The D-Link DIR-825 Problem with Invalid MAC Addresses

Photo Courtesy of RDPress.ca

This by no means is going to be limited to a technology BLOG and the technology issues that I address are likely to be consumer friendly and consumer oriented, like the coolest new Smartphone app I’ve found or a really useful and practical case for the phone I am using at the time.

Now that being said, I have to disappoint the regular old Joe coming across this page and deal with a persistent and problematic continuing issue that I’ve had with my new D-Link DIR-825 router.

To get into the tech speak, I want to reserve IP addresses even for devices that acquire their IP addresses via DHCP so that a printer will not mysteriously change IP addresses causing hours of troubleshooting and reconfiguring the connected  computers.  That’s not the half of it - much more commonly, I may have my iPhone connected to my home network and using the Apple iPhone App Store “Air Sharing” app, sync to my Netgear ReadyNAS DUO for back-up or regular work files.  It makes it all a lot easier if each time it connects to the network it has the same IP address.   There are too many examples to list here of situations where it is much more practical and much easier to simply reserve a DHCP IP address for a device rather than going through the trouble of setting up a static address (and doing the necessary tracking of “used” and “unused” addresses available in your block).

So I set out as usual to do my research on the issue and found out that this is an issue that is shared by numerous D-Link devices, not just the DIR-825.  I will put in a little plug here and say that I have otherwise been very happy with the stability and performance of the DIR-825.

Back to the reserved DHCP address issue.  It seems that the DIR-825 believes any MAC address the does not begin with “00” is not a valid address and will not accept it.  Well it doesn’t take a genius time to figure out that there are LOTS of devices that have MAC addresses that do not begin with two zeros.  My Apple iPhone begins with DC, my DirecTV R22-100 receivers begin with 02 and another network appliance that I have begins with 08.  None of those devices can have a DHCP IP address reserved for them with the current version of the firmware for the D-Link DIR-825.

For you real geeks out there, today, I finally had it and submitted a support ticket, which is below for your perusal.  I will be sure to post the response that I get from my ticket:

Through DHCP, I am attempting to reserve IP addresses to be assigned to particular devices.  To do so, the router requests the MAC address for the reserved device.

I have concluded that whether I manually type the device, or connect it and use the "pre-populate" option, I am given the error of "Invalid MAC Address".

Through my research I have determined that this is not an issue with my unit in particular, but a wider spread issue the certain D-Link devices will not accept ANY MAC addresses that do not start with "00".

As you can see below, numerous of my devices have MAC addresses that do not begin with a "00" prefix, obviously causing me a significant stumbling block when trying to reserve these addresses.

For various reasons, a work around by which I would use a STATIC IP address rather than a DHCP IP address is not satisfactory, as these devices connect to several networks with their own particular reserved DHCP address.

Please let me know D-Link's current status on a "fix" for this obvious error in the D-Link DIR-825 wireless router.

IP Address                MAC
192.168.44.100        00:21:XX:XX:XX:XX
192.168.44.103        44:58:XX:XX:XX:XX
192.168.44.102        00:1F:XX:XX:XX:XX
192.168.44.101        DC:2B:XX:XX:XX:XX
192.168.44.106        00:19:XX:XX:XX:XX
192.168.44.105        78:A2:XX:XX:XX:XX
192.168.44.112        00:0D:XX:XX:XX:XX

(I made some redactions in case some idiot got through my firewall and decided to enjoy their merry way around my network.)

If I am wrong and you know of a work-around, different way of doing things, then please, let me know.  I’m all ears and interested in comments from those of you who have had the same (or opposite) experiences.


Related Links:

• Official D-Link Page: DIR-825 XTREME N DUAL BAND GIGABIT ROUTER
• D-Link Xtreme N (Platinum Products)» DIR-825
• D-Link makes DIR-825 official
• A Networking Primer: What’s a MAC Address?