Been experiencing slow connectivity on Comcast HSI Cable Internet for past 2-month. In last week I am unable to secure an appropriate internal IP address from router. For example, I should obtain 192.168.0.XX internally on all devices. However, the router is giving me external IP addresses on my internal LAN, such as 169.254.133.229; 169.254.128.149 and others). Comcast modem is connected to 8-port netgear router, which is connected to a few PC's, a Mac and a network printer. I've disconnected router from modem, re-flashed router, setup network internally with correct LAN IP addresses, then finally connect router to modem. But once I connect router to modem, I'm acquiring an external IP address again on my LAN devices. What's going on? I thought these routers were secure?

169.254.133.229 etc are just common ip address that your ethernet card/windows is giving you just because it can't get any signal from your router. Didn't really need to flash your router, it's mainly a hardware (meaning your ethernet card, or windows) problem. Try this... try changing your Internet protocol tci/ip properties to correspond to your routers ip settings. Example: Instead of using the "obtain ip automatically" change it to use the follow ip address that your router provided you before; 192.168.1.100, 255.255.255.255.0, 192.168.1.1

You get a 169 from the Windows OS when it is unable to pull one from the router , these are "not" outside addresses but your dhcp is not working on your router , make sure all your clients are setup to pull an address automatically and not hardcoded with an address . Something is amiss with the router itself if it is not supplying addresses .

All of our internal devices are set for DHCP but are not able to obtain an internal IP from the router, even on request. Also, our Internet provider runs its own DHCP server. Yet, our router obtains the same WAN IP each and every time we connect externally. However, if I connect the modem to one of our internal machines directly and request a new IP, we are granted on. Do these routers fail like this? This was a prosumer-type router in its day, like $500+, but it is 6 years old. Any thoughts on how one might test the device?