Pppoe to dhct

[michaelkenward]

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@Danioakwood wrote:
The active connection does now say DHCP. However, still no internet.

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It may be that you have to find the Mac address that the ISP expects to see. For example, if they supplied you with a modem, you can read the details off that and try telling tour modem to use that Mac address.

In other words, in the diagram in the Netgear article, tell it to Use This Mac Address and feed in the one from their modem.

You could go back to the ISP, but their past help has not been that good.

[Danioakwood]

Ok, I see your guy's replies. I have to run out the door, but I've solved it....Kind of.

I took my old Netgear 300, applied the instructions from the Mac spoofing link that Michael provided earlier to it, hit test and now have internet working. So why won't it work with the d6200? I saw a reply that said power cycle. I shall try that when I get back home. Otherwise, I think they broke my 6200 some how. I'll have to check more on it later this afternoon. Thanks soooooooooooo much you guys for all the help and I'll come back to read the replies better later. Totally need to run now. Fustrating as this has been, it was fun now that I have it working. I have learned some new stuff and that's my favorite thing to do besides reading.

[michaelkenward]

I think we have found the problem. Your ISP expects to see a modem with a particular MAC address at the end of the line.

There are two ways to fix this. Maybe three.

• Tell your modem to emulate the old MAC address
• Kick your ISP up the rear end and tell it your new MAC address
• Tell it to reset your line to recognise the new modem

Try this:

• Find MAC address on back of old Netgear (300 isn't a model number, just a wifi speed thing)
• Enter that as the MAC address for the new modem to to "spoof"
• Try to connect

This saga proves to me that your ISP is run by dimwits. That you are not the only victim of this changeover is evidence that it is dreadful at communication and does not know how to respond to customers' questions.

If it works, sorry it took so long to get there. When you are connected, tell your ISP that you want a month's free access, more if you want to push them. They will have learnt as much from this process as you have. They should pay for the learning experience.

[Danioakwood]

Michael, here's the thing, it's my computer Mac address that it works on my old gateway, but it won't on the new one. I did try using the Mac address of the old Netgear on the new one and that didn't work. I also power cycled everything and tried the computer Mac address again, but no go.

I'm sorry for the newbness here, but I am learning and really appreciate the help. I knew enough to get myself hooked up before and lock my wifi when I connected new modem/routers. I only had to do that once and a great while. I've never really had a problem like this that was beyond my ability to find the answers myself or beyond my basic/simple knowledge at least. Fustrating, but definitely a learning experience. Thanks.

[michaelkenward]

I'm afraid it is back to "support". Puzzling. We seem to have got somewhere, but fell at the last hurdle.

After all that playing around, did you factory reset before making the changes that we stumbled across at the end of the path?

[Danioakwood]

Michael, yes, confusing. I did some searching on the net last night, but found nothing.

No, I did not do a factory reset since I found the partial solution, but I had done a factory reset two days ago and I don't think anything had been changed or imputed in that time. This afternoon I'll factory reset it again anyways. I'm also going to copy all the basic settings from the gateway that's working and compare/imput in to the new nonworking one. Maybe there is something I'm missing or just not seeing.

[Danioakwood]

Solved.
A combination of not knowing how to change it to DHCP, not having the basic settings to imput (specifically the vpi number), and absolutely horrific TDS customer service had made an otherwise easy fix to a complicated mess.

Logging into router:
On the internet page under the basic tab, changing to "no log in" from TDS previously required log in changes it from Pppoe/pppoa to their now required DHCP (my learned something new from this experience). Also, on the same page, the area that says IP Internet Address needs the option "get dynamically" and the "Domain Name Server" needs to be "Get automatically from ISP". The "router Mac address" used my computer Mac address.

Now, as stated earlier, I was able to get my old Netgear working with the above settings, but not my newer one (which I was using lately). So I took a look at all the basic settings on the old one and copied them down and compared them to the settings on the newer one. At first I couldn't access the menu items on the advance tab. I did another hard reset on D6200 and cleared browser cache, fixed. I proceeded to check the basic settings and noticed that the only thing that was wrong was the vci #. I corrected that and done, internet was up.

So Antinode had it that without those basic settings, no internet. I had did a hard reset on that gateway several times, which indeed, wipes out those basic settings.

Now, I don't think it would have been so difficult for TDS to have told me "change the option that says log in to no log in, get dynamically, get automatically, use computer mac, and in case you have additional problems (maybe from doing a reset) here's the basic settings (specifically the vci #.

But what do I know. It's fixed now. They can kiss my bottom for their incredibly unhelpful CS and we are still considering going to satellite if we find anyone near us who has it and likes it better. It's completely flat and open here, so it might work.

Thanks Michael and Antinode for the help and replies. A learning experience for sure, but a good one I suppose. I hope I can pay it forward and help someone on here. 🙂

[antinode]

> [...] use computer mac, [...]

   Did you ever determine that anyone cares what the router's (WAN) MAC
address is?  (I'm still betting against it, but I'm always open to
actual evidence.)

[gjh42]

Such timing! Just before you posted this, I gave up and called Netgear tech support because I couldn't get chat support to load on slow connection. $97 (out of warranty) and an hour plus later, I got the same result after many false detours and repeats. tDS should have given better info on their change, and the Netgear rep should have had a quicker idea of how to fix it.

[gjh42]

By the way, I used option 3 (the router's MAC address) on the rep's advice and it worked.

[Danioakwood]

Antinode, no, I didn't, but I bet you're right. I didn't test it out to see if it mattered. What does matter is that the process I went through at that particular time helped me to have an "ah ha" moment in understanding a bit more of what was in front of me and what it meant. I'm a hands on learner and reader. Give me a little direction and at some point I will be able to put two and two together.

Also, seeing how gjh42 just posted that she used her router's Mac....Then I guess it has been proven that it doesn't matter. 😉 Have a good weekend. Thanks again.

[antinode]

> [...] I used option 3 (the router's MAC address) on the rep's advice
> and it worked.

   Thanks for the extra info.  I'll keep waiting for any real evidence
that the MAC address matters to any DSL ISP.

   Although I know nothing, I can imagine that if PPP authorization is
not being used, then a MAC address might be useful, but I suspect that
tapping into a DSL line would be more disruptive (hence easier to
detect) than tapping into a cable-TV line, so I'd still expect a DSL ISP
not to care.

   If we're trying to figure out the required procedure, then keeping
irrelevant clutter (like MAC-address setting) out of it would be better.

[Danioakwood]

Oh gjh42, I'm happy you got it back up too, but sorry you had to pay for it. I knew mine was out of warranty or being able to call without paying for the help. I was either going to find a way to fix it or get rid of it. I might still get rid of it. Sorry I couldn't have gotten it figured out faster. However, yay, we are back up out here in the sticks for the time being lol! Have a great weekend!

[Danioakwood]

But there was more in that link that Michael shared then just about the Mac address. I had clicked the links within that link and read through them. It helped me in other ways, even if the Mac address meant nothing. You provided some earlier insight, but it was information that was above my level of understanding at that time. I didn't get it until later, which was still good because I could go back and make sense of of it.

Not one single person had a straight answer for me and that was also no thanks to my lack of understanding and knowledge, which in hindsight didn't help or the fact TDS wouldn't give me my settings when I asked. However, it was a learning experience for me and I'm thankful for the help that was given.