Setup:
Netgear WNDR3700v3, firmware version V1.0.0.22_1.0.17, this connects to an Arris 722G EMTA for Comcast/Xfinity VOIP and HSI.
Clients currently consist of three PC's connected directly via ethernet, a second router, a WNR3500L from SamKnows, connected via eithernet running in bridged mode. Several wireless devices: Toshiba L875 laptop, two kindle readers, Touch and Fire, an Acer tablet, and some sort of Android smartphone.
The issue I am having - at completely random times, all wireless devices lose the ability to connect to the Internet, basically all external routing stops. It doesn't matter which router they are connect to. Some will be on the 3500 and some will be on the 3700, all lose Internet.
When this happens it happens to every wireless device regardless if they were already connected or were just connected via wireless. The wireless connections are still active, all show a strong signal, and in fact each wireless device is able to ping or connect to any other device on the local network, wired or wireless.
When this is happening the three wired PCs are just fine - they can reach the Internet no problem. And the router itself shows that everything is connected fine and not reporting any problem. Nothing in the log either.
Now, I'm wondering if there could be some sort of incompatibility between the Arris and Netgear - this problem first reared it's head last May when I added Comcast Voice, which lead to the installation of the Arris emta..
At the time I was also running a Netgear WNR3500L that came via the FCC SamKnows program. That router too would experience the loss of Internet to wireless devices. At the time it was thought the router was defective, not knowing if I would get a replacement (I eventually did), I bought the 3700 router. Initially this would happen maybe once a month or so, in the past month it's been at best every other day.
What I did so far.. I set each router to each use a different, unused channel - thanks to an app called Wifi Analyzer I could discover that of the dozen or so networks I can see, all were using channel 6. The analyzer tells me on my routers channels 10 and 11 are the strongest and unused, so the 3500 is on channel 10 and the 3700 on channel 11. The problem still happens.
I eliminated the second wireless router altogether, disconnected and unplugged. Still no luck.
Something is causing routing to the Internet to fail for only wireless devices, and it appears that for now, the only thing that fixes this is to reboot the WNDR3700.
As for settings, DNS.. lookups will naturally fail on a wireless because they cannot reach the external server, however, for example on my laptop if I set the DNS server to be either the router or to the named running on my other wired PC I can go dns lookups just fine - because the wired devices can still reach the Internet..
traceroutes - on the wireless side they will reach my router's gateway address but go no further..
There is no MAC blocking or filtering going on. I even tried giving some of my wireless devices static IPs to bypass the DHCP server with no luck.
Let's see what else, QOS is turned off, I also disabled ipv6 to rule out any conflict there. Nothing seems to make a difference, other than a reboot of the 3700 and only the 3700.
Not sure what else to do short of getting yet another router. I do have a spare, another WNR3500L that came from SamKnows - that one they sent 3 months after sending me the 1st replacement, that one is still sitting shrinkwrapped in the box.. Thinking maybe loading DD-WRT and giving that a go..
I am now at a loss what else could be causing this other than my router(s) not playing well with Comcast..
Anyone else have any ideas?
Netgear WNDR3700v3, firmware version V1.0.0.22_1.0.17, this connects to an Arris 722G EMTA for Comcast/Xfinity VOIP and HSI.
Clients currently consist of three PC's connected directly via ethernet, a second router, a WNR3500L from SamKnows, connected via eithernet running in bridged mode. Several wireless devices: Toshiba L875 laptop, two kindle readers, Touch and Fire, an Acer tablet, and some sort of Android smartphone.
The issue I am having - at completely random times, all wireless devices lose the ability to connect to the Internet, basically all external routing stops. It doesn't matter which router they are connect to. Some will be on the 3500 and some will be on the 3700, all lose Internet.
When this happens it happens to every wireless device regardless if they were already connected or were just connected via wireless. The wireless connections are still active, all show a strong signal, and in fact each wireless device is able to ping or connect to any other device on the local network, wired or wireless.
When this is happening the three wired PCs are just fine - they can reach the Internet no problem. And the router itself shows that everything is connected fine and not reporting any problem. Nothing in the log either.
Now, I'm wondering if there could be some sort of incompatibility between the Arris and Netgear - this problem first reared it's head last May when I added Comcast Voice, which lead to the installation of the Arris emta..
At the time I was also running a Netgear WNR3500L that came via the FCC SamKnows program. That router too would experience the loss of Internet to wireless devices. At the time it was thought the router was defective, not knowing if I would get a replacement (I eventually did), I bought the 3700 router. Initially this would happen maybe once a month or so, in the past month it's been at best every other day.
What I did so far.. I set each router to each use a different, unused channel - thanks to an app called Wifi Analyzer I could discover that of the dozen or so networks I can see, all were using channel 6. The analyzer tells me on my routers channels 10 and 11 are the strongest and unused, so the 3500 is on channel 10 and the 3700 on channel 11. The problem still happens.
I eliminated the second wireless router altogether, disconnected and unplugged. Still no luck.
Something is causing routing to the Internet to fail for only wireless devices, and it appears that for now, the only thing that fixes this is to reboot the WNDR3700.
As for settings, DNS.. lookups will naturally fail on a wireless because they cannot reach the external server, however, for example on my laptop if I set the DNS server to be either the router or to the named running on my other wired PC I can go dns lookups just fine - because the wired devices can still reach the Internet..
traceroutes - on the wireless side they will reach my router's gateway address but go no further..
There is no MAC blocking or filtering going on. I even tried giving some of my wireless devices static IPs to bypass the DHCP server with no luck.
Let's see what else, QOS is turned off, I also disabled ipv6 to rule out any conflict there. Nothing seems to make a difference, other than a reboot of the 3700 and only the 3700.
Not sure what else to do short of getting yet another router. I do have a spare, another WNR3500L that came from SamKnows - that one they sent 3 months after sending me the 1st replacement, that one is still sitting shrinkwrapped in the box.. Thinking maybe loading DD-WRT and giving that a go..
I am now at a loss what else could be causing this other than my router(s) not playing well with Comcast..
Anyone else have any ideas?