NIghthawk mr70 ISP sees no uplink

[mishabi]

Got brand new Nighthawk mr70 with 2 satellites purchased at costco. Trying to connect to a wall (this is a dorm), the light blinks blue, then turns yellow. No internet. However, when an old tp-link router is connected to the wall, and then the nighthawlk is connected to the tp-link, nighthawlk can get an ip and everything works fine.

When i called the IT services, I was told that they do not even see the nighthawlk connected. I was told that one reason is that nighthawlk might experience signal loss due to long cable running through the building.

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

Misha 

[michaelkenward]

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@mishabi wrote:

Got brand new Nighthawk mr70 with 2 satellites purchased at costco. Trying to connect to a wall (this is a dorm), the light blinks blue, then turns yellow.

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Campus networks are a law unto themself. They come in different shapes and sizes and aren't the easily configured systems that most people encounter with consumer grade kit like Netgear's routers, which expect to see a modem/gateway or ONT.

Do you know what is at the other end of your connection? If it is a router then you could try putting the MR70 into wireless access point (AP) mode.

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When i called the IT services, I was told that they do not even see the nighthawlk connected. I was told that one reason is that nighthawlk might experience signal loss due to long cable running through the building.

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Sounds like one of those "we don't have a clue to blame the user" responses that we see all the time.

[plemans]

@michaelkenward is correct. Campus networks tend to run their own business grade routing behind the scenes. 

the person you talked to in "campus IT" might have just been another student (fairly common to staff campus IT departments with students) who didn't know what needed to be done. 

Access point mode might fix it for you. Or usually there's a way to add your device to their allowed list. This is less likely as then it exposes their network to whatever you're doing and also puts them at risk if you're torrenting/streaming improper media. So they like their firewalls inspecting traffic first. 

[michaelkenward]

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@plemans wrote:

Access point mode might fix it for you.

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I've also suggested that to people on campus networks. But when you do that you hit this:

Disabled Features on the Router when set to AP Mode | Answer | NETGEAR Support

If the only way to get your router to work is in AP mode, that sort of confirms that there is a router somewhere upstream in the network.

If you then need to tweak things to achieve your objectives, then you'll have to get the people who manage the network to let you into the secrets.

It may just be that you can't do what you want. That's the downside of being on a network that doesn't play nicely with consumer grade routers.

Did you ever tell us what this "old tp-link router" is?

[mishabi]

Thank you all for replying. The current router is tp-link Archer c9. 

The IT services allows wired connections from specified mac addresses only. According to campus IT services one will need to register a computer mac address in the student portal and then the computer would be able to get an IP address. There is an ethernet port in each room for wired connections.

So we connected laptop to tp-link, changed the mac address of the tp-link to match the one of the computer and that was it. Campus IT issues the IP address and we were good to go. The wan ip is 10.x.x.x. and tp-link lan is 192.x.x.x. Works flawlessly.

Now doing exactly the same with the nighthawlk - dynamic ip + same mac address. the light blinks blue then turns solid yellow. 

The cable from the wall is connected to the internet port on the router.

Do not know what is behind the wall? A switch or a router? Why does this matter? Maybe there is a way to disable the feature where the nighthawlk expects to be connected to a modem?

Thanks all for fast replies.

Misha 

[michaelkenward]

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@mishabi wrote:

The wan ip is 10.x.x.x. and tp-link lan is 192.x.x.x. Works flawlessly.

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10.x.x.x is a clue that there is a router at the other end. The one with the 10.x.x.x. address, another private iP address which is not a WAN IP address.

That's why the tp-link picked 192.x.x.x.

If the MR70 works when you can plug the into the tp-link, why not stick with that?

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Do not know what is behind the wall? A switch or a router? Why does this matter?

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Because you then end up with two routers.

Two routers on your network can cause headaches. For example, you can end up with local address problems. Among other things, the other router can misdirect addresses that the Netgear router usually handles, such as routerlogin.net or the usual IP address for a router, 192.168.1.1.

This explains some of the other drawbacks.

What is Double NAT? | Answer | NETGEAR Support

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Maybe there is a way to disable the feature where the nighthawlk expects to be connected to a modem?

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There is indeed. (See previous messages.)

As @plemans has also said It is called wireless access point (AP) mode.

Whether it works for you depends on your campus network.

Have you talked to other people in the building? I bet you aren't the only one grappling with this issue.

[mishabi]

Thank you for your reply. In my tp-link i configured to get dynamic ip (this is a hint that there is a router behind the wall) which gives me 10.x.x.x. My local LAN is configured 192.168.8.1. Again, this configuration is copied exactly from tp-link to nighthawk, including the mac address which is required for authentication.

When i talked to IT they said that they do not see the nighthawk on the network. They asked me to switch back and forth between tp-link and nighthawk. they see tp-link uplink in about 30 seconds, but when doing same with nighthawk they see nothing. 

right now, nighthawk is connected to tp-link and it works, but i am trying to get right of one extra router, which just complicates the topology.

Misha 

[FURRYe38]

What happens if you set the LAN IP address on the MR70 to 192.168.70.1 and DHCP IP address pool range of .100 to .200. Apply the setting then power OFF the MR70 and TP Link router. Remove the TP-Link router from the wall jack and connect the MR70 to the wall jack and turn it ON? 

Also might ask of there router/switch that your wall jack could be rebooted as well after when you connect the MR to the wall jack. 

Be sure your using a good quality LAN cable between the wall jack and router. CAT6 is recommended. 

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@mishabi wrote:

Thank you for your reply. In my tp-link i configured to get dynamic ip (this is a hint that there is a router behind the wall) which gives me 10.x.x.x. My local LAN is configured 192.168.8.1. Again, this configuration is copied exactly from tp-link to nighthawk, including the mac address which is required for authentication.

When i talked to IT they said that they do not see the nighthawk on the network. They asked me to switch back and forth between tp-link and nighthawk. they see tp-link uplink in about 30 seconds, but when doing same with nighthawk they see nothing. 

right now, nighthawk is connected to tp-link and it works, but i am trying to get right of one extra router, which just complicates the topology.

Misha 

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