Some cable companies "learn" the hardware address of each subscriber's
machine, and reject attempts to use the same connection for other addresses.
(I believe they hope to discourage customers from using one connection for
multiple machines....)
  With most PC NICs, you can go to the connection properties and then to the
properties of the NIC hardware, and enter a new hardware address to use in
place of the one in the NIC ROM.  So you could use "ipconfig /all" on the PC
that works, to find its address (12 hexadecimal digits, normally with a colon
between the first 6 and last 6), and then enter that on the new PC.  I expect
you'll then be able to connect to ComCast.

Dave Gillett


On 5 Oct 2004 at 2:11, Hugh Vandervoort wrote:

> System is a Dell P4, 2-3 years old, upgraded to XP Home from ME.
> When I first saw this sytem, it was connected to Comcast via USB Cable and
> worked fine.
> The owner died and the widow gave it to me. I immediately gave it to a
> friend of mine with Comcast and an older computer.
> He couldn't connect to Comcast with it after installing an ethernet card
> ("Can't Renew IP address"). He also noticed the PS Fan was not running.
> I brought it to my place, replaced the fan and reinstalled XP. It connected
> to the internet via my router with no problem.
> Mu friend has it now, and it won't connect (Page not found). We've tried
> deleting the old connection, running the new connection wizard and the
> Comcast install disk, all to no avail. His old computer connects fine with
> the same modem and cable.
> What am I missing here?

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