Problems with fibre and HG659b

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tigercorp

668 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 81

#214795 29-May-2017 09:38

Hi all, I've a strange one happening with my HG659b where all devices (wired and wireless) regularly lose connectivity to the router.

The lights on the router are all green as per usual but I can't ping it even if I manually set my wired connection to a static IP with correct gateway. The problem goes away after power cycling the router.

I was originally with Bigpipe vdsl on router1 (HG659b) which was incredibly stable but as soon as we moved to Fibre a couple of months ago this problem started. Tried troubleshooting with Bigpipe support, they concluded router hardware problem and swapped to router2 but the problem remained.

Didn't want to revisit Bigpipe support so moved to Spark and got router3 - same problem.

So its seems that its a local problem but it I have no idea what to check. The problem happened just now so I tried plugging my laptop directly into the ONT but it doesn't pick up an IP - should it?? Can anyone suggest anywhere else to look?

DarkShadow

1647 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 656

#1790945 29-May-2017 09:45

tigercorp:

plugging my laptop directly into the ONT but it doesn't pick up an IP - should it??

It won't, you'll need to set VLAN 10 on your network card and start a PPPoE dialer on your laptop.

Aredwood

3885 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1749

#1792752 1-Jun-2017 00:38

DarkShadow:

tigercorp:

plugging my laptop directly into the ONT but it doesn't pick up an IP - should it??

It won't, you'll need to set VLAN 10 on your network card and start a PPPoE dialer on your laptop.

If you do do this make sure your computer has a firewall running that blocks everything. If using the built in Windows firewall set the network type to "Public" network. As your computer will get assigned a public IP address. And use a modern OS as well, Win XP will get pwned in less than 5 min by bots if you stick it directly on the net.

[edited to add]

How many devices total do you have connected? As there is a device limit that the HG659B has (can't remember how many though) And do you have any other routers connected as wifi APs or NAS drives by any chance? As some of them will announce that they are a router which stuffs up everything else.

And if you are still stumped then time to run Wireshark and see what traffic is on your network. I had a weird bug once where one of my Wifi APs kept on constantly sending out ARP packets. It confused my router and I then lost Wifi. A restart would temporally fix it. The Wifi vendor knew about the problem and was rolling out a patch. Next day my AP auto downloaded the patch and all was well.

It could be as simple as a rouge device sending out lots of DHCP requests, taking up the routers entire DHCP pool. Then other devices can't renew their addresses so they loose internet. A router restart empties the DHCP pool.

rugrat

3141 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 944

Lifetime subscriber

#1792756 1-Jun-2017 00:59

Maybe needs a firmware update, as saw in another thread it mentioned latest firmware solves wifi problem.

I use to lose wifi on some devices to, but I've only had latest firmware for just over a week and touch wood no problems so far, last two digits on my firmware was 20.

Latest firmware now is On an HG659b: V100R001C227B022

Instructions for install and file found here

Edit: That's from a Spark page, as got impression you are with Spark now.

tigercorp

668 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 81

#1793559 2-Jun-2017 11:15

Aredwood:

...

How many devices total do you have connected? As there is a device limit that the HG659B has (can't remember how many though) And do you have any other routers connected as wifi APs or NAS drives by any chance? As some of them will announce that they are a router which stuffs up everything else.

And if you are still stumped then time to run Wireshark and see what traffic is on your network. I had a weird bug once where one of my Wifi APs kept on constantly sending out ARP packets. It confused my router and I then lost Wifi. A restart would temporally fix it. The Wifi vendor knew about the problem and was rolling out a patch. Next day my AP auto downloaded the patch and all was well.

It could be as simple as a rouge device sending out lots of DHCP requests, taking up the routers entire DHCP pool. Then other devices can't renew their addresses so they loose internet. A router restart empties the DHCP pool.

8 devices total so well under the 32 limit. All laptops, pc, phones/tablets, no APs, routers or anything like that.

Interesting thoughts regarding DHCP. I've statically set one laptop outside the DHCP range and will run Wireshark on this and have reserved the IP address for my phone (inside the DHCP range). I work from home so as soon as I notice the problem on my work laptop I'll be able to check what's going on with those other devices.

rugrat:

...

Latest firmware now is On an HG659b: V100R001C227B022

Yep, am with Spark now and that's the current firmware version.

Just to note, it's both wired and wireless devices that lose connection. When it happens I can statically set the IP & gateway of a wired laptop but still not be able to ping the router.

Wireshark will hopefully catch something if its the LAN side causing the problem. Does anyone know if the ONT/WAN side could possible cause the router to freeze?