How to access Webstar DPC2100R2 hidden pages

[GreyGeek]

Ah, I did have that misunderstanding about where DOCSIS applies. Thanks for screwing my head back on the right way!

I just bought a Linksys E2500 Wireless router that's IPv6 ready, and I NOW plan to get an SB6141, thanks to your advice.

I've been having a problem with low power from my wireless even though I have it set for high power. The WR1043ND and now the Linksys E2500 are exhibiting the same problem: I'm ten feet away from my wireless but

Wireless Access Points (* = current AP)
    linksys:         Infra, 00:13:10:89:75:0D, Freq 2437 MHz, Rate 11 Mb/s, Strength 100
    belkin.fec:      Infra, 08:86:3B:29:8F:EC, Freq 2462 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 97 WPA WPA2
[COLOR=#ff0000]    *GreyGeek:       Infra, 20:AA:4B:3A:85:E3, Freq 2462 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 77 WPA2[/COLOR]
    WIN_A9E8:        Infra, 4C:17:EB:20:A9:E7, Freq 2412 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 94 WPA WPA2
    The Alois Family:Infra, 00:1E:58:32:BB:35, Freq 2412 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 94 WPA
    NETGEAR:         Infra, E0:46:9A:6F:83:70, Freq 2412 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 94
    BettyBoop:       Infra, C0:C1:C0:24:95:3C, Freq 2412 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 94 WPA2
    5dfe:            Infra, 20:4E:7F:7A:09:02, Freq 2412 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 97 WPA WPA2
    WIN_f0a6:        Infra, 2C:E4:12:46:F0:A5, Freq 2412 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 95 WPA WPA2
    GarberNetgear:   Infra, 2C:B0:5D:81:97:BE, Freq 2422 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 97 WPA2

you'll notice that my wireless has the lowest strength. So, the new wireless router didn't help. I'm assuming that the weakness lay with the cable modem.

Also, this E2500 is supposed to be a "dual band" and offers me the opportunity to configure both the 5GHz and the 2.4GHz bands with their own ESSID. Their default settings contained the same ESSID, "Cisco53679", so I replaced them with "GreyGeek". However, I never see the 5GHz ("N") setting. The only one presented is a "G" connection. So, I renamed the 5GHz one "GreyGeek5N" and the 2GHz to "GreyGeek2G". The GreyGeek2G shows up in the ESSID map and I can choose it and set it up, but I never saw the GreyGeek5N. So, I don't understand how to take advantage of the "dual band" capability that is supposed to make your connection speed more consistent and a closer match to your rated bandwidth.

[SteveRiley]

Let's ensure we're aren't accidentally mixing things up here. I'm assuming you're using two separate devices: one cable modem and one wireless router. Is that right? If so, then any conversation about DOCSIS relates only to the cable modem. DOCSIS defines the standards used for modulating digital signals over television channels and the methods for bonding channels together. I am unaware of any cable modems that run user-customizable firmware.

Conversations about DD-WRT relate to flashing an open-source firmware onto a wireless router or access point. This often adds new features like the ability to fine-tune and increase transmission power. But it won't add stuff the hardware can't do: for example, DD-WRT won't magically convert an 802.11b access point into 802.11n.

So, assuming that you indeed do have separate devices, this provides the opportunity to optimize each one (for this reason, I would never purchase a combined cable modem + wireless router). Choose a future-proof cable modem like the Motorola SB6141 or the Linksys DPC3008 that are capable of bonding eight channels. And choose a wireless access point or router that's listed in the DD-WRT database.

[GreyGeek]

I looked at using DD-WRT on the W1043ND wireless, but decided in favor of getting an IPv6 ready one instead. I may still fool around with it since it won't matter if I brick it or not, and see what happens. Does DD-WRT add DOCSIS 3 ability to a wireless?

[SteveRiley]

Ah, those are just DOCSIS error messages from the modem's WAN side and have almost no relationship to connection quality. My log is filled with them, yet I never have issues with poor connectivity.

To fight your neighbor's wireless, investigate getting a wi-fi access point that you can reflash with DD-WRT. This will allow you to crank up your transmission power. Alternatively, if you can get your equipment up to the 5 GHz range, the neighbor collisions should go away, because there are so many more channels (and fewer, for now, devices).

