Topic: Comcast/Belkin/MacAirport/MTU Settings help please

[cleantone]

I had to switch to Comcast. I haven't even begun to tackle port forwarding. I am first trying to figure out the networking properly. Comcast gave me a modem. I have one hard wired PC and two Mac's on airport wireless. I bought a Belkin Wireless g router, F5D7230-4 V7001. I got signal to all of the computers. Today I wanted to see what the concast speeds were going to be like. On my main internet computer, Mac TiBook g4 (x.3.9) I went to archive.org and used the firefox plug in downthemall to start a download. It started up fine but then stopped completely after a moment or so. I noticed I had been kicked off the network. I had to restart the router to get the Belkin signal back to the wireless computers. I tried the same thing on the newer Mac with a newer airport and it happened again. So I called India and we changed some configs in the 192.168.2.1 Belkin page. It was de selecting TCP from the firewall settings or something. I thought we were good and hung up. Of course it happened again. Called back. We updated the firmware of the router. We repeated the de selection procedure. This time with the new firmware it kicked me off but Belkin still showed up in the network options on the airport selections. I couldn't browse anymore though. The guy told me I have to decrease my MTU settings and they couldn't help me with that. I don't know anything about that. Apple Tech support is not free as far as I know. Does anyone know anything about this problem? About MTU settings? I would really appreciate any help. Thanks for all input.

[flipp]

Not sure if this with help with the macs but I had good luck on windoze boxes using some of the suggestions at http://www.speedguide.net/index.php including the TCP/IP Optimizer and Analyzer, as well as DR TCP used in conjunction with the TweakTest, the latter two available in the tools section of http://www.dslreports.com/   Also not sure if either of the above would work with cable modem setup.

[cleantone]

I am not really sure what those link should be helping with. The current problem I have is that when using DownThemAll (all I have tried as of now) the router kicks me off. I am basically looking for into on this specific problem and MTU settings which I know nothing about. I don't know if what they said about reducing MTU settings would help or if they were trying to pawn me off onto Apple.

[flipp]

The TCP/IP Analyzer should tell you what your MTU is and DR TCP will allow you to adjust it. Unfortunately I think DR TCP only works on windoze boxes and won't help with the macs.  TCP/IP Analyzer should tell you what your MTU is on your macs but I don't think it will allow any adjustments, windoze or mac. One of the mac whizzs will have to chime in on how to make any adjustments on that platform. I remember having similar connection (or lack thereof) problems when I first got high speed and how frustrating it was until everything was tweaked correctly. Good luck.

[mmedley.]

Return the Belkin and get a Netgear or Linksys. Hate to say it, but Belkin blows. I ran into all sorts of issues in just 2 days of owning it and it was their top of the line model at the time. BitTorrent would always crash it and ports would never stay forwarded, and random dropouts. You should never have to adjust your MTU sizes....ever. The parents had a Belkin as well, and I finally threw it away as it would catch any and all interference and gave them my old Netgear. Try a different router (or bypass the router altogether), if the problem persists then have Comcast replace the modem.

[cleantone]

I brought back the Belkin and got a Linksys WRT54g. Lets see if this bumps me off the network. I still want to get around the Comcast sandvining asap. Thanks for the help.