Comments on: Comcast Blocking DD-WRT?

By: roman@wlan

roman@wlan — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:53:10 +0000

Does my mac adresse change if I upgrade my computer with some other hardware? For example change the graphic card?

By: a

Mon, 25 May 2009 03:25:39 +0000

I just came back from vacation to find my comcast service dead, and as others have described I was able to get online with my pc directly connected to the modem, but not with my dd-wrt router in between, even with the PC’s MAC address cloned. What finally got it working was actually resetting the router’s MAC address to its original factory MAC (printed on the label on the bottom).

By: John Mac

John Mac — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 23:51:51 +0000

I’ve just ran into this problem after calling scumcast about slow upload speeds. They sent out a technician(I’ve seen better demeanors on a raging bull – like I was the slime of the earth.) who after an hour of poking around outside of my house, came in and said it must be my modem. I have to buy a new modem. I got the Motorola Surfboard 5100 he told me works best, and the one he demonstrated worked just fine for him.
I did just that and now after two weeks of crappy connectivity I have lost all access to my internal Zonealarm wireless router. I can only connect directly to the Motorola with one PC.
I called the pleasant people at technical support and explained the issue, to which they started to laugh and said they could send out another technician and bill me the requisite $20, like the last time when they did not fix anything, only made it worse.
If anyone has a clue please give me a hint.

Thanks,

By: Peter B.

Peter B. — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:14:54 +0000

I recently had my modem replaced after countless yelling at comcast. The original RCA brand modem was replaced with a Motorola modem and my issues are resolved. I had updated to v2.4-sp1 recently from v2.3 and I see vast improvements there also (although that didn’t fix my problem).

By: JJ

JJ — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:49:15 +0000

I’ve been experiencing this problem, however I believe there is something in dd-wrt firmware that does not work with Comcast. I have been using
an old d-link 614+ router for years with Comcast and it started giving me problems so I got a wrt54g and it has been working fine for the last year.
I recently flashed it with the dd-wrt v24 sp1 and it will not recieve a DHCP lease from comcast. It is not a MAC address issue either because I
have been using the router fine with the original firmware and I didn’t have a problem using a my computer directly connected to the cable modem
either. Perhaps it has something to do with the modem forwarding the dhcp requests? It is really frustrating. I hope someone can find a definitive answer to this issue.

By: Peter B

Peter B — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 05:12:29 +0000

FYI… The cable modems record the MAC address of the first device it sees on the LAN interface. So if you had it connected to your PC, that is why your PC’s MAC cloned on your router will fix the problem.

DD-WRT does not have a fixed software MAC… It will use the MAC address for your hardware.
(Unless you use the clone feature, that is.)

What those crafty twits have done now is what really got me. Power cycling the modem did not reset the MAC address lock-in as previous modems would. You need to follow the “eMTA” reset procedure to reset the MAC address lock-in. They include using a pencil, paperclip, or other pointed object, depress the recessed ‘reset’ button until the lights on the front of the modem turn off. This process reloads the modem’s management data from Crapcast’s server. The process can take up to five minutes.

By: Hello 2009 and New Years Resolutions | automaticable

Hello 2009 and New Years Resolutions | automaticable — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:32:26 +0000

[...] Comcast Blocking DD-WRT? [...]

By: Wanderlei

Wanderlei — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:11:00 +0000

I also have a Motorola Surfboard modem. Someone had suggested a hard reboot of that might have helped too. Haven’t tried it, since the MAC Address Clone worked. Just an FYI.

By: Wanderlei

Wanderlei — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:01:11 +0000

I had the same problem today. I have a Linksys WRT54GS, and all of the sudden it stopped working. I just did the MAC Address Clone (from the original PC to the router) and it seems to be working again…for now. Thanks for the info.

By: Dag Magnuson

Dag Magnuson — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 16:52:13 +0000

Communistcast is indeed requiring the MAC address of the interface the service was first registered with. This appears to have started sometime around mid 2008. My only guess is that Day D. above is correct about the attempt to suck extra $$ out of people. And for the record, I have been a network engineer for the past 10 years.