Random

Posted on October 2nd, 2007 in Blogging, Tech by Justin

So, last night around 10:00pm I lose my internet connection. TV is fine, internet is out. Strange. I chalk it up to a random error and figure it’ll go away. By midnight it wasn’t back on, so I started trouble shooting. I need that internet connection to do my job, so it’s important.

I fight with it for a while and determine my wireless router can’t get a lease from Charter’s DHCP server. This is bugging me. Status lights on the modem are fine, but I still can’t get a connection. I call it quits.

I get up around 8:00am and start working on it again. This time I plug my laptop right into the modem and I get a lease. Progress. So, I try the wireless router again: it works! I walk upstairs, start to use my work computer, and the internet connection dies. Repeat with the same results.

This is ticking me off. I start to think maybe Charter pushed a firmware update to my modem to keep it from playing nicely with wireless routers. Yeah yeah, I’m a conspiracy nut, remember?

Could be a bug in the DHCP implementation of my router though, and maybe Charter just did an upgrade on their end. Solution: Try a different router. That should be easy, I’ve got a spare… that I gave to my younger brother last night.

So, I call him up this morning, ask if I can take that back for a little bit, and he’s OK with that. Fire up the Jeep, pick up old router, start driving back to my place and a light bulb appears above my head.

When I first got my cable internet installed the first machine on the network was my Macbook laptop. When I configured the first modem I had to clone the MAC address of the laptop on the router. That address is used during the DHCP process. When I gave my brother that router it came preconfigured with my MAC address and he’s using the same ISP as me! Sure enough, when I got home my network was fine, just because I disconnected him from their network and we stopped fighting over a DHCP lease assigned to that MAC!

Hah!

Okay, now I gotta get to work. This whole ordeal set me back a little bit today and I’ve got a deadline here.