Charter HiSpeed Internet cable >>> Motorola SB6121 modem >>> Rosewill L600N router
Charter states that my connection is Dynamic, and I can vouch for that because if I unplug the modem for more than a minute or so it will come back with a different IP address than I had before. However, if I run an "automatic setup" on the router, sometimes it reports a Dynamic IP, but more often reports a Static IP. Once I get a connection, I lose DHCP from the modem in anywhere between 15 minutes and 8 hours. Yesterday I did a modem default reset through the browser and reboot of the router and it lasted almost 8 hours, but then dropped handshake again about 15 minutes after I went to bed so when I got up my network was again internet-less ( found this out through my router logs). I've tried doing default resets on the modem through a browser, soft resets on the modem through the browser, hard resets on the modem by unplugging power cable, and of course the same things on the router as well. When I do a reset and get access to the cable modem back, the logs keep seeing ranging errors and T3 errors, so I suspect the modem is timing out so the modem and the router are losing their "handshake". My network stays intact, as I have one computer hardwired in to the router and 4 wireless devices in my network. AFter losing internet, I can still see all my devices on my network using WNetWatcher, and on all the individual devices I see "strong" to "excellent" connection statuses with the router as well as their reserved assigned address in the status connection menu I get by right clicking the icon in the system tray. So I know my router is talking to my network devices, I just don't think the modem and router are talking correctly to each other after a set period of time, and I don't know if it is the routers' fault or the modems. From what I've seen from others' posts, the modem starts giving Ranging and T3 errors, times out, then the router loses access to the internet.
I have tried going to Charter and getting a new SB6121 modem to see if that was the trouble, but it has the same problems. My quandary is that running Google searches come up with both T3 timeout problems with the SB6121 on various IP Providers, as well as recent Newegg customer reviews griping about dropped connections on the L600N (but even then some of those could be from an SB6121?) so after a week and a half of troubleshooting I still can't figure out whether the cable modem is my problem or the router is. I have the Iron Egg guarantee that lets me go until the end of January for RMAs so I have time to figure this out, but my frustration level is BONKERS
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Can any networking gurus shed any light on this problem for me? Thanks!