Actiontec MI424WR - a cheap MoCA bridge for all! - Page 38

I'd be happy to try your native compilation for windows if you could zip and attach it. Also, the max bandwidth supposition you propose makes complete sense. And, yes, I'm very happy that my house isn't presenting any new issues. That's always the scary part- not the equipment but the 30yr old wiring that it's using.

..dane
Edited by audiodane - 1/1/13 at 8:07pm

Where do you see that the DPD2 is rated 40-2150mhz?

I see it rated as 5 - 2150 MHz, same as the STVC.

http://www.hollandelectronics.com/catalog/upload_file/Filters-Diplexers.pdf
check the specs on that link for the same one rated at "5-2150mhz", but not actual.

I'm using Verizon Fios, and I'm not sure if I should be using a diplexer. I do notice transfer speeds are faster, but my stb acts strange sometimes, resetting once in a while.
I remember this being debated before that Fios doesnt use any of the <1000mhz signal. Wondering if that is true or not.

When I try to set up encryption between the moca bridges, I lose signal. My stbs don't work. Is there any way we can set up encryption between moca bridges without losing signal?
I followed this guide : http://www.dslreports.com/faq/verizonfios/3.2_MOCA
Edited by rahkz - 1/4/13 at 2:22pm

Wow! What a weird inconsistency. I was looking at the following document. In that document, as on the unit itself, it states "5-2150 MHz".

Anyone have a definitive answer here?

Thanks!

Hey everyone,

I wanted to start by saying thanks for all the work that has been done in this thread so far. I had been debating MoCA for a while to connect my second floor to my basement, but didn't want to spend a ton of money on the adapters. I found this thread and was able to get up and running (or so I thought) for about $50, $20 of which was the diplexers. I ended up with one actiontec, and one Westell 9100em, which I configured per the instructions on page 1 (the interface options are a little different for the westell, but I think I got them figured out). I recall when doing the initial setup, I did a final test streaming a dvd from my desktop -> main router -> actiontec -> westell (via direct coax) -> laptop and everything worked great. I moved the Westell to the basement, and hooked the blu-ray player and xbox360 to it, and it seemed to be working fine. Then I tried streaming a dvd from the upstairs desktop to the laptop downstairs a few nights ago, and was unable to get any playback.

EDIT: I changed the window in jperf from 56 Kbits to 5000 per xnappos earlier suggestion, and then ran a test between laptops upstairs and downstairs, and this time got rates around 90 mbps. I'm going to do some testing to see if maybe the issue I was having was a windows media center issue, and not a MoCA issue.

EDIT2: Hardwired laptop to desktop via main router and still wasn't able to properly stream any DVDs. Lo and behold, "media streaming" hadn't been enabled when I set up the shared folder in Win7 on the desktop where the DVDs where stored. Once I properly configured that I was able to stream fine over both the wired and wireless network.
Edited by doublfelix - 1/8/13 at 7:45pm

I was sufficiently bothered by the DPD2 diplexer spec inconsistency to write Holland Electronics a quick email. They promptly wrote back, apologized for the confusion, and said, "The DPD2 actually performs to specifications described down to 5 MHz."


So, it looks like it's rated 5-2150Hz and should be applicable for what we're doing here.

Just updating that using a different computer did yield different results.  I also did use a different version of iperf (1.7.0) for Windows.  Anyway, default settings I would get somewhere around 35Mbps one way and around 15Mbps the other.  This is with the router out of the question, but traversing the household 30yr old coax with encryption enabled.  Setting the window size to different values did help dramatically, and at one point I was able to get around 50Mbps bidirectional, close to 90Mbps unidirectional.  So that's good.  Of course I don't have any control over such settings on a Tivo, but at least I know that the link itself is capable of plenty (given the proper settings). :)

 

Is there some way I can "monitor" bandwidth of the Tivo (say, streaming Pandora) from my laptop (on the same network)?  In other words, can I run something on my laptop that says, "IP xxx is currently downloading ~yyMbps" or something like that? 

 

I'm running a DLink DIR-655 router, if that's of any use..

 

I have also connected both Tivo's directly to their respective MI424WR's..  Previously one of the Tivo's was connected to the router (which connects to the moca), and the Bedroom Tivo direct to the moca.  Now they're both direct to the moca's..  Not sure if that will make any difference..  we'll see (in time)..

 

thanks!

..dane

About achieving Gigabit speeds from one actiontec to another actiontec on the moca network...
I was wondering how I could achieve Gigabit transfer speeds from a computer connected to Actiontec A (in my bedroom) to a NAS connected to Actiontec B (in my living room) on the Moca network?
Do I need to upgrade every router to the latest Revision I or can I just get a gigabit switches/routers(connected to 10/100 Actiontecs)?
Much Appreciated.

I also know that I have to use cat 6e cables on the connections I need Gigabit.

