Is my D-Link PowerLine AV Starter Kit messing with DHCP?

Question

Yesterday, before I moved into a new house, I had the following setup:

• 1 x Shaw Cable modem (Motorola, blue)
• 1 x D-Link Xtreme N Gigabit Router (DIR-655)
• 1 x Sony PlayStation 3
• 2 x Apple iMacs
• 4 x Apple iPhones (2 x 3G and 2 x iPhone 4)
• 1 x Apple iPad (Wi-Fi only)
• 1 x Windows 7 laptop (Asus, not that it matters)
• 1 x Samsung CLX-3170 Series printer

Until I moved house yesterday, all of these devices played very nicely together. The printer and the PlayStation were plugged directly into the router via CAT5e. All the other devices spoke to each other (as required) wirelessly. And the router handles all my DHCP with a MAC-based reservation list.

I'm using WPA2 security with an appropriately long passphrase.

We moved into a new house yesterday, and due to a reconfiguration of our workspace, there is now a wall between the router and the printer. So to avoid drilling holes everywhere, I got one of these:

• 1 x D-Link PowerLine AV Starter Kit

Then the chaos started. Whereas before I was happily having my router assign 192.168.0.x addresses to each device, since the introduction of the PowerLine gadgets, the DHCP addresses I've been seeing on the client devices are in the 192.168.100.x range, but only on the Apple devices. It appears that the other devices (the laptop, the printer, the PS3) are all fine.

Now, what's strange is that any reserved addresses (e.g. the printer, one of the iMacs, the iPad, for instance) had to be deleted and recreated, based on MAC address, even if the MAC was in the list before. Once I plugged those in again, with new IPs in the 192.168.0.x range, they all started working fine.

As I've already devised a workaround for this problem, it's purely an academic question now: is it possible that the PowerLine goodies can mess with DHCP like that?

Answer 1

As noted in the original question, once I reset the MAC reservations, it all worked again, so as there's been no further interest in this question, I'll accept this answer.

Answer 2

All I can say is that, due to massive interference from an air handler/furnace closet, no radio waves from wifi or portable phones reach from one end of our house to the other.

So I picked up two boxes of Powerline AV 200 kits (include 2 units each) to cover existing needs.

For possibly a month, all was fine despite some warning signs on the units themselves.

Now all they are capable of is assigning their own IP addresses, which they never did before.

I am springing for a couple hundred feet of stranded Cat5e and running it under the eaves of our rented house to avoid drilling anything but entry holes to the rooms needing ethernet. This, coupled with a nice unmanaged gigabit switch with more than enough ports should allow for more consistent results providing I am handy enough to wire the wall sockets and/or jacks correctly. The Cat5e wall sockets will cover the entry holes, but their color schemes are completely unrelated to the twisted pair cables! It will take a magnifying lens to figure them out unless I spring for QuickPorts that punch down either the A or B configuration.

If anyone wants the Powerlines, they can have them for the price of shipping from Arizona. I do not want to constantly have to unplug and replug all 4 units in the house and HOPE that solves the problem...which cropped up as I said after a month of perfect operation.

Anyone disagree with the plan, or want to elaborate on what I should do?

I am a newbie, so if I am not posting corrctly or have to fill out my profile first, apologies in advance!