[SOLVED] TP-Link Router Dropping Frequently; Support Sent Me This

[Carbo2]

TP-Link, Archer A10. 14 months old. It was running perfectly fine until about one month ago when it randomly started dropping my connection, both ethernet and wifi. Problem continued and became worse to where it's been dropping 5-6 times a day. Got in touch with support and we arranged a remote hook up to see what's happening. It didn't go well. He insisted I do a factory reset. I didn't want to but I went along. He then "upgraded" to some beta version firmware to replace the latest one that was already installed. 2.5 hour call with Tech Li in China and he concluded:
"This issue seems to be related to the IP renew for A10 from the ISP. As you know, A10 has WAN IP to access internet, and has time for this IP, and need to apply for another period time for this IP."
What does this mean and is it legit? Do I run this by my ISP, (Xfinity), for a solution?
Thank you.

 

[bill001g]

It could be valid not sure what how they figured it out.

Just like your router gives your PC addresses the ISP router gives your router a IP. This is done via DHCP. To avoid having IP addresses assigned that are not being used after a certain time the end device must request that it be allowed to continue to use this IP.

Generally you set these time limits to days if not weeks so it really should not happen often. But the time doesn't really matter. Even before the time expires it is asks if it can keep using the IP to be sure it is not dropped. It will ask mulitple times before the time expires.

The theory the manufacture has is the ISP DHCP server is not working correctly. They think that when the router requests to renew the lease that the DHCP server is either ignoring it or saying no.

Not sure how they can tell that. It is rather hard to determine on a PC, you normally actually have to capture the DHCP messages so you can see the communications between the end device and the DHCP server.

If it actually is occurring "frequently" hook your PC up to the modem instead of the router. You can then use wireshark and set it to capture all the DHCP messages. Although wireshark seem overwhelming to use at first it is pretty simple tool and will give you pretty easy to read display.

It will automatically decode all the bits in the dhcp messages to easy to read words. The only tricky part is getting a filter to only display dhcp messages since it captures all data. There are examples in the instructions on display filters.

If it actually is a ISP problem it would generally affect all their customers.

 

[Carbo2]

Thanks for the reply, Bill. A bit technical for a dinosaur like me, however. TP-Link has offered me a replacement unit, but if the problem persists on the new one, what's the point. I even considered upgrading to a newer model. But again, I'm confused as to whether this issue is simply a router gone bad, or if it originates with the ISP.

 

[bill001g]

no way to know could be either but it is not generally a hardware issue