[nobitacu]

Well... I finally got my Apple Extreme base station, and so I went and tried to set it up. At first, I connected the AEBS to my hub, in which the hub also connections a lot of other PCs to the net. The PCs that are connected to the hub all works and can go on it net. My AEBS shows that the AEBS is connected as both the left and right dot light are blinking and the middle light is always on. I also picked it up with my Powerbook. So all goes well right? no... I'm getting full signal, but I can't load any web page, or get anything to connect to the internet. So... fine, I than set up so that the hub is connected to the AEBS, same... doesn't work, now both the AEBS and the hub doesn't connect. This is a brand new AEBS by the way... So, ok, I called up my ISP first when I had my AEBS connected to the hub, they told me that they can see the hub, but not my AEBS, they don't know what's wrong and that I should call Apple for help on this issue. So yea, I did. After messing with it for 3 hours and still can't get the damn thing to work, Apple have no idea as well. Does anyone out there have this problem and know how to solve it? I'm using CableOne ISP.

Everything shows it's working fine, but I can't get anything to load or connect to the net. Could this be a DOA AEBS? or is this something that is solve able?

Please help me...

Thanks,

Ming

[ghporter]

Can you clarify how you're connected, that is, how each component is connected to each other component? I think I already see a problem: most cable providers use the hardware address of the equipment connected to the modem to authenticate their users. Using a hub means that the modem can be confused by which computer is actually connected to it. Most of the time, this shouldn't be a big problem, assuming it's been running with your "lot of PCs" for a while. But now, you've added a new hardware address, and it could simply be that the modem is refusing to connect the AEBS because it doesn't recognize its address.

My take on this is pretty simple: dump the hub and buy a router. Just about all routers can be instructed to "fake out" the cable modem and report whatever hardware address you want it to. This is called "MAC cloning," and it's really easy to do. The router will also hide the existence of other computers from the modem, so it won't care what you have connected to the LAN side of the router. Routers are inexpensive and once set up are mostly just left to do their thing. Also, routers are smarter devices than hubs, and tend to provide much faster data paths as well.

There are several things you could do that would alleviate your AEBS problem by telling the modem to accept its hardware address. Unfortunately, with a "lot of PCs" also on this network, odds are that those things would screw up service to the PCs, and actually set you back instead of fixing your problem. Overall, I think it's easier to just buy a router to replace the hub.