Greetings! I did read many other articles, but have been unable to resolve the issue. I appreciate your help!
I have an IBM laptop, built-in wireless. We have moved & are now using Comcast cable internet...installed today. When I connect the laptop directly to the cable modem, the internet works fine. When I connect to the Belkin wireless router, there is no internet connection. I have 'cloned' my laptop's Ethernet card MAC address into the router - but no luck. Please help - thank you!

My guess is the router is configured wrong. You may have to log on to the web based setup on the router and set it to what comcast requires. (which sounds like no logon and use dhcp and dns from dhcp)

Since you say you can connect directly to the modem then you would connect the routers wan port and use dhcp on it. On the lan side create a pool of ips (private range) and that should be OK.

See the results of the command ipconfig /all when you connect to the modem. I suspect you get a public ip but you may have to ask tech support at comcast.

I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you goober.

Its also a reboot sequence issue. Reset your wireless router's network settings to DHCP. Then turn off your cablemodem for 60 seconds. Turn it back on. You may then have to also turn off your linksys, then back on. It should then get an IP from Comcast.

See, if you plug your laptop directly into the comcast modem, Comcast see's the MAC of the laptop. Even if you clone the MAC on the router, comcast still see's the router's other MAC. Sometimes you also have to call them and have them ACTIVATE it.

John Carr
Network Analyst

I'm with John Carr on this one. I see it every day. The cable modem does not release the associated ARP entry, until it is rebooted.

After rebooting the cable modem, then reboot the Linksys router. After everything has finished booting, log into the Linksys router and verify that it is in fact getting an IP address from the cable modem.