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FIOS Router keeps freezing up - even replacement router does it too!

Hi all,

I've had FIOS for a month or two. Switched over from Comcast which I was on for probably 8 years.

I have the Actiontec Router. It keeps freezing up on me daily, if not several times per day. Wireless internet is gone, wired connections are gone and I can't even ping the router. If I try to type http://192.168.1.1 in my browser, it doesn't even pull up the login screen. If I try to run the FIOS Connection Wizard it gets up to the point where it says it can't login to the router and it keeps asking me for the admin username and password.

A simple reboot of the router brings things back online for a while but this is not a solution. Though one time I had to do a hard reset in order to get thing back online.

I'm running all default settings, DHCP etc. The only thing I changed was the wireless encryption which I set to WPA2 with AES.

I have probably 5 wireless devices (2 laptops, Zune, Iphone, Tivo) and wired into the router is my Dell XPS PC, my HP Media Smart Server (Windows Home Server), a line into my homes wired ethernet jack, and a powerline networking device which connects to my Xbox 360 on the other end. All of this worked fine on my Comcast system along with a Linksys router for wireless.

Also i'm frequently getting disconnected briefly from Xbox Live gaming sessions - I'll get kicked out of the matchmaking room in Call of Duty for example.

I did a chat support session with FIOS support last week and they shipped me a new router. I connected the router a couple days ago and I'm still having the same issue.

I'm going to talk to tech support again but I wanted to post here for advice as well.

Thanks,

Jason

Comments

prisaz

There have been many complaints about the small NAT table in the Actiontec router causing issues with Peer to peer networking which is used heavily in gaming. One thing you could try is seeing if there is a network setting in the game that limits the simultaneous permitted connections. If you set that down to a reasonable amout the router will stop locking up. Or have the ONT switched from COAX to Ethernet and use your own router with the actiontec piggy backed on to it for TV only. If you do this you will loose remote access to the TV STBs from the web. There are many ways to configure your own router if you wish to go this route.

It could also be one of your devices connecting to the router. You could unplug them one at a time and see if the router stops locking up.

If you do a search using the search feature at the top of this forums page, and seach for Small NAT, you will find many posting including this one.

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-Internet/Router-automatically-resetting/m-p/93822#M8355

I hope this information helps.

Jason_In_MD

Did a little google searching on the small nat table issue and some sites suggest that Rev E of the ActionTec doesn't have that problem any more. Have you heard anything about that? I do have a Rev E model.

See second post in this thread. http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r23343138-Working-around-actiontec-NAT-table

Jason

prisaz

@Jason_In_MD wrote:
Did a little google searching on the small nat table issue and some sites suggest that Rev E of the ActionTec doesn't have that problem any more. Have you heard anything about that? I do have a Rev E model.
See second post in this thread. http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r23343138-Working-around-actiontec-NAT-table
Jason

Have not heard of this. There was talk that the rev E would do wireless N, but I don't know. My Actiontec only does wireless and the TV STBs. The Actiontec wan plugs into the LAN that runs from my router box. The wireless can still hit my printer between the two networks, but my hardwired network can not hit the wireless devices. I could fix that if I wanted, by running the Actiontech as a bridge for wireless and MOCA. When I did that I set the DHCP off in the Actiontec and just plugged the LAN into my LAN. Also made sure both routers had a different IP address.

I have gone back to running IPCop Linux distribution on and older low power PC with 2 NICs and a 16 port 10/100 switch. It logs everything and shows every NAT table connection on every port. Something any store bought home router can't do. The IPCop software is back under new version development now because some people did not want it to die.

franko

Jason,

I am using Windows XP-Home. WPA encryption. Actiontec MI424-WR router.

When MS updated Windows XP with SP3, my wireless internet connections went haywire, sometimes connecting ok for a few minutes and sometimes not at all. Both on my Laptop and Desktop.

I spent months trying everything I could think of between suggestions from Microsoft and Symantec (as they pointed fingers at each other over software).

Finally figured out that the problem was that Windows XP(SP3) only works in WPA-2 mode and NOT WPA (aka WPA-1).

My Actiontec MI424-WR is an older model (Hardware Version A) and only works in WPA (aka WPA-1) and NOT WPA-2.

I called Verizon and tried to get a replacement MI424-WR that would work in WPA-2 mode and was told that they did not have any in stock and none in the pipeline.

I refused to downgrade my wireless to WEP (almost useless as a secure mode) so I bought a D-Link DIR-655 router and connected it up via the WAN connection using a null-modem cable and optioned it as a Wireless Access Point in WPA-2 mode.

I then shut down my wireless transmission on the Actiontec router.

I also made sure that I used Windows to control the wireless connection and not that of the Wireless adapter vendor.

Both computers have been purring like happy kittens since that day over a year ago.

I get a screen bubble message once each day above the Task bar at the Wireless Icon ( usually when I am away from the PC) that says I am connected. If the router is rebooting once a day (Verizon?) everyting continues to work okay and I have never experienced any trouble with wireless connectivity.

One thing you might watch out for. The upper half of the band used for the wireless connection is secondarily shared with the Amateur Radio service and subject to interference (they can use high power). Suggest you use one of the lower channels.

franko

I made an error on my prevous posting about the Router Frequencies/Channels.

The applicable Amateur Radio (Ham) Band runs 2390 - 2450 MHz which overlaps the Lower IEEE 802.11 channels..

Therefore to avoid interference from Hams, you should use the Upper channels of the router (9-11).

viafax999

@franko wrote:
Jason,
I refused to downgrade my wireless to WEP (almost useless as a secure mode) so I bought a D-Link DIR-655 router and connected it up via the WAN connection using a null-modem cable and optioned it as a Wireless Access Point in WPA-2 mode.
I then shut down my wireless transmission on the Actiontec router.

Huh??

A null modem cable is a serial cable, there is no serial port on a dir-655 as it's an ethernet router not a modem.

If you connected it up to the WAN port you used a regular cat5 or cat6 ethernet cable.

franko

A Rose is a Rose.

Call it a Null WAN Cable if you wish. It is also called a CROSS-OVER cable. In the OLD days of digital comms the term Null Modem Cable was used to indicate "Cross-Over" wired pins (i.e. SD-RD, RD-SD, etc.).

The Cat-5 or Cat-6 cable is used to specify the characteristics of the cable construction, mainly to avoid cross-talk between data pairs, Not the pin-outs.

I would suggest that the Data flow in a Wan connection is SERIAL, not PARALLEL.

I used Model Nr N010-010-GY
Wiring Conn A pin - Conn B pin: 1-3, 3-1, 6-2, 2-6

Frank O

(Retired Digital Comm Systems Engineer)

viafax999

Yes, a crossover cable is a cable wired T-568a on one end and T-568b on the other.

Rather a pointless thing to do as a regular ethernet patch cable would have worked just as well - you didn't say what you connected to the dir-655 but I assume it was one of the VZ lan ports.

Bestunclerich

I have the same freezing and I tracked it down to high upload speed on a wired port, like your xbox. I configured the port to run at 10mb full duplex and that prevented the free up. Still I would like to run the port at 100mb full duplex. I have not figured out how to get to the true cause yet

[Deleted User]

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