Finally...spend the extra $10 for the SB6141. The 6121 bonds only four downstream channels. The 6141 bonds eight channels; you'll see less variability in speeds when you have more channels to spread across. And if you're lucky, TW has probably screwed something up somewhere, and you'll get an "accidental" speed boost. I know plenty of Comcast customers who've noticed that. I plan to (finally) buy my own cable modem for exactly this reason.

[GreyGeek]

After accessing my cable modem logs I found something rather interesting, and which explains my drop down and drop outs, which I attributed first to my wifi chip driver, the to my old TP-TL-WR1043ND wireless router, which gave me an excuse to upgrade it to an IPv6 compatible wireless router ( ). Here's the log entries:

 Sat Jun 09 18:40:32 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response. 
 Sat Jun 09 18:40:23 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 Sat Jun 09 18:39:37 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - Re- initializing MAC 
 Sat Jun 09 13:52:21 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response. 
 Sat Jun 09 13:52:16 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ... 
 Sat Jun 09 13:52:03 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 Sat Jun 09 13:50:46 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un... 
 Sat Jun 09 13:50:13 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ... 
 Sat Jun 09 10:16:09 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response. 
 Sat Jun 09 10:16:02 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ... 
 Sat Jun 09 10:15:46 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 Sat Jun 09 10:14:57 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - Re- initializing MAC 
 Sat Jun 09 10:14:38 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 Sat Jun 09 10:11:57 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un... 
 Sat Jun 09 10:11:24 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ... 
 Sat Jun 09 09:42:20 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response. 
 Sat Jun 09 09:42:12 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ... 
 Sat Jun 09 09:41:56 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out 
 Sat Jun 09 09:40:50 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un... 
 Sat Jun 09 09:40:18 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...

Those correspond to my dropouts, which required that I disconnect and reconnect my wifi router to re-establish a connection. BTW, when the connection was dropped I couldn't ping google.com, but the wireless didn't show any indication that it didn't have a connection with the Internet unless I let the situation set for several minutes, or I was busy writing something and the webpage disappeared.

As soon as I configured my new Linksys E2500 than this appeared:

Mon Jun 11 02:36:38 2012  	 Critical (3) 	 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - .

and the problem continues. So does the problem with a lack of range. Just like the TP wireless, setting 10 feet from the wireless most of my neighbors, 5 to 15 times farther away, have stronger signals being picked up by the wireless than mine. When I surf from my bedroom, 60 feet away, it gets even worse, but the neighbors signals are still strong. A couple of them have no clue about security and run their wireless open. All of them are using Windows.

I also discovered that the Cisco DCP2100R2 cable modem TW gave me is DOCSIS 2.0, which means it doesn't support IPv6.

So, I am going to get a Motorola SB6120 cable modem that uses DOCSIS 3.0, which supports IPv6.
http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-SB612...dp_ob_title_ce

[GreyGeek]

While checking out my Timewarner cable modem, DPC2100R2, I found this neat little document.

How to access Webstar DPC2100R2 hidden pages

If you have Time Warner Cable and perhaps other cable operators as well that use Webstar DPC 2100 modems, and you happen to have one of these modems, no doubt you've become frustrated when you go to check the modem log if troubleshooting a connection issue, only to be greeted with the web page that says that this feature is not enabled. You however can still get at the information you're looking for. I don't understand why these diagnostics pages have to be hidden from us, especially when other modems show us the info we want with no issues. But here are the steps to gain access to the other diagnostics pages on a webstar DPC2100 modem.
First, go to http://192.168.100.1/_aslvl.asp and change the access level from 1 to 2. Enter the password of W2402 and hit submit. You should then be able to access the signal and logs pages with no issues. I've however noticed that the access level after maybe about a minute or so reverts back to level 1, so if while browsing the page, if it refreshes and it suddenly says this feature is unavailable again, just repeat the steps above. Like I said, I wish I knew why so much effort is made to keep us from truly seeing what's wrong with our connections. There's no harm in viewing this info ya know. So there's my hopefully useful tip for today