Question Spectrum gave me weird Modem/Router setup

[mzsofka9000]

so for a while now i have been seeing modems and routers in one unit from spectrum, xfinity, and other ISP's but i recently moved to new place out in the middle of nowhere and they sent me a Modem with only one out Ethernet port and a WiFi router with 4 out Ethernet ports. i plugged my computer and modem into my wifi router correctly but when im playing games i lose connection for about 3 seconds every 1-2 minutes. i have seen a similar thing when connecting through WiFi instead of a direct connection but i make sure to always connect directly knowing this. so next i tried connecting my computer directly to the modem and also using an Ethernet splitter to connect the WiFi router and modem at the same time, but each time my computer would say it was on an "Unidentified Network" and didn't give me a connection, it was only when I'm plugged into the WiFi router that i could get internet. i was wondering if i got a setup that forces me to plug into the router as if the signal coming from the modem is encrypted and gets un-encrypted by the modem. so i either need a fix for the modem, ive been thinking about buying my own but honestly there is nothing wrong with the rented modems connection it runs as intended at 100mbps, also they are very expensive and im not totally sure if it will fix the problem, OR i need a way to stop the WiFi router from killing my connection every minute, its almost like its pinging the router as if its a WiFi connection but its directly connected through a power-line adapter which I have been using for a year now perfectly fine. all the games i play require a constant connection and as soon as i drop internet i get kicked, i have tried it with multiple games as well and watched my network usage.

 

[bill001g]

You can only plug 1 device into a modem and generally that is a router. If you put a switch in between you still have only 1 ip address and the router is using it.

You can plug your pc directly into the modem but in most cases you must power cycle the modem. The modem tends to lock onto the first mac address it sees and will not change until you reload it.

It is hard to say what is causing your outages but hooking to the modem directly should isolate it to the router or if it happens plugged into the modem it could be a network issue.

 

[mzsofka9000]

You can only plug 1 device into a modem and generally that is a router. If you put a switch in between you still have only 1 ip address and the router is using it.

You can plug your pc directly into the modem but in most cases you must power cycle the modem. The modem tends to lock onto the first mac address it sees and will not change until you reload it.

It is hard to say what is causing your outages but hooking to the modem directly should isolate it to the router or if it happens plugged into the modem it could be a network issue.

So i power cycled and managed get the modem to catch my computers address but now the WiFi Router has no internet, i cant really tell if this is an issue with the Modem or the Router anymore, i have had single unit modems that also function as a router in the past so this is just a bit weird for me. so not quite fixed yet, i guess i really just need to buy my own modem with several Ethernet ports.

 

[bill001g]

That is what is expected. You only get 1 IP address from the ISP. Only 1 device can get it. You need a ROUTER between the modem and your end devices to share the IP.
If you think the router is defective buy a different router and plug it into the modem. It is going to be much cheaper to buy just a router and you will have a much larger selection of devices. There are only a handful of modem/router combo devices.