I just wanted to submit my experiences and hopefully some will find it helpful. It's been a while since I've had the actiontec wireless N with gigabit (not sure which rev) routers running on my network bridged over MOCA. I have a total of 3. I was able to maintain sustained speeds of close to 85mbs between bridges. Now this was probably a limitation of my nic on the WHS server which was a 100mbs server adapter card. While this was fine for 85% of material, I found it lacking for some very high bitrate scenes like the bird scene from planet earth (mkv) where it would stutter, skip and then eventually catch up. Streaming of NFS did help and probably closed the gap to 95% but still particular scense would remain an issue. I thought I would have to live with this, but recently I upgraded my WHS server to gigabit. What I found was that the nic on the client and server would now negotiate at gigabit and the throughput for a file transfer is now close to double what it was before. My guess is that is this is max bandwidth of moca 1.1. I'm getting close to 150mbs on file transfers and the stuttering has been completely resolved.
Thanks to all that have contributed to this thread, especially xnappo.

Great concise answer. I had been wondering about this forever and noticing newer Revs with gigabit coming down in price, I was curious. At least glad to know it isn't currently possible, before spending a bunch of money. Thanks.

Totally sorry for this folks, because this seems like it may be the wrong thread, but I can't seem to find anything anywhere in the thousands of posts. I just had FIOS installed, they gave me the Actiontec MI424WR-GEN2 wireless router, but now both of my NAS's are giving me problems. I run two OS',s OS X Mountain Lion and Windows 7. In OS X, The NAS's have stopped auto-mounting on the desktop, although I can still access them manually. Still, with the Lacie Wireless Space NAS, the Lacie Network Assistant software can no longer see the volumes, and I can't seem to upgrade the firmware anymore. I've also lost the ability to access the drive over the network from my Oppo BDP-93 and my Samsung 55C8000, although my Onkyo 818 can still see the shared folder, but not the protected one. I also have a Buffalo LinkStation that is just not being seen over the network at all, but is accessible only from my OS X and Windows 7 desktops.

I've tried port forwarding and lowering the firewall settings on the router, but nothing seems to be working. Can anyone here point me to a thread or post dealing with this?

Thanks!

I'm glad I found this thread.......my son's X-Box Live kept dropping out. Picked up the 500mb/s units and they worked great. I also used one for my daughters Boxee, problems solved.

This is for Fios customers who want Moca 2.0 routers for the next generation of actiontecs. Add a plus sign to have them notice it!!!
So if you have a verizon account or you could create a "community id" vote for my idea to add Moca 2.0 upgrade to the next actiontec router release!
We also have a discussion to add 5Ghz wireless to the router, but it would be nice for someone to create a Verizon "idea" posting separately.

Also want to thank xnappo for all his guidance and help with the Moca stuff.

http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Share-Your-Ideas-with-Verizon/Request-for-Moca-2-0-for-the-Next-Generation-of-Actiontec/idi-p/528933

Sorry to bump an old thread, but can someone tell me what the current recommended hardware is to do this? Is it still the ACTIONTEC MI424WR? If so, which rev?

Or is there a better way now? Maybe a smaller unit?
Edited by garyes19 - 2/18/13 at 6:42pm

Get the latest rev you can find on eBay, I recently bought 4 for around 125$ including shipping. They are still the best low cost option. Actiontec makes a MOCA adapter, but they sell for 150$ a pair..

+

Gman

I want to thank the OP for the detailed instructions. I just picked up 2 of these to extend my connectivity to 2 rooms. Without these instructions I would still be banging my head trying to get them to work.

Now I just need to figure out how to get WIFI working on the second MI424WR to extend my wireless signal.

what internet speeds are you seeing on your set-ups? main vs secondary actiontec vs what your ISP is promising on your particular internet plan.

I get exactly what I pay for. It is like being hooked directly to the main router.

This is such a great idea! I've been struggling with Wireless-N 5Ghz WDS for a few years, never getting speeds much above 30Mb/s. I saw this thread and immediately purchased some actiontecs to serve as the network backbone for my house.

I bought 3 "MI424WR Rev G"s from ebay (non-verizon flavor), and 3 Holland DPD2 diplexers from amazon, and set them up to bridge coax to the 3 WNDR3700v2s I already had setup for a WDS backbone.

So:
I followed the guide and disabled everything except Home/Office and Coax on all three actiontecs. Wireless is disabled on all but my internet gateway router, and it is also the only one with dhcp/dns.
All set up, all working, getting > 100Mb/s as reported by iperf running on all three of my routers. Awesome!

Or so I thought. In the 24 hours since I have set it up, two of the three actiontecs (Office/BedRm)have lost the coax connection and not recovered. They are still responsive to ping/http if I jack into the router they are connected to, so the actiontec itself hasn't crashed. I have to either reboot the router from the web admin, or restart it with a power cycle before it regains the coax link.

