this 2WIRE thingy to start acting like a router and dishing out IP addresses and whatnot by DHCP, then you need to put it into router mode. That way it will be visible to the other nodes on your network as a gateway. Right now it's pretty much invisible because it's just bridging your local, private intranet with whatever piece of hardware your ISP has immediately on the other side of that 2WIRE device.

That, or put your old router back where it was and use that as the router/DHCP server.

 

It's visible, it's an access point.
It just doesn't dish out DHCP.

 

Then I apologize for the loose language. Perhaps a better way to put is this, taken from the wikipedia article on bridging (yes, it's wikipedia, it still seems to be a consistent article, however):

I've highlighted the most relevant part of that quotation. To put it simply, as a bridge, your 2WIRE device doesn't "care" about IP protocol issues, all it cares about are MAC addresses - as such, they are not in a position to start handing out IP addresses via DHCP.

Look, if it goes whacky on you, you're there and can switch it back with a minimum of fuss, so why not give it a try?

 

Looks like 2wire has master the art of no IP's.

The only easy fix is to connect a routers to the 2wire. Then the bridge mode will be correct.

or see if you can swap out the 2wire for a modem only, then but your own router.

 

I will try the "Routed LLC" in a minute here.

 

Routed LLC did... NOTHING!
No difference at all.

To be honest, my main problem is always being disconnected...
I'll be playing a game or watching Netflix online and BOOM, Netflix stops and I have to reload the page or when I play games, it freezes for 20 seconds on L4D2 and then continues on... Every 10-15 minutes or so.

Watching a movie online has become impossible... And this has been for the past 1-2 months.

550KB/s solid on my downloads now though thanks to upgrading to 6Mbps

 

I found out that the disconnecting is a 2WIRE firmware problems, many users have that problem. I will try everything I can before hooking up the router. I want to solve this problem before taking the easy way out.

My MacBook is connected to the router and has an IP of 192.168.1.134 (manual setting) and it doesn't even show up on the routers connected list...

 

bump please?