SMC7008ABR / Road Runner nightmare

[jweaks]

Hi, anyh help would be appreciated. I'm trying to get an SMC 7008ABR router to work with Road Runner cable.

This thing is driving me nuts. I know what I'm doing, but I can't get it to work.

The ISP is fine. I can make a direct connection no problem.

I can even get it to work if I plug the cable modem into the uplink port of the router. I have to release and renew the ip to do that, it works, but I can't leave it that way.

When I plug the cable modem into the WAN. It does not work. Road Runner says there is no authentication except that the cable modem gets the MAC address at the first start up and then expects it to stay the same. They said if the cable modem was powered down for a minute then the MAC would be cleared out.

I have used the WAN MAC and also cloned the MAC of the main PC. Neither worked.

The closest I have come to getting it to work was to power everything down for a while and reset the SMC. The SMC status page reported getting the IP and DNS from Road Runner but the connection status remained "disconnected." Released and renewed repeatedly to no affect.

This is blowing my mind there is no reason for this not to work. I have spent hours on the phone with SMC and RR. No progress. Maybe this router is defective and I'm wasting my time.

I still suspect it's MAC problem, but I've tried everything.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

info:
SMC7004ABR Router
Moto SurfBoard SB100 cable modem
Road Runner Biz ISP w/ dynamic IP assignment
4 PCs (2 NT4, 2 WIN98)
all PCs set for DHCP, router set for DHCP
All cables checked and rechecked
All NICs okay (LAN part of router works great)
All green lights on router including WAN and activity light on modem
all software firewalls and anti-virus turned off
MAC cleared, reset, cloned, etc......
ISP connection works directly

jweaks

[AmdAce]

My first question would be: Why are you trying to setup a router behind your cable modem, which is essentially a router? If you are trying to network, you should be using a switch or hub behind the c/m.

If networking is your goal, and your experience limited, you might want to consider purchasing a cable/dsl modem from a manufacturer such as linksys or dlink. They make inexpensive, fairly easy to use equipment. A key netwoking feature of some of these routers is built-in multiport switches that make networking a breeze.

Here are a couple of links to some decent models:

http://linksys.com/Products/product.asp?grid=23&prid=20
http://www.dlink.com/products/broadband/di604/

Don't forget about wireless! If you choose a router with built in wireless capability, you can expand the network easily without wires. It would be best to get an 802.11a wap to take advantage of the higher speeds this standard offers.

Lastly, learn how to SECURE IT. Do a little research on the 'net you are trying so hard to connect to and learn how to SECURE YOUR CONNECTION against outside threats. Chiefly among them, viruses. Some viruses are now so sophisticated that once a machine on a LAN is infected, the virus can actively search the network for other vulnerable systems and automatically infect them. Instead of one directly connected, infected machine emailing out copies of itself to all of your family and friends, there are two, three or more machines doing it.

Hope this helps.
Good Luck!

[AmdAce]

Please disregard my last rant. I guess I should know what I'm talking about before I say anything.
Have you called SMC? Looks like a bad WAN port (just as you speculated).

[JackMDS]

It is a long shut could be a problem between the Motorola Modem , and the WAN port on the SMC. I know it works with a Toshiba modem. Some Motorola modems need a WAN port that is 100Mb/sec. capable.

[jweaks]

Thanks for the help. I finally gave up on it and bought a different router. The new one worked straight out of the box. 5 minutes versus 3 days. The SMC was either defective or not compatible with that particular cable modem.

Thanks,
jweaks