Macintosh and APIPA

[mondy]

I have a cable modem connection and I have a PC running XP and a MAC running OSX. Before I got my MAC I used to have only the PC and when I could not access the Internet I would check my IP and get a 169.254.x.x address. I would then unplug the coax to my cable modem and see if I could pull a 192 address from the modem. This would confirm that TCP/IP was working fine and that the problem was no DHCP response. Now that I own a MAC I try to do the same thing but no matter what I do I still get a 169 IP.

Now for my question.... why won't my MAC pull a 192 address from my cable modem? Does APIPA figure into this at all?

 

[jimbopalmer]

OK some terminology:
Mac (not an acronym, short for Macintosh)
MAC (Media Access Controller, for reasons that should be obvious, while everyone else calls this a MAC address Apple calls it the Hardware Address)

My ISP only allows one device on a cable modem, I have to registermy MAC address with them to get online, if I change devices I need to reregister my new MAC address.

So if I had more than one computer I wanted online, I would get a router and register it's MAC address (if the router allows cloning a MAC address you can clone the PC's MAC address and not have to reregister with the ISP) with the ISP then put all the computers behind a router.

On the Mac, check the TCP control panel to be sure it is using DHCP

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[mondy]

Actually my cable modem provider doesn't require that I register my MAC address. It's done through the modem or their router, I guess. So, if I don't have to register my hardware address, then why doesn't my Macintosh pull a 192 address from the modem like my PC does?

 

[all2tropical]

True... I believe there is an issue with a system ID that is registered when setting up the CM... the a cable modem with a router is the easiest solution.