Replaced WRT54G w/ WRT54G2 now PAP2 stopped working

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 04, 2007 Posts: 13

I'll try to be concise, but it's been a long road over the past 2 weeks.

Original working (great!) setup:

Cable Modem provided by local ISP - Cablevision, plugged via cable into
Linksys WRT54G Router. 2 Wired PC's, 2 Wireless laptops & a wired PAP2 - all working great...I setup QoS on the router to always give highest priority to PAP2, I also have the "Boost version" of Optimum Online, I get 29.9 Mb/sec DL & 5.75 UL 24 hours a day. Stable for many months.

Then laptops stopped getting IP's. After some testing, I felt a wireless router replacement was my only choice. I was figuring a dead radio in the router. Wired PAP2 was never an issue, it never stopped working at this point.

I picked up a new Linksys WRT54G2, the newer version of the WRT54G.

I replaced the router ONLY, and got EVERYTHING humming along again. I copied my setup from the original WRT54G including MAC address filtering and QoS setup at the MAC address level.

2 Days later the PAP2 refused to connect to the web through the router. I tried swapping cables as well as ports on the router's switch. No go. I tried removing my QoS settings on the PAP2's MAC Address.

However, when I plug the PAP2 directly into the Cable Modem, it works perfectly. Anything I plug directly into Cable Modem works fine.

The only suggestion I've gotten it to setup MAC Address Cloning, but I didn't have that setup with the old router, and I'm at a loss as to why I need it, therefore I haven't tried that yet. I don't even know what MAC address I setup as the cloned one on the router.

Any direction / guidance will be a appreciated.

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

I assume that you've tried re-booting everything, bringing things up in the right order- modem, router, PAP2. If so, what happens if you plug one of your wired PCs into the same router port that you're using for the PAP2, and using the same ethernet cable? Does it connect to the internet OK?

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 04, 2007 Posts: 13

Steve48 wrote:

I assume that you've tried re-booting everything, bringing things up in the right order- modem, router, PAP2. If so, what happens if you plug one of your wired PCs into the same router port that you're using for the PAP2, and using the same ethernet cable? Does it connect to the internet OK?

Rebooted in correct order, swapped known good ethernet port & cat5 cable to PAP2, won't connect.

Swapped known good pc to original port where Vonage phone adapter was using Vonage cat5 cable, pc gets out to innaweb fine.

Removed QoS setting in router that used the PAP2's MAC. I had setup the PAP2 to always get priority. I had set call quality to highest setting (90).

In my mind, I'm convinced it's the router, maybe I'll swap back in the old WRT54G and see if that'll work.

In the meantime, I'm still open to any & all suggestions.

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 04, 2007 Posts: 13

OK, still no good.

Here's list of what I did: I swapped back in the old WRT54G, but that was a waste of time, I couldn't get any ports or wireless devices to connect.

I swapped back in the WRT54G2, and low and behold, EVERYTHING, including the PAP2 worked, I got dial tone.

Cleanup the mess & pack back up some boxes 15-20 minutes later, pick up phone to just listen to that beautiful, sweet dial tone and GASP! I'm getting that PAP2 message when it can't get out to the internet.

So, I was good for less than 1/2 hour.

The PAP2 is store-bought (BestBuy) back in mid December 2007, not even 6 months old.

The power light bink pattern on the PAP2:

blink on-off, blink on-off, blink on-off, pause, repeat.

Posts: 76 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: May 18, 2005 Posts: 76

Sounds like the router is the issue. When you went to put the old router back in the mix as a test did you reboot the modem? If not, might explain why nothing worked. Most modems need the reboot if you are swapping routers around since the modems go by the MAC address of the device that connects to them.

The G2 is the new/replacement router to the G series so who knows if there is something up with the new firmware on these and the PAP2 devices. Be interesting to see if you can get the old setup running again as a test.

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 04, 2007 Posts: 13

cid92 wrote:

Sounds like the router is the issue. When you went to put the old router back in the mix as a test did you reboot the modem? If not, might explain why nothing worked. Most modems need the reboot if you are swapping routers around since the modems go by the MAC address of the device that connects to them.

Ugh, I completely skipped that step, I'll try again tonight. I was tired. I'll swap the routers again, rebooting the cable modem this time, and see if I can get the PAP2 to stable and behave.

Thanks.

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 04, 2007 Posts: 13

If you're reading to see how it got resolved my setup had 2 seperate issues:

1) The new Linksys Network Advisor seems to be a problem. Whenever I ran this program, the PAP2 stopped talking to the network. This is 100% repeatable, I uninstalled the program.

2) The new router WRT54G2 appears to much more sensitive to boot sequence than the WRT54G. I had the Cable Modem, WRT54G & PAP2 on one outlet timer to automatically re-boot everything at the same time once every 24 hours. (I need this for my remote Corporate Access to work properly.) I have setup 3 timers now: All 3 devices turn off at the same time for 5 minutes, then the cable modem comes up, 5 minutes later the router comes up, 5 minutes after that the PAP2 comes up.

I've gone thru one re-boot sequence and everything is good.

Thanks to everyone for your help.

Posts: 76 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: May 18, 2005 Posts: 76

Good to hear it's working now. I was looking at the Network Advisor program yesterday and was debating installing it just to see what it does. Since I have a PAP2, I think I'll avoid this now to keep from having any potential problems.

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 04, 2007 Posts: 13

cid92 wrote:

Since I have a PAP2, I think I'll avoid this now to keep from having any potential problems.

Hey cid92, my PAP2 is a V2, the network advisor was the latest from Linksys, the PC is an older Intel P4, 2Gig RAM, fully patched XP Pro. Maybe a different OS might give you different results.

In my opinion, by not using it, the main feature you are missing is a pretty cool picture of your network. You could navigate around to different devices by clicking on their icon, but in order to make any router setup changes, the network advisor opened up a new browser window and you were brought into the familiar browser setup program.

Personally, I'll miss the cool picture and might entertain re-installing after a future router firmware upgrade.

BTW: 2 successful network reboots at home, no issues.