Question on PC Switching

[jdnoyes]

A quick question, I have Cox Cable on a Terayon modem that i've been using for several years without problem, but I recently got a laptop that I would occasionally like to use instead of my desktop to surf the net. I thought it would be as simple as plugging in the Cat5 cable into my laptop's nic card, but it has been anything but.

It seems that when I plug into my laptop it takes some amount of time for the modem to configure itself to work with my laptop or something, after being plugged in for a certain amount of time; about an hour it seems suddenly I can surf the net on the laptop. Once my laptop is working with the modem if I plug it back into my desktop, I once again have to go through this painful wait time before my desktop begins to work once again with the modem.

My Desktop is using a Netgear FA311 Nic with Win98, while my laptop uses a Intel Pro Nic with Win 2K Pro.

Can anyone tell me in simple terms why this happens and if there is a way around it.

thanks
JDN

[Kip Patterson]

The modem has a MAC address table that associates the MAC of your computer with it's IP address.

You should be able to change computers, reset the modem, by turning it off if there is not a reset button, and be good to go. The modem may take a while to resync, but not an hour.

Kip

[jdnoyes]

modem has no reset switch so I tried over and over to reset it by turning it off then back on, still nothing seems to work but waiting and although I havent timed it it seems to be about an hour or so before it'll work

/sigh oh well

[Soporific]

I would try doing an ipconfig /renew on it and see if that stirs anything up.

~S

[Set]

you sure thers not a small little hole in the back thats the reset most modem have em


or unpower the modem (VIA of unpluging power sorce) let set for 30 secs then power it up

[jdnoyes]

I tried ipconfig renew and get an error message saying DSN server or something similar not found. As far as reseting the modem it doesnt have a reset hole that I can see although I have tried repeatedly unplugging it and plugging it back in to reset it. It does go through what seems to be a reset sequence, but then when I plug it into the other computer nothing. Only thing that seems to work is time, and lots of it, pretty problematic when I wanna plug in my laptop real quick when I get home from work and download something.

Any other suggestions or ideas as to why this is happening?

[Set]

its the pc mac adress doining it

when your modem reboots it self the lights blink 1 at a time then all flash then you get your 3 normal lights that means the modem has found your network and receved its data is this taking a hour as well? or is the modem look normal but just dont work?

have you ever called your isp techs and ask cuz the way your doing it is legal so they will surport that

other think that comes to mind is buy a router and share the modem that way no unpluging of any thing both allways on


check on them lights and make sure you power the modem down for 30 secs then plug back in

mabye ask you isp for a dif modem

[Set]

is your ip satic or dynamic

[Old Fart]

A quick thought. If it is the ISP's equipment that is slow to respond to a new mac address, the best solution may be a router, that way the MAC the ISP sees never changes, period.

[jdnoyes]

thanks for the responses guys was hoping to not have to spend the money on a router, as this isnt something I do all the time and dont really need both machines up at once, just something that can be very annoying when I do want to switch over.

As for the modem when I reset it the send and recieve lights (bottom two) blink 10-15 times in unison, the message light blinks several times then the ready light comes back on by itself. It seems to be working properly, it just seems that my isp (Cox) is slow to send the necessary info for whatever reason, hadnt thought to call them, cause I hate dealing with customer support techs who seem to be unhelpful and lack useful info. Like I said nothing seems to be wrong with them modem, its probably my isp lacking.

hmm..back to the drawing board

[Old Fart]

If you are already using wired NICs, an inexpensive multiport router/switch may be your best option, such as a Linksys BEFSR41. You should be able to find them for under $100 US

[jdnoyes]

Thanks for all the responses, I decieded to buy a Liknsys router and its working great, only one problem now, my wife likes to use Compuserve, well now that I have the router going Compuserve doesnt seem to want to work, gives me an error that it doesnt like the communication software that is currently running. Been using it with Lan settings a while now so i'm assuming the router is causing the issue.

Any ideas as to why and if there is a solution for this?

[jdnoyes]

Ok I got it uninstalled all network devices and rebooted and reinstalled all network software and now its working, thanks to everyone for you helpful advice, glad to find a great forum where I actually got helpful info.

John