So storm took out your cable box? Spike down the cable line burned the internals which then spewed noise over the LAN.<br><br>Matt R is quite right that you will _HAVE_ to use the provided router due to connection "secret handshake" stuff.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 11:01 AM, Michael B. Trausch <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mike@trausch.us">mike@trausch.us</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
So I just had a nearly 24 hour outage on my cable services. The root<br>
cause? Defective hardware: a condition existed on my home network that<br>
triggered the mandatory SMC network appliance (cable modem/router<br>
combination) to fail fantastically. Something caused my Linksys<br>
wireless access point to go wonky. This caused the SMC cable<br>
modem/router combination to just stop working.<br>
<br>
This tells me three things.<br>
<br>
#1, something is very wrong with the design of the SMC box. It does not<br>
isolate trouble to a single port as it should. Anything that does not<br>
comply with the Ethernet standard, or anything that is not functioning<br>
properly according to the Ethernet standard, should _not_ cause the box<br>
to lock up, drop its DOCSIS connections, and do nothing.<br>
<br>
#2, the internal switch on the device must be bridging the four external<br>
Ethernet ports together with an Ethernet port (virtual or otherwise)<br>
internal to the device that represents the DOCSIS side of the modem.<br>
This is probably why the failure of _ONE_ device on my network caused<br>
the whole thing to go "tango uniform". I'd be willing to bet that the<br>
switch treats the USB port on the device as another Ethernet port, too,<br>
but that's neither here nor there.<br>
<br>
#3, the multiport bridge on the inside of the device, or the software<br>
that drives it, or some combination of both, are very poorly designed<br>
and/or buggy. If I wanted troubles to propagate through my network I'd<br>
use a bloody stupid hub!<br>
<br>
I want this thing off my network. I want it off my network five years ago.<br>
<br>
Does someone here know a great deal about the cable network? I want to<br>
replace this.<br>
<br>
But in order to do so I need to understand a little more about how it<br>
works and how it gets my /28 to me. Is it possible to do something like<br>
use wireshark with a dongle of some sort that attaches to the coax, and<br>
can look at the traffic on the coax? Is it possible to buy a DOCSIS 3<br>
cable modem and clone the MAC address of another modem on the DOCSIS<br>
interface so that the cable company thinks that I'm still using the<br>
modem they gave me and won't just refuse to talk to my new cable modem<br>
(because AFAICT, "authentication" on the cable network consists of<br>
having the right MAC address).<br>
<br>
And why again is it that nobody seems to make DOCSIS 3 internal cable<br>
modems? Why do I have to have yet another AC→DC converter brick just to<br>
power a stupid external one? I really can't see an internal cable modem<br>
requiring more power than, say, a video card or maybe a couple of<br>
standard Ethernet cards.<br>
<br>
--- Mike<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>-- <br>James P. Kinney III<br>I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.<br><br><br>