Actiontec MI424WR - a cheap MoCA bridge for all! - Page 14

Given the fact that so many of these DOA boxes are in the wild, they may have hardware issues which may cause them to die..

So far all 3 of mine are running fine.. (knock on wood)

My advice is to just get them from sellers on eBay that are just selling them because they just moved out of a FIOS area or just got rid of their FIOS service for other reasons. Those sellers are pretty easy to identify and you know the unit worked up till the day they disconnected. I got three rock solid units using that selection method.

Why gamble on a guy that has piles of them and frankly probably has no idea how to make sure they work right.

Is it possible to run the MI424WR boxes as a MOCA bridge and then to also use the wireless G for PC Client access ??
That way the client can connect to the far end wireless G and ride the coax bridge to get to the internet.
Is anyone doing this ?

yeah clearly it was a salvage operation... but at the time that was the only seller on there. they never misrepresented themselves - it was clear that they were surplus. and when the one arrived DOA they just sent me another one right away.

i decided to try my luck with the netgear boxes. i dont know if they have the same moca chipset or if there's a newer one out there... but it turns out my cable network was kind of on the edge. i put in one more splitter and the moca connection became unstable. maybe things will improve with the netgear boxes, who knows.

I just purchased a lot of 7 units on eBay (without power adapters). Can anyone suggest a place to buy some? I searched for over an hour, and the only one I found was for $14.95 new plus $14 shipping. That was steep!

Yep, 5V 3A 15W. However, I don't know the size of the tip. Also, I can't seem to find places to buy these power adapters for CHEAP! Looked on ebay, google, etc. Lowest prices seem to be around $15+shipping, which I think is fairly steep. If I have to, I'll settle, but I'm sure there's got to be somewhere selling them for like $5 each.

Be careful, the E version requires 10VDC, 1.6A

Great thread, thanks xnappo this may be exactly what I am looking for!

I have a 167 year old Victorian with lathe and plaster walls, so running cat5 throughout the house isn't a viable option (mainly running upstairs to downstairs).

Here is my setup- my main Media PC is upstairs as is my media storage server. I do all my editing and PVRing with my Hauppauge 1212 in my office/workshop. Downstairs is my HT setup and the PS3 I want to stream everything to. Also I will have a WDTV or equivalent type device in the other bedrooms but they are wired with Cat5e.

I do have a couple of questions though.

First- I have Time Warner everything- Cable, phone, Internet... Will this interfere with that since I am already using my cable for Internet and phone?

Next, for those using the Motorola NIM100, what switch are you using and how are you handling IP addresses for the attached devices?

I got a bad one from eBay user "mecenasplnj". He's jerking me around about it now. I'll probably have to file a dispute with eBay or Paypal.

[edit: he gave me a refund and told me to keep the broken router. I don't think it was a scam.]

Tip Size: Inside:2.8mm Outside: 5.5mm
5V 3A (more than 3A should be fine too, but must be exactly 5V)

I got one from eBay user "emtcompany". The model is CHI CH-503 and I paid $10. Be careful because it might not come with the AC cord. I happened to have a matching one in my big box of cords.

The tip size specs are from the auction description for the CH-503 which is currently powering one of my MI424WRs. Keep in mind this is for the older MI424WRs only, as pointed out above.


I just got my two hooked up from one end of the house to the other and it's working great! All thanks to this thread!

I found a 5V 2.5A for another router somewhere. Plugged it in to one of these old MI424WRs and it seems to work.

Anyone know if 2.5A will cause problems long term?

I have a fios actiontec 414 router and bought a Motorola NIM-100 off ebay and added it to my network to add connectivity to media server in a closet where it is very hard to run CAT5. It was plug and play, found the network automatically and I can now dl and ul my full 35/35 to that server.

My problem now is that I get a huge amount of stuttering streaming 1080p mkvs from that server to my three popcorn hour NMTs. This was surprising to me as those mkvs are even less bitrate than my maxed out fios DL speed of 35 mbit/s.

I read about people getting like 150-200 mbit/s throughput over moca so it is a little disappointing to me so far for the purpose of streaming video. Even 100 mbits would be plenty for me to stream high bitrate mkvs as that was what i was doing previously over Cat5 with no issues.

