comcast cable - no access on my mac - help!

AdmiralAK

AdmiralAK

Simply Daemonic
I will probably figure this out at somepoint but I thought I would ask anyway.

I got comcast cable internet today (yay!) an I am using a motorola suftboard 5100 cable modem. It has USB and Ethernet connections. I have connected the USB to my girlfriend's PC (which does not have a NIC) and I have connected the ethernet out to my Netgear WG614 wireless router.

1) I can "see" the router without a problem both via airport and via hard-wire connection to it

2) I set it up alreaedy (not that it needed any settings to be done anyway)

3) I have connected the ethernet out from the cable modem to my mac's NIC and I do get an IP, however I cannot get online.

4) The light that indicates uplink communication on the router flashes like it is saying "I've got life!" but I still cannot connect to the outside world with my powerbook

5) I disconnected the USB from the cable modem and my mac still does not go online

any ideas ?
 
When setting up cable with Comcast here, my clients have had to do there a register the system with Comcast to get the final connection activated.

Basically (recalling from the last time I did it) I fired up IE and used an address they gave me that was active even though the rest of the internet wasn't. I had to run through a few pages of stuff to finish everything.

It has been almost two years since I last did a Comcast installation, so beyond this I don't remember much.
 
Hi Racer, good to see ya.

Let me just add to my description by saying that I popped i nthe CD provided to me by comcast and the connectivity check failed (surprise, surprise :p). This CD program fired up IE but it did not do much, as I said connectivity failed
 
GOT IT!
cable modem isnt exactly plug and play so I had to plug in BOTH ethernet and USB and THEN power it up. Now all works

so racer, what have you been up to?
 
That's odd that it would require both the USB and ethernet to be plugged in. Before you said that, I was going to ask if it was locked to the MAC address of your PC. Many cable providers in my area (stupidly) lock the modem to a specific computer so that you have to pay them extra to use more than one computer online. A router that does MAC cloning gets around that problem easily.
 
Well here is what I have found
COmcast let me know that they only allow one MAC and that's it, so the MAC is the one of the PC *or* the MAC of the router.
I decided to buy a USB 802.11g adapter and put it on the PC rather than buy a Netowrk adapter for it, this way I can get both online at the same time.

Admiral
 
Comcast....is very odd.

Back when I was 13. Comcast cable opened broadband here in my town of Cherry Hill, NJ. We were one of the first people to get broadband around. It was uncapped, blazing fast, and just pure insanity. One thing however, is that if you do the self install, it almost never works. Ive gone off and on comcast tons of times and each time i go back on, i always have trouble. That comcast CD is never needed though and its just a waste of time. If you cant get online, you have to try toying around with the power. Always power on the pc and mac last. I have a Siemens Cable modem with Airport Extreme Base Station and it works great.
 
Comcast on the East is simple to setup. No CD is needed. Just set the network preferences;
Ethernet
Configure using DHCP

They don't care if you have one machine on multiple machines, they just won't set them up for you.

You would be better using Ethernet on the PC. NIC's are pretty cheap for PC's.
 
Yep, I agree with Bob. Don't use the cd. It's useless. Self-install worked perfectly here, just as Bob said:
Ethernet
Configure using DHCP.

I added the DNS numbers that my router acquired from the modem and no problems at all (except when they're doing an equipment/services upgrade) here for 2 years. We've got 4 hardwired computers (3 Mac, 1 pc) and 2 wireless PowerBooks.
 
The CD did not really provide me with anything, it just added a location (with the same settings I had and trying to make it work anyway mind you).

The reason I bought a USB 802.11 adapter and not a NIC is that the PC is old and it will kick the bucket in a few years. Even though I've found NICs for less than $10, I would much rather spend $25 and be able to re-use the USB adapter on other machines as needed :) (it's here today!)
 
I had a similar problem with the same router and Comcast.
I've got a few questions:
How is your Network set up in System prefs? Do you have a software firewall running(like Norton Firewall)? What OS are you using?
Can you get online with another wifi machine (like a laptop with Airport) via the Netgear router?

I've had some tough talks with Comcast myself, and they won't give you much support for a wifi network. They can't limit your usage in terms of the # of computers, but they will charge you for any service unrelated to a problematic modem connection from the cable itself. Perhaps I've had poor luck with their tech support, but they seem to think Apple is a bad word. Several times, I was told to contact Apple support for their connectivity problems. Yeesh.
 
If they limit you to having one MAC connected at a time, get a router that does MAC cloning. You then type in the MAC of your PC (or Mac) and connect both machines to the router. To Comcast it will look like one machine is on all the time. Very easy to do.
 
Comcast, in Phila, PA doesn't care how many machines you have connected, they just won't deal with a router. If you ever need service, just connect one machine directly to the cable modem.
 
Perhaps this is redundant for most, but I think this discussion sounds confusing without pointing out that MAC is referring to the address of your network adapter...while your Mac may just be one computer on your LAN that is assigned that address. With the same Netgear Router that AdmiralAK has, all 3 of my machines function under one MAC, so Comcast is off my back.
 
I have one windows XP PC (a gateway) and one Powerbook

this is the connection scheme
Modem --(ethernet)--> Router --(ethernet) --> PC
and to connect to the mac |---(Airport)--> Mac
(sorry my ASCII art is horrible)

On the router I have it acting as a DHCP server (you need to plug in a computer, log-into the router, and enable this option)

On the mac and the PC I have the internet options to be DHCP. Gave the PC a reboot, turned airport on on the mac, and voila, ready to go :)
 
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