Bridging Networks Problem

russ_watters

I have Verizon FIOS and the service is great, but along with that service, they provide a crappy router (Actiontec MI424) that you must use. I would like to just use it as the internet connection and use my Linksys WRT160N to network my devices together inside my house. Unfortunately, they don't play nice together.

I am able to successfully establish a connection between the Linksys and Actiontec routers for about 5 seconds at a time before the connection drops. In the Linksys administration applet, I can refresh my IP address, load a website or two, then *poof*, connection gone.

Anyone have any idea why this would happen?

JaredJames

Right, I have a dual router setup and had similar problems.

Firstly, your 'good' router, does it have dedicated internet in ethernet port?

The basic solution I found is to disable DHCP on the second (the good) router and plug the internet in cable (the cable from the first router) into a standard ethernet port not the internet in one. This then forces the first router to distrubute the ip addresses and the second one simply acts as an extension of the first.

If you don't disable DHCP, they both try to generate IP addresses which caused problems for me.

That should solve it, if not I have a few other things to try.

MATLABdude

Is your MAC address registered with the ISP? Some ISPs still have one-computer, one-IP policies (even though they frequently provide routers, tout the "household experience", etc. etc.) Many routers allow you to clone a MAC address--if your computer works when you plug it in directly to their router/modem/whatsit, it might be worth it to try to clone the MAC address of the computer for the router you WANT to use.

According to the website, there's an actual "Internet" uplink port, but I assume that you've got that plugged in and going to your Actiontec already (using a known good ethernet cable)?
http://homesupport.cisco.com/en-us/wireless/lbc/WRT160N

russ_watters

Meh, I should have searched first - Verizon had a good tutorial and this was basically the solution:

JaredJames

Well, I'm glad the potential for me to help you was there...