[mdlug] AT&T 2Wire 3600HGV Uverse Gateway Trouble Hopefully Solved, Was Network Slowdown Troubleshooting/Netgear WNDR3700 Free To Good Home

[Peter Bart]

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 21:41:23 -0500
Peter Bart <petertheplumber at att.net> wrote:

> On Sun, 27 Nov 2011 02:30:14 +0000
> "Mat Enders" <mat.enders at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Those 2-wire routers go bad I am on my third. 
> > Mat Enders from my BlackBerry®
> > 
> 	Sigh, !@#$%^&*(). I found some interesting things here
> <http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26197125-AT-T-U-verse-2Wire-Router-Increase-session-table-limit->
> I'm going to try. Lots of rants against the 3700/3800 2Wires to be
> found. The upshot appears to be the 2Wires stateful firewall
> interferes with just about everything and cannot be turned off.

	Ok here goes for those that have Uverse and a 2Wire
	3600/3700/3800 residential gateway. I've been given to
	understand these are all essentially the same, some have more
	ports than others etc. I have a Model 3600HGV Serial Number
	271019008533 Hardware Version 2700-100727-008 Software Version
	6.3.7.42-plus.tm. I have two different wireless routers;
	both running DD-WRT; plugged into the 2Wire but not at the
	same time. I've been pulling my hair out because I have not been
	able to download a Linux iso. The download would start and
	after a few minutes the data transfer would slow to a crawl and
	hang. I would have Youtube videos buffer that really shouldn't.
	Netflix wasn't really impacted that much because they don't
	stream continuously, but I felt I should be getting quicker
	starts with a down speed of 12Mbs. Netflix will transfer data
	for seconds at a time with an equal gap of no data transfer
	before the next transfer. Claws mail would throw timeout
	errors. I was ready to dump my shiny new Netgear super wireless
	router because I thought it was the source of my troubles.
	Apparently the 2Wire residential gateway's are not capable of
	being set in bridge mode and this creates all sorts of havoc
	when you run a real router to do your heavy lifting. 

	Here's what I did: First I powered off my wireless router but
	left the ethernet cords plugged in. Then I reset the 2Wire to
	factory defaults and waited for it to come back up. Please
	note on each page the changes must be saved before going to
	the next page. Then immediately went to Settings>System
	Info>Password and changed that. Next was Settings>Lan>Wireless
	where I disabled the wireless interface. Then to Settings>System
	Info>Event Notifications and unchecked Broadband Status
	Notification and Router-Behind-Router Detection. Then as I'm
	working my way through the tabs I notice Add Additional Network
	under Settings>Broadband>Link Configuration. Having no liquor or
	chips left I added my wireless routers IP address, subnet mask
	and checked Auto Firewall Open. I mean really, how much worse
	could it get? Wait I know the answer to that! I left the
	2Wire's network range at Settings>LAN>DHCP as is because it
	doesn't conflict with my LAN's IP range. Then I went to
	Settings>Firewall>Advanced Configuration because of this post
	<http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26197125-AT-T-U-verse-2Wire-Router-Increase-session-table-limit->.
	I unchecked everything under Enhanced Security, and set UDP
	Session Timeout to 30 seconds, TCP Session Timeout to 300
	seconds. Then I unchecked everything under Attack Detection.
	Everything else on that page was left as is. Then I powered up
	my wireless router and that's it. I didn't do anything with the
	2Wire's IP Address Allocation, DMZ Pinholes or anything else. I
	do notice I have additional options on some pages such as
	Settings>LAN>DHCP I can now select Public or Private at the
	bottom of the page by New Device DHCP Pool. I'm now on my
	second DVD iso download; meeting or exceeding my advertised
	down speed; while writing this up with no hiccups! YMMV HTH!! 

-- 
Best Regards,

Peter The Plumber
<petertheplumber at att.net>