Mac Forum / General / Networking / September 2005

Home network: G4/400 Sawtooth (OSX)/ iMac (OS9) / PC (XP)
I've had a Linksys BEFSR11 for a few years and it's been pretty
trouble-free. In the last few days, however, it's been acting like it's
on its way out (dropped connections out of the blue--when I connect
directly to cable modem I can get on, so I know the router is the
problem). Normally, when this happens, resetting the modem and router
fixes the problem (unplugging, then replugging or restarting), but that
wasn't working at all, so before running out to buy a new router, I
decided to push the reset button and reapply the settings in its web
setup. That fixed it (and my connection was way zippier than normal);
but the connection dropped again two hours later. Not quite ready to buy
a new one, I upgraded the firmware to the latest--which didn't fix the
problem, so I went back to the version that had been working flawlessly
since 2002 (1.44.2). I went to the router setup to re-enter the
settings, including cloning its MAC Address to the same as my G4's MAC
Address, which is the way it's been for years, per my ISP's instructions
(it wouldn't work without cloning). I could get connected, but couldn't
get UseNet or email (Eudora) and web pages were slow-loading and images
came in only half way; however, the connection on the other Mac and the
PC on the network was flawless. Next, I got the hare-brained idea to try
it without cloning the address, and it's working fine again! Can a
network guru out there tell me why it's working with its own MAC Address
all of a sudden, when it insisted on being cloned for the past four
years? Does it mean that my ISP has changed its setup?