Help me troubleshoot my CableOne broadband connection...

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svet-am

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We're using CableOne.NET at my mom's house. She's got the 1/2 T1 account, allowing us to have up to 3 IP addresses accessing the cable connection via either a hub or a router. They allocate the IP addresses based on the number of unique MAC addresses online on the account at any given time.

In our case, we're using an Intel InBusiness 10bT hub. My mom's PC is a Win2k (SP4) box that is working fine. My brother's box is a WinXP Pro box (SP1) and it works fine.

So far along the way, everything has worked fine with just the two PCs. However, I brought my PC home for holiday and plugged it into the hub with the expectation of doing the simple CableOne.NET 'EULA Agreement Page' to register my MAC address and allocate an IP for my PC.

However, things have gone really awry. I plugged my PC in and booted it up. I open up IE and nothing. No IP address, nothing. It just reverted to the perenial 192.168.x.x address range.

I tried troubleshooting a few things on the PC related to NIC drivers and all, but nothing helped. In a last ditch effort, I plugged the PC directly into the cable modem (bypassing the hub) and voila it worked. Well, it's nice that it works that way, but defeats the purpose of the hub. However, while connected, I went ahead and did the EULA agreement in the hopes that maybe that will be my ticket. I connect it back to the hub and now it does something different.

Now, I get an IP address assigned, and I can telnet, SSH, and FTP from the command line, but I cannot access web pages via ANY browser (I've tried IE, Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera). When I try to load a web page, it says that it resolves the host, but it never loads the page.

Frustrated (and feeling like I suddenly need a re-install), I rip WinXP Pro off my box and install Win2k. Still nothing. Still troubleshooting, I go back to Win98. Nothing.

Thinking that somehow it's a Windows issue, I boot my Knoppix CD. Nothing. So, now I know that it's some bigger issue. Thinking it might be the NIC, I swap the NIC out. Same issue. Thinking now that it's the hub, I swap the hub out. Nothing. Getting desperate, I change out the ethernet cable. Nothing.

In all of these cases (including the retro Windows installs and the Knoppix boot), if I connect it directly to the Cable Modem it works.

So, now after many hours installing and re-installing, I'm back to WinXP Pro SP1 and curious as to what I should do now.

I've tried the WinSock XP fix and I've trimmed the networking stuff in XP as much as I can think to do.

I've also scanned for viruses with the latest Norton signatures and it turned up nothing.

Can anyone out there think of anything I've missed that I ought to try?

BTW, the normal NIC I use is an Intel Intelligent Server Adapter (the one with the i960 on board) and I swapped it with an EtherExpress Pro 100 B).

Thanks for any ideas.
 
I'm going to keep it simple...

do they use proxy servers? since everything else works, might be worth checking out
 
Nope. no proxies. Else, the other two computers woudn't work out of the box the way they do.
 
i'd venture to say that your hub is not a hub but a router. hub's don't assign ip address, and i am skeptical that your ISP is assigning a private, non-routable address. these days, routers ahve the ability to do DHCP

at any rate-

when you ftp, telnet, etc...

are you doing by name or ip?

it sounds as though you aren't getting the DNS server address for some reason. perhaps you could type it in manually.
 
The hub is definitely NOT a router. I've had it for about six years. It is just a simple 8port InBusiness hub.

It is most definitely NOT assigning IPs on its own.

As to the other point, I can FTP,SSH,Telnet via IP or hostname. Both work.

When I check the IP config information, the auto settings show that I am being assigned to use two different DNS servers. I can ping and traceroute both of them successfully. I can also ping and trace my gateway and DHCP hosts.

Any more ideas?
 
that is messed up, if you find the fix, post it please, I am very curious to know, I just wish I could help you out
 
For grins and giggles, I called CableOne.NET tech support several times this evening so that I could get different techs there to field my problem.

Each time I explained in the full detail in this thread the nature of our problem.

Not a single one of them was able to come up with even the remotest inkling of an idea.

I even spoke with 'lead' techs on more than one occassion.

I think this is a sign of the armageddon.....
 
You tried other ports on the hub? or the same ports the other computers are plugged into. Honestly if you can connect directly that really cuts out the computer or the modem service being the problem at that point. It only points to one thing being your problem and that would have to be something with the hub. Now I have no idea why a hub would cause this problem.

Also maybe it is the modem service if it's not allowing enough ip's for some reason. have you tried 2 computers hooked up. You and another and see if that makes anything work or not?
 
Yes, I have tried mixing and matching the ports on the hub.

Second, yes I have successfully had this working with two computers. As I stated in my original post, this setup is at my mom's house where she and my brother share the connection just fine.

During one of my conversations with the CableOne reps, I had them confirm that we do have the account that allows 3 IP addresses.

Also, as you will notice in my first post, it's not a matter of the computer not getting an IP. It *is* getting an IP, it's just not able to resolve anything through a web browser, though connections via Telnet, SSH, and FTP work fine from the command line (though I just tried and none of the GUI apps for these protocols work...)

Also about the hub, notice that I've swapped the hub out with a different one and played musical ports on the second hub, all with the same problem.
 
by 2 computers I mean yours and another one. Also I dont recall reading that the modem has been power cycled. Though I'm sure that step has been taken by now.

Does the machine still pull the same DNS when directly connected as it does now?

There is much else I can think of that you havent covered as being part of the problem. It only seems like the ip yo uare getting is a IP that have set to no be routable or something. I know where I work we do that to machines that are not allowed to be online. But on our end that also means the modem would not let any machine online.
 
I have tried with just my computer connected to the hub and that doesnt work either. I've tried with all three computers on the hub, that doesnt work. I've tried with just my computer and my mom's...no dice. And, of course, I've tried with just my computer and my brother's....and that doesnt work. However, my mom and my brother's computer work fine when connected to the hub at the same time. (I'm typing this from my mom's computer right now and my brother is online in his room).

So far as the IP address not being routable, I've already troubleshot that much. CableOne requires that you accept their EULA. Until you do, you are assigned an IP that is in one range (10.xxx.xxx.xxx). After you accept the EULA, you get an IP in a different range (24.xxx.xxx.xxx). I verified this behavior with the tech on the telephone.

Also, yes the power on the modem has been cycled many times by now. That was one of the first things we did.

Also, about the DNS, yes it pulls the same DNS server in both configurations. This behavior was also verified with the techs on the telephone.

What else you got?
 
Originally posted by nameless_centurian
maybe some C4?
Click to expand...

Maybe in a box to CableOne. My computer works fine when I'm at university....
 
fixed!

My mobo is an Abit KT7A-RAID and I was running a hacked BIOS that had ACPI turned off. I enabled ACPI so that I could test some USB functionality and *poof* now it works.

I've enabled/disabled ACPI to verify the behavior and it is the cause....

Now let's try and explain this one....
 
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