RE: Strange problem with DSL modem.

From: Jason Osgerby (jasonosgerby_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 01/21/05

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    Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 23:59:31 -0800 (PST)
To: FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>

    Hi Ted,
     
    I enjoyed reading your email. Made me laugh, aside from realizing that I have a shitty DSL modem! Ah well.
     
    You wrote: "You haven't said exactly how your DSL connection is setup. Is this PPPoA or what? Nor how your DSL modem is configured. We need to know that before helping."
     
    It was initially set to PPPoA after the auto setup process was run. Later, when I was playing around with it trying to make it work with FreeBSD, I changed it over to PPPoE. But it didn't make any difference, not that I really expected it to. I was just grabbing at straws. How is it configured? Well, what exact information do you need? I will be MORE than happy to provide any details that I can. Right now it is simply connected to the computer through the ethernet card. I haven't changed any of the settings from the default, apart from making the machine's IP the DMZ box to get around the firewall. Even that didn't make any difference. It is still timing out the fetch requests--which seems to be attempting to operate over HTTP--although it has no problems pinging anybody. This is a very bizarre problem. The DSL modem is already running the latest firmware, because I upgraded it as soon as I got the DSL up and running.
     
    Thanks,
     
    Jason.

    Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com> wrote:
    Hi Jason,

    I work for an ISP which is a Qwest Megahost and have dealt
    plenty with these and several other brands of modems on the
    Qwest network. I have dealt with the ActionTec people as
    well, and documented a number of bugs in earlier version of
    firmware for these modems, some of which have been fixed,
    others which haven't.

    You haven't said exactly how your DSL connection is setup.
    Is this PPPoA or what? Nor how your DSL modem is configured.
    We need to know that before helping.

    You should also know that the ISP I work at DOES NOT recommend
    or specify the ActionTec DSL modem for any corporate or business
    customers of ours - in short, not for any customer of ours
    who gives more than a fig about a reliable DSL connection. Frankly
    it is a shame - Qwest has dumped millions of dollars on pretty
    good back-end DSLAMs and such only to crap up their DSL network
    with those CPEs.

    The ActionTec is fine for the typical garden-variety home user
    who is so retarded that they refuse to run antivirus software
    because it's too expensive, and they refuse to regularly update
    their Windows system so it doesen't get stuffed full of viruses,
    and has a chip on their shoulder the size of Manhattan because
    someone dared to tell them they might actually, no God no
    I can barely say it - they might actually have to PAY A SLIGHT
    BIT OF REAL MONEY for a DSL modem!! Heavens! After all, by
    God that fucking phone company should be PAYING ME to subscribe
    to DSL and your telling me I have to actually pay less money
    than I waste on Mac & Don's steakhouse during the week for a
    DSL modem?!?! Bessie, get me gun!!!

    Back in the days when Qwest was still under the delusion that
    DSL customers actually wanted something in the way of DSL that
    didn't go down with the frequency of a $5 Tijuana hooker, Qwest specd
    REAL modems manufactured by Cisco Systems, the model 675 and later
    678's. Sadly, Qwest was rudely awakened to the reality that
    most DSL users wanted cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, fast, cheap
    cheap and well as for reliability, what's that?. Cost to the customer
    on the 678's was $100 and Qwest was eating part of it as the list
    cost was more than that from Cisco. Cost on today's ActionTec's is
    $50, and people still bitch, and the ActionTec company probably
    doesen't see more than $10 per device, if even that. You can't
    manufacture much of a DSL modem, plus pay for a radio chip for
    it, for that kind of money.

    The Cisco 678 is what you what to use. Unfortunately, they are
    no longer manufactured by Cisco. Cisco is currently making an
    even better DSL device, the Cisco 827, which works spectacularly
    well on Qwest's network - but of course Qwest doesen't spec that
    as list on it is like $600.

    To give you an example of how bad the ActionTec is, just today I
    got a call from a customer who had DSL at 2 offices with 827's
    which went down. Called Qwest, the tech on the phone checked and
    came back and said that Qwest techs were doing some maintainence
    on the DSLAM. The tech proceeded to check the history of both
    lines and tells me that the DSL modems had been up solid for 50 days,
    and I really should have someone power-cycle them because they
    had been up "for too long" Can you imagine? This poor Qwest
    support tech has been dealing with crap Actiontecs for so long that
    he actually believes that the DSL modem is SUPPOSED to be rebooted
    all the time!!!! Needless to say, when the Qwest service guys
    finished screwing with the DSLAM, both 827's came right back online
    WITHOUT human intervention.

    Anyway, if you get a 678, and flash-update it to current firmware,
    (the old firmware in the 678 is like 5 years old and has many
    problems) and properly configure it, your problems will go away.
    Unfortunately the downside is that actually doing this is not
    easy for most people as the steps to do it are rather arcane, the
    firmware itself has controlled-access on it, and basically unless
    your ISP will do it for you, or you are willing to spend some
    time really understanding the process instead of just trying to
    rush into doing it, as they say, good luck.

    Once you tell us what your DSL config is, I might be able to
    give you some suggestions to get the GT701 going. No promises
    though.

    Also, one other thing, the Westell C90-36R516 modem will work
    on the Qwest network also - with one caveat, and of course, some
    arcane configuration. Both the 678 and the R516 modems are
    still readily available on Ebay. Unfortunately for the 678
    though, others have discovered the same thing about the ActionTecs
    that I have related here, and pricing on those modems is still
    rather high.

    Ted

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
    > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Jason Osgerby
    > Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 9:32 PM
    > To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
    > Subject: Strange problem with DSL modem.
    >
    >
    > Hello all,
    >
    > I am hoping someone on this list can help me out with a very
    > frustrating issue I am having. I dual boot one of my machines
    > (a Dell Dimension 2400) with Windows XP Pro, and connect to
    > the Internet via an Actiontec GT701-WG DSL modem with an
    > inbuilt wireless gateway. Now, under Windows XP, I can access
    > the Internet just fine, and do anything that I need to do. Of
    > course, Windows XP is a slow, buggy memory hog, and I simply
    > hate using it.
    >
    > So, I decided to install FreeBSD 5.3 on a separate partition.
    > After performing a basic system install from CD, I wanted to
    > add several items from the ports collection, such as
    > Fluxbox-devel, XMMS, MPlayer, Firefox, ROX-filer, and all the
    > other good stuff that I like to use. So, I started running the
    > "make install" for Fluxbox, and it gave the usual message
    > about not being able to find the source in my local ports
    > directory, and then gave the normal blurb about fetching it
    > from
    > http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/fluxbox/fluxbox-0.
    9.10.tar.gz.
    >
    > The problem is that it is totally unable to download anything
    > at all. All of the fetch requests to any of these remote
    > servers just time out after hanging there for about a minute
    > or so. I re-checked that I had configured the DHCP connection
    > correctly, and no problems there at all. So, I did a simple
    > ping of Google.com to make sure that I had a working Internet
    > connection, and the ping responses returned in a timely
    > fashion as usual. Yet still, the "make install" command just
    > freezes up when attempting to download anything.
    >
    > Obviously, I wrote an email to Actiontec support immediately,
    > asking for assistance. They responded to say that they don't
    > support FreeBSD. After a couple of minutes of cursing, I
    > decided the best thing to do would be to ask you all about
    > this problem. Anyone have any idea what is going on here, and
    > if there is anyway I can fix this? I am totally at a loss.
    >
    > Thanks!
    >
    > Jason.
    >
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