Comcast silliness
 

ive got a cable modem hooked up to a wifi router. from the xp box i get perfect internet connectivity. from powerbook all i get is that comcast activation page (no mail, aim, etc...). i try to download the activation tool and i get a 404. everything was working 5 mins ago. all i did since then was restart the pb. both boxes are on the same subnet. please help. customer service was NO help.

If your Mac is connected via a router, then it should only "talking" directly to the router and ComCast wouldn't know about the Mac. Only the router would "talk" to Comcast.
So it seems that the router is not set up properly. Maybe it isn't giving out IP addresses (DHCP) and doing NAT. In that case, I'm guessing your XP machine is getting an IP address from ComCast and you only have rights to one (external) IP address so your Mac is left out.
Look again at the router setup.

What is the IP address on the two computers? They should be 192.168.x.x, most typically 192.168.1.10x but it could vary.

@hayne @ CAlvarez
 

yeah, i know all about networking and stuff. the internal network (192.168.1.*) works flawlessly. what is so confusing for me is that only one of my machines is getting the activation page. i figured that all of them should or none. as of right now i have to RDC into the xp box to get access to the web, but i cant connect to mail, aim or ssh from my powerbook (which i use for all my meaningful work.). dns for all domains responds with the same ip address.

Ideally you want the router to deal with whatever is on the activation page, not the computers behind the router. There's got to be some way to get the router and the Comcast box to do all the negotiating for Internet access. In my area I use Comcast behind a router and I'm always on the net, no activation necessary by any computer behind the router.

yeah, that's what i've been doing for the past 6 months or so. but today, i restart my pb and, bang, no internet.

CAlvarez asked you what the IP addresses were of your two computers. Please answer. Also, what is the IP address of the router?

Chris

Now I get it. See if you can get the DNS addresses off of the router and enter them in the Network preferences of the PB. Or try entering the router's local IP as the DNS for the Powerbook. This may not be the best long term solution but you will learn something if it works.

router = 192.168.1.1
xp = 192.168.1.10 (static)
pb = 192.168.1.100 (dhcp - reserved for the MAC of my airport card)
But, as i said before the house network is working perfectly, just no outside communication.
yeah i already tried that. didnt work.

OK. I believe that your router is set up to serve IP addresses properly. But I bet it isn't set to share the internet connection via Network Address Translation (NAT). The cable modem is happy serving internet to one computer. In your case that is the XP computer. When you try to get internet access from your Mac, the cable modem thinks it's talking to a different computer and wants to activate you.

You need to make the cable modem think the router is your computer. To do that you need to turn on NAT, or internet sharing on the router. Tell us more about the router, what brand/model?

Chris

Since it's only one computer that's having the problem, I'm wondering if it's pulling up a cached page. Have you cleared the cache and/or tried a different browser?

also check out what your IP range is set to inside the router's prefs. What kind of wi-fi router is it anyway?

clone the MAC number
 

What about setting the router to clone the MAC number of one computer. Then comcast will only see that computer.

Agree with chabig that it is most likely that somehow NAT got turned off on your router, although it is possible that Comcast is trying to do some DNS hostname hack to limit the number of computers you can have. Do they charge in your area for multiple computers?

Couple of questions:

1. What make/model access point are you using?
2. Is the XP box setup as the DMZ host on the router?
3. Did you recently install any "activation software" on XP?

Couple of possible solutions:
1. Manually point DNS to one of the open public DNS servers.
http://support.open-rsc.org/.servers/
2. The reason RDC probably fails for AIM, etc. is that all IP forwards are subject to the same firewall rules as the XP machine. Same thing applies for Apple "connection sharing". You need to open the appropriate ports on XP.

I have comcast also, they do not charge per computer, that i am aware of anyway.....I have 2 macs, and externally both have the same IP, internally the airport sets my laptop as .2 and the G5 as .3, i have all forwarding to .2 which once in .2 i can access the other computer.

When i got comcast, they hook up the hardware but give you no help doing the software install or configuring it, unless you want to pay them $150 ( that'll be a cold day in hell)

Anyway. which computer did you perform the install on, maybe you said already but if so i missed it, the PB, or the Windows machine? If you performed it on the windows machine, and the ip address changed on it recently, your PB might have grabbed the old internal one the windows machine had, and now comcast/the router/ and your PB are confused.....

I think the key thing is to NOT do the software install. There is nothing that Comcast gives you but spyware.

----

Spyware on a mac!!!! Dios mio!!!

Comcast doesn't allow multiple computers connected to the same modem. As a mater of fact, my daughter had her Comcast account disconnected because she swapped the cable from her PC to my granddaughter's iMac! Your best solution is to install a router (The Airport will work) with the MAC address cloned from the computer originally installed and connect the multiple computers through it. The modem can't tell the difference between a router and a computer. It will see only one computer connected.

According to a Comcast tech I talked to, the only MAC address they look at is the one on the cable modem, so you shouldn't need to spoof anything. I still keep my router spoofing my old machine's address though, just to be sure. ;)

Like I said, my stepdaughter was disconnected because another MAC address was logged in. That's the only way that they could have known she had connected a different computer.

I recently added cable Net to my Comcast account. The $149.00 service charge for Home Networking was not an option for me. (I had been an Earthlink user of DSL from when it was Mindspring and wanted to change lines but the service for my area is the Philippines and no one bothered to advise me that the NEW HomeNetworking requires devices that do not work with Macs.)

I did try the router (a Linksys) that I was using before and could not receive service on both an older 8600 with a Sonnet G4-800 upgrade and a Ti Book. The South Florida service people admitted they know virtually nothing about Macs...I was on my own.

I had a line problem, which is free service, and the Tech advised me to just switch Ethernet cables. I was in Radio Shack to pick up a remote A-B switch for the cable and stopped to look at the various routers, hubs, etc. The manager is pretty hip and asked what I was trying to achieve. Told him. Handed me a Linksys Cable/DSL Router with 4-Port Switch, model BEFSR41. I commented that Linksys does not support Macs and he replied that if I ever had set up DSL, I would know what to do - just follow my intuition.

Connected to the modem. Took me about 15 minutes to set up the 8600, running 9.1, and the Ti running 9.2.2 and 10.3.7 (sorry....8 will wait.). Only problem I have experienced is with the 8600 if I have a freeze and have to reboot. I have to open AppleTalk and set to Remote, save, open again and set to Ethernet and save. The synch lights are flashing, but the Mac won't connect if I don't go through the procedure. No problem with the Ti book.

I have carefully read my agreement and I cannot find where service is limited to one machine. I will go back and read one more time. May have overlooked it.

Comcast purchased AT&T, which had taken over from TCI, who took over from Storer. They have 4 different services in our county. Our service is restricted as to speed. Lousy cables, hurry-up patches so they could sell their digital service. Tech from another location told me that. I have been able to improve speed a bit by installing IPNetTuner and resetting the 32k OpenTransport limit to 63k.

Our lines should be "clean" by 2007. One of their services, purchased from Adelphia, delivers close to advertised 4Mbps. We get about 2.5Mbps.