Help my someone is stealing my internet!!!

[veger69]

Ok a little dramatic I know but I don’t know what else to think.

I have a rather complicated home network in a 1 year old condo. My house is wired with Cat5 in each room. I have a distribution box upstairs where my internet access point is and where all the cat5 line lead. My 3801 is located at the distribution box. Wired directly to ports 1 thru 3 of the 3801 are two Win7 PC’s and a Asus RT-N56U which I use as an access point in the living room. Connected to the Asus are two multimedia streaming devices and my TV and Playstation.

Once my U-verse was installed I noticed very low internet speeds and during the countless hours of trouble shooting with ATT techs found out a few interesting things.

My computers showed in my network map that they were accessing the internet through a NetGear DGND3300 router. This was confirmed by the fact that I could not access my 3801 at its default address of 192.168.1.254 and also that all my computers and devises dhcp assigned address were on a 192.168.0 subnet. They all could see the internet but not each other. All wireless devices also can access the internet but not see each other. They also could not see my wireless network printer.

When trying to access the DGND3300 at the address shown in my network map 192.168.0.1.   I would get a user name password window but of course none of the default user names or passwords for the 3801 would work. ATT tech support was no help and in the end blamed it on Windows and Windows tech support blamed it on ATT. I happen to say its ATT since windows can’t issue its own Address.

I have been able to get around the problem by changing all my devices to static and pointing them to the default address of the 3801 of 192.168.1.254 once this was done I was able to access the 3801 GUI but since I use my RT-N56u as a access point there is no way to configure it to static. Once you select the access point conf in its GUI it reboots and automatically switches to DHCP and is issued a 192.168.0 address. I can then no longer access its GUI. Luckily all the devices connecting thru it still can access my network as long as I point them to the 192.168.1.254 address.  When looking at my network map now the DGND3300 is shown as a device on my network tree connecting thru a generic switch at 192.168.1.254 just like all the other devises on my network.

I am hopping a network expert out there can help me determine if someone has high jacked my network or if somehow my condo is wired into an adjacent condo cat5. I still have random network connection issues on some of the multimedia servers connected thru the RT-N56u and at some point I want to get a Gb switch and have all my devices connect to the RT-N56u so that all my internal network speeds are Gb instead of 10/100

Thank you for your time,

Sean

[veger69]

If I need to give more specific info or posted in the wrong place please let me know.

[gregzoll_1]

Post a picture of the inside of your cabinet.

[veger69]

I can send one at lunch but if you are just looking for what type of box it is its a Honeywell like the QND8800

here is a pick of a standard one

http://i1166.photobucket.com/albums/q612/Sean_Prevost/9c154ab4.jpg

[veger69]

Or are you talking about the large utility closet outside where the Tech hooked up the service

[gregzoll_1]

Again, you need to post a picture of what is inside the cabinet that you are stating that the RG is hooked up inside.  It sounds like you are connected possibly to a community Internet connection, not to the connection to the RG in the cabinet that you have it in.  Pictures of the situation speak more volumes, than just trying to guess what & how someone has their stuff hooked up.

[veger69]

Here is a link to Pics of my Honeywell cabinet and the Utiltiy cabinet outside

http://s1166.photobucket.com/albums/q612/Sean_Prevost/

[gregzoll_1]

That is a rats nest that needs to be straightened out. Also, you do not need to be accessing the Comcast & ATT boxes, so you really need to stay out of those.

Again, do you know if there is public Internet available to the condo owners where you live? If there is, I would venture to guess that you are not hooked up properly to the RG with the computers.

First get that Rats nest of cables & equipment straightened out in the Honeywell cabinet, along with labeling. Second, you can pick up a ethernet Fox & Hound set like http://www.amazon.com/Extech-TG30-Generator-Amplifier-Tracer/dp/B00023RYRC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=13...

Even better set http://www.amazon.com/Sperry-ET64220-Tracker-Tracer-Master/dp/B00279JLBQ/ref=pd_cp_hi_1

Once you figure what jacks in your unit connect back to your panel, then you can figure out why the computers are not connecting back to your unit. It is also possible that someone has connected in between your unit and your panel, but you have to investigate first to figure out how the Ethernet connections are connected back from the panel, to your residence.

[veger69]

Your hate on my rats nest aside I do appreciate the help. The Rats Nest is the way the ATT and Direct TV tech's left my cabinet. I don't have the tools to do custom cable lengths and there is no easy way to mount anything inside the cabinet. I tried to do some cleanup after them by zipping together the ATT Grey and Brown Boxes (What is the correct term for those?) which they had just flopping around loose.

The cable coax and RJ45 lines that run to my Condo rooms are labeled and I have not had any trouble with plugging those into my Router and getting a connection to my devices but the lines that lead to the outside closet are not labeled. 