I just cannot think of a reason why I would get such stuttering on 20-30mbit bitrate video files over moca. Any thoughts?

Also, what program can I use to check the throughput to the NIM-100?

Thanks

_____

Update: Also, seems like many people are having similar issues with streaming over moca, as I read the entire thread now - sorry about posting before reading it all. I guess I am not alone.

Great thread, i am looking into hooking up an out building for networking but need a bit stability than wireless can give me. the building is about 300 or so ft away from where i currently have a house wired. what i am curious about is if i run a rgb6 cable from one building to the other, no splits good stuff, can the 424wr handle that type of distance over coax and what types of speeds can i realistically expect to get? I was looking at the gefens but this seems to be a much more affordable solution.


thanks

edit: i don't care about the video at all, i just need data over the coax.

You should be within specs of the MoCA standard and should see decent speeds assuming you dont split the connection from one point to the other..

As far as streaming 1080P movies (MKV's or whatever) --- It seems that this affects a large majority of people with these routers, including myself.. 720P plays back fine, but I get stuttering on 1080P MKVs, MP4s, M2TSs.. On a 90 Mb/s connection, I still get stuttering.. This setup is not perfect or without its problems, but it sure beats wireless and powerline.. And I am perfectly content with streaming 720P movies and full broadband access from locations that would have made running cat5e a nightmare..

Hello all, my first time seeing this thread. Has there been discussion about filtering the MoCA band at the home's point of entry to prevent the signals from travelling upstream to your neighbors? Since MoCA operates at a higher frequency than CATV I don't think there's anything in the line to prevent pass-thru. I'm not sure a cable operator would provide a MoCA filter at the drop if they don't offer MoCA service (that would be a ton of filters for them to install).

From the first post:

If you are worried about security, you may want to enable privacy:
My Network->Network Connections->Network(Home/Office)->Settings->Coax
Select 'privacy' and set the password. Make sure this is the same on all the routers.

Thanks!

I believe if you use a drop-amp simliar to this, that you can segregate your MOCA traffic at the point of entry.

Go to where the cable runs into your house, and put the amp there.. you can also use the Privacy switch with password on all the Actiontecs as ScottJ mentioned.

Anyone use/using the Westell 9100EM for MOCA bridging? How does it co-exist with the Actiontec? Looking to pick one of these up on eBay as I hear they use beefier hardware and are much faster..

Also, I was reading a thread which I can no longer find (believe it was on dslreports that mentioned the administrative ports being left opened on the Actiontecs.. forgot the port #..) - basically an admin port for Verizon techs to backdoor into the boxes.. anyone know about this?

Thanks.

EDIT: I found the dslreports link: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r235...n-new-firmware

It is port 4567..

From Ebay..

$9.99US + free shipping (China):

http://cgi.ebay.com/Actiontec-power-...item5ad78afc30

Apparently VZ was recalling the power supplies and replacing them with ones marked "A1" in the lower-right part of the label under the bar code.. the guy selling these ones show only "A".

Caveat emptor.. YMMV.

AllElectronics has a 5VDC 3.7A adapter for $4.75. Part# is CAT# PS-537

Has anyone tried this one?

This?

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a...UPPLY/-/1.html

This review doesn't think too highly of it:

Not a good unit
This supply is supposed to be a 3.7A 5VDC output. Well it isn't. I tested it on my homemade test bed, and it can only put out 1.5 amps before the voltage starts to drop. At 2 amps load, it put out 4.85 V. That's a 19% drop from it's no load output. A switching power supply should have less than a 5% drop when loaded. SO beware!! I'm going to find another 5V supply that has better regulation.

---------------

You need 3A... but at that price, I guess it is worth a try (if you don't mind the risk).

That reviewer must be using the New Math. 4.85V is only a 3% drop from 5.00V, not 19%.

This looks like a great solution for my house I just have one question, if I use it to bring network service to a place where I have 2 devices (bluray player and htpc) can I connect both to the auctiontech? Or what would I need to make it work?

Thanks


Franke46

Thanks a lot xnappo, I've seen a few locally, they are the better looking, round ones so I suppose they are the newer revisions.

Your posting is a really great contribution to avs, it should be a sticky somewhere.

Franke46