Resetting ActionTech MI424-WR to Original-FiOS-Technician-Installed Settings

[Biegs1]

Hi,

I just had my FiOS triple play installed and setup earlier today, and things were working well.  When I went to the "My Network" area of the router admin site, I saw a nice healthy list of connected devices: some by ehternet, some by wireless, and my two set-top boxes by Coax.

I began renaming the devices, including the set-top boxes, to friendlier names so that I could more effectively administer my home network.  My next attempted step was start resetting the devices from being given dynamic IPs from the router to static IPs.  What drove me to do this is the importance to me of being able to setup shares and consistent pointers to specific machines on my network, without the risk that when the router goes down and comes back up, my IPs are no longer assigned the way they were previously.

Well, unfortunately, whatever I tried didn't work, so I reset the router to the defaults.  Unfortunately, my set-top-boxes and their coax connections are no longer showing up properly in "my network," and it's not possible for me to rename them anymore.  As far as I can tell, the set top boxes are still working and still connected, since I can access my DVR from the internet (as well as the other set top box) and both TVs are working fine. 

So my question are this:

-How do I restore the router's configuration to the way it was when the FiOS technician left me today?  (He ran a whole bunch of setup stuff, which I guess set params on the router beyond the "Defaults.")

-If I can't restore the originally-installed config, then have I really lost anything, and if not, then why is the current config different?  I'm guessing it was definitely optimized BEFORE and it not anymore...

-If/when I finally get the restore performed, how do I properly setup static IP addresses?

Thanks in advance,

Biegs

[Anti-Phish1]

1)  The installers script activates your account, install some support tools on your PC and runs the FIOS optimizer on your PC and may also change the default password to the router's serial number.  Beyond that, I'm not aware of any tweaks that it does to the router settings.  When a hard reset is done on the router, you will be prompted to set a new password the first time you connect to the router.

2)  The only changes between the factory default config and what you have now are what you have have changed, so no you won't lose anything.  You say the STBs don't show up properly.  I'm not sure what you mean by that.  I'm guessing they are probably operating on the old DHCP lease they had before the router reset.  Simply reboot (unplug the power cord) the STBs and they should obtain a new DHCP lease and then they will show up properly. 

3)  True static IP addresses are set at the device and not in the router.  The Actiontec supports DHCP Reservations.  This allows the DHCP server in the router to assign a specific IP address to a device based on it's MAC address in response to a DHCP request from a device.

• Click on the Advanced icon
• Select IP Address Distribution
• Click on Connection List.  You will see another view of devices on your network.  If a device appears in the list as dynamic and active and is not at the IP address you want, you will have to remove the device from the network (so it does not request a new DHCP lease) and delete the entry.
• If a device does not appear in the list, click on New Static Connection at the bottom.
• Enter the desired host name, IP address and the MAC address of the device.
• Apply

Rinse and repeat of each additional device.

[viafax999]

Go into router admin Advanced and select  Ip Address Distribution

Select Network (home/Office)

Change Start and/or End Ip addresses to exclude some number of ip addresses

e.g. mine says start 192.168.1.230 and end 192.168.1.250 - I use the lower end for pc,s printers etc. and the upper end for routers.

Say Apply and OK

Now go into the nic settings of the devices you want to be static and change the settings to be static within the excluded ranges from above and set the gateway and dns server address to be 192.168.1.1, alternatively use public DNS server addresses here.

No other changes are needed on the router, the devices will show up static and the original dhcp reservations will be freed up.

The STB's and other devices will re-appears in your network list after a short while.

[lasagna]

No reconfiguration for the STB's is required ... they'll come back eventually.   If you want to expedite the process, simply power cycle the router and wait for it to come back online and then power cycle each STB so that they ask for a new IP address via DHCP from the router.  

Do NOT attempt to give the STB's static addresses -- there are special QOS settings assigned to the boxes by the router and you'll see them always DHCP and address in the 192.168.1.100-105 range.  Do NOT use this range of addresses for any statically assigned devices you may have and do not change the subnet address (192.168.1.x) -- while it shouldn't matter, the Verizon support folks don't seem to understand if you change it and some of the software seems to act up on the STB's and their head end provisioning if you change the subnet.  So, learn to live with 192.168.1.x.

For your other devices, Go into the router "Advanced -> IP Distribution -> Connection List".   Find the device you want to give a permanent DHCP reservation to and note it's MAC address.    If you don't care what IP the device has, just as long as it stays static at the currently assigned value, click on the "Edit" button next to the device (Window with a pencil) in the action column and then select "Static Lease Type" on the next screen and apply.   If you want to assign an address manually or give the device a specific name, delete the item entirely (windows with a red X in the action column) and then select "New Static Connection" at the bottom of the screen.   Provide the necessary information choosing a valid IP address on the subnet that is presently NOT in use and which is not in the special STB range of 192.168.1.100-105  (I put all my reservations in the 192.168.1.200 and above range and change the DHCP scope on the router to not assign addresses automatically above 199).

Once done, Apply everything until you get back to the main screen and then go to the device and do a DHCP release (ipconfig /release on a window box) and renew (ipconfig /renew) and your machine should pick up the reservation address you provided.