Router-Modem Connectivity

After a week of intermittant internet service from Comcast and numerous calls to tech support, they finally sent a technician to my house. He reconfigured some wiring and gave me a new Motorola modem (SB5120) and confirmed all was working.

After he left, I realized he never connected the new modem to my wireless router (D-Link 714P+). I reconnected it and went throught the power down/power up/reboot cycle recommended by Comcast and D-Link to make them talk to each other. After many attemps and no connection I called Comcast who walked me through the proceedure a few more times and confrimed my internet settings were correct. But to no avail, they finally gave up and referred me to D-Link's Tech support.

D-Link was able to finally get the units to communicate buy disconnecting the modem from the rounter, powering the modem down for about 5 minutes and in the mean time connecting the computer to the router to confirm my router settings. After reconnecting everything and powering up the modem, then the router, it all worked. D-Link explained to me the the new modem needs to be powered down for 5 minutes, not the 2 minutes Comcast recommends.

After going through this process, will my modem and router now behave or do I need to go through this proceedure everytime they are powered down? I'm just wondering if someone might be able to shed some light on this situation. The 5 minute power down explanation sounds kind of odd to me.
Thanks!!!

 

There is likely a feature in the D-link router to 'clone' your PC MAC address. This would have avoided the five minute wait.

In any case, most cable systems use MAC authentication. You needed to clear the existing MAC (from your PC) and force the cable system to recognize a new MAC (your router).

You only need to do this once.

I should note that for many cable modems using the On/Off switch will not suffice. Unplug the thing.