As far as the utility closet outside all I did was open the door. All the cabinets inside were open as you see them.

If I understand correctly you are wanting me to test the lines from the cabinet to the closet outside correct? I believe the Grey and Tan boxes and wires shown in pic 12 of 14 and named Honeywell ATT are the ATT wires. You can see the Green jacket on the CAT line that goes to my WLAN port on my 3801 but I'm not sure which line is the one I should be checking. Can you point it out in that picture? Also can you point out the correct box in the Utility Closet outside I need to be checking for the other end?  

[gregzoll_1]

The box that the wires run to your condo, you check those jacks to the jacks in your condo, to make sure that you are actually connecting from the condo back to the RG.

That will tell you if the jack you have your computers connected to is actually yours, not on a public network. Again, as I asked twice, do you know if there is a public Internet available to the condo owners?

[veger69]

I'm not aware of any public internet.

One of my computers connects directly to the RG (3801 router) and it sees the same Netgear 3300 router. so I do not think the problem is the wires going to the rooms. 

[gregzoll_1]

Does this computer happen to have a WiFi adapter in it? If it does, even though you are connecting wired back to the RG, you should turn off the wireless adapter in that computer.

Also, as long as you are not connecting to the Netgear, but only to the RG, do not worry about it, especially if the person who owns the Netgear has it locked down with a password.

As for the rat's nest, you can get shorter patch cords from monoprice.com for both coax & Cat-5e or Cat-6. I use 2 foot patch cords from my RG to our patch panel. I could have gone shorter, but wanted a little length. You could probably do the same.

Also get those modules for DirectTV & the RG secured inside the cabinet with something like zipties, so that it does not place strain on the cables.

[veger69]

Sorry I was editing the post above in word and got it mixed up here is how it should have read:

I’ve gone through three 3801's trying to fix this problem (ATT supports answer to a problem they cannot figure out) and had to pull things out so many times I just never wanted to zip it all down but I guess it’s time to do it.

My direct connected machine is a Asus P5Q Pro which I believe has no WIFI adapters and I'm not worried about them getting into my network so much. I'm just not sure how this affects my bandwidth and it's certainly annoying when it comes to everything having to be static. It also has made it impossible to change any settings on my Asus Router.

Is this something you think ATT might have done wrong when they connected me? I have considered getting a service tech back out here but am afraid it might end up being a wiring problem with the building and then they would charge me.

On a side note I have ordered an Asus Gb switch and I'm going to connect all my PC's and devices to the Asus RT-N56u first then set up the 3801 as a bridge. This is what I'm trying to do:

PC1--------|-------------------|--------RT-N56u-------2wire 3801------Internet

PC2--------|                       |

                             Asus Gb Switch

Popcorn hour ---------------|

Squeezebox   ---------------|

Playstation  ------------------|

TV    ---------------------------|

This should give me Gb speeds on my internal network and allow me to take the RT-N56u out of access point mode and let me give it a static address solving my issues there. Do you see any problems with this?

[gregzoll_1]

ATT did not do anything wrong. What is wrong, is that you need to figure out if anything, why there is another router in the mix, that should not be there.

Can you post a screenshot from what Windows shows in the Network equipment screen at Network Map, when you bring up the Network. You can also run something like LANSweeper http://majorgeeks.com/Lansweeper_d5981.html

[veger69]

Already have a picture you can see it in the same folder linked above.

[gregzoll_1]

Only means that Windows could have misclaimed your RG as another manufacturer.  Seen it happen on my network with Windows 7.  Run the one utility from majorgeeks.com that I linked to, and post back the results, of what equipment it reports back on your network.

[veger69]

Well it didn't detect the router but that could be because its on a different subnet. Even if windows misidentified it I'm not sure how that would cause it to assign itself an address of 192.168.0.1 which happens to be the default address for the Netgear Router. Very strange. Also If i leave a device on DHCP it gets assigned a address on the 192.168.0 subnet so there is something going on besides the 3801.

[gregzoll_1]

You will not know, until you figure out how the cabling is ran as a direct run back to your box, where the RG is connected.

The Lan software that I linked does a good job in detecting everything on the network.

[veger69]

Well talked to my upstairs neighbor and they own a 3300 also I checked there smarttv's list of network connections and sure enough my media servers are on there. So the builder either wired our houses together between the Honeywell cabinet and the utility closet downstairs or there is something miss-wired in the closet. Whats my best bet now calling a ATT tech out?  

[oufanindallas]

Send a PM to Alex, he will get the right team involved and get your issues taken care of.  Let us know how it turns out.

[gregzoll_1]

ATT can't do anything about it, other than find the rogue connection and disconnect both units from their service, until the home owners get the problem corrected.

Your best bet is to work with the other home owner and figure out how the panels are wired, and fix it yourself. Not that hard to do.