Has anyone seen anything similar? Any ideas on how I can troubleshoot this?

Also, there doesn't seem to be a newer firmware revision for these routers. They are on version 30.0.16.13 (MI424WR-GEN2 Rev G), but doesn't look like there are any firmware updates for this non-verizon flavor. I'm tempted to try put a verizon firmware on there, but figured I'd see if anyone knew of a hard to find newer version for this flavor or problems with cross pollinating firmwares before I tried. The pdf on the actiontec site lists my version number as the latest, and the upgrade firmware in the web admin fails with a "Cannot resolve hostname" error for update url: https://upgrade.actiontec.com/NCSMI424WR2/MI424WR2.rmt

Any help appreciated.

It might be what I thrashed around with for a while, which turned out to be a stray voltage on the cable shield coming back via Ethernet and freezing up that jack on the main router - I also found that the link could be restored by power-cycling the router.

My solution, once I figured out what was going on, was to run a ground wire from the house ground (like on a three-prong AC socket) to the nearest diplexer, which has a grounding terminal connected to the coax's outer shield.

By grounding the braided shield at any point in a coax network, you ground the shield for the whole network, as long as all branches are connected via diplers or splitters. Just use an outlet tester to make sure that you're using the ground on an outlet that has a working ground connection. You can run the wire to a radiator or water pipe - that's not "up to Code" but will work unless a plumber disconnects the pipe in the basement or uses a stretch of plastic pipe!

If your diplexer or splitter doesn't have a grounding terminal, just connect your ground wire to one of its mounting holes.

-Phil

Thanks. I'll give that a shot - its unlikely to be the problem though given that I'm able to connect to the actiontec from the router it is directly connected to (i.e. LAN jacks are fine). Its just the coax link that is down. Stray voltage could be having a similar effect on the coax port though...?

I get full bandwidth from my internet connection(~18Mbps) through my moca coax network(Modem+Actiontec at the basement incoming connection to an Actiontec in the den on the second floor) From my media server on the main floor(connected with its own Actiontec), I get 5.2MB/sec (~40ish Mbps) up to the den. I was lucky to get 1MB/sec via wireless G bridge previously(I have serious wifi pollution where Iive (can you say 20ish networks visible)), and also unsuccessfully tried Ethernet over Power.

I set it up as a proof of concept with a few spare RG59 patch cords, but plan on mounting everything up nicely on the wall with RG6Q and nice compression connectors for all interconnections (I have RG6 in the walls). I'm interested to see if I'll see an improvement over the current performance(I wanted to do it up nice regardless).

After I pull the plug on my cable TV provider, I have an HD OTA antenna I want to drop into the network also from the attic and eventually an HD Home Run Tuner..

i'm having strange issue, which i noticed when i ran speedtest.net....

my primary actiontec is getting full 50mbps at any given time
my my secondary actiontec internet speed is fluctuating from under 20 to full 50 on different days.

MoCA LAN is obviously at fault, but i wonder why, there is/was no change in network from days with full speed to days with half or less speed..

I'd recommend checking on Amazon and TiVo.com and EBay and Buy.com and TigerDirect since they do sell MoCA adapters and bridges. https://www3.tivo.com/store/accessories-networking.do http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=moca+adapter&_frs=1 (some sellers may ship to Canada so it can't hurt to check it out) and http://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0&_nkw=moca+adapter&_sacat=0&_from=R40 http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3949280&CatId=16 http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7664703&CatId=16

At this time Motorola and Cisco and Netgear and D-Link have discontinued production of MoCA bridges/adapters so the best bet is companies like Actiontec and Channel Master.
There hasn't been any revisions regarding Actiontec's Verizon branded MoCA adapters (there have been many for the Actiontec routers) The Verizon branded Actiontec MoCA adapter is the ECB2200V http://www.actiontec.com/products/product.php?pid=250#.UXzHF7XD_4Y which only has one coax in port and one Ethernet port while Actiontec's discontinued ECB2200 http://www.actiontec.com/products/product.php?pid=192#.UXzHTbXD_4Z has one coax in port, one coax out port for connecting non MoCA devices such as televisions and one Ethernet port. The Actiontec ECB2500 http://www.actiontec.com/products/product.php?pid=251#.UXzH67XD_4Y also has one coax in port, one coax out port for connecting non MoCA devices such as televisions and one Ethernet port.
Edited by Mike Wolf - 4/28/13 at 12:00am

What you have said is true however I've come across a few MoCA 1.1 devices using the exact same Entropic EN2510 chipset found in the Actiontec ECB2500 that had gigabit ports. http://www.entropic.com/solutions/built/consumer-products/ethernet-coax-adapters One called Asheridge EchoBox and one called Hirschmann ECA although both are from other countries.