Thanks very much everyone. Well, yes, I can get Internet access if I plug one end of the Ethernet cable into my laptop, and the other end into the back of the STB. That is how I am communicating with you now.
So . . . then I power everything down, remove the Ethernet cable from the back of my laptop and plug it into the router instead. Power up the STB, wait for solid green lights, etc etc, and then power up the router. The interesting/infuriating thing is that the router *seems* to be happy and busily working away . . . the only clue being that my usual 'activity' light is glowing/flickering pale orange instead of pale green. The router documentation tells me that means it is sending/receiving at 10Mbps instead of 100 . . . but as far as I can tell it isn't sending/receiving at all, as I can't access the Web via the router, plain and simple (couldn't even access the
https://autoreg site). Maybe the flickering orange light is a clue to the more technical minded amongst you??
As for cloning the MAC address of my Mac (hmm, now that does sound confusing!), yes I can do that as I do know that MAC address of my NIC card, but I don't know how to 'clone' it onto the router. Can anyone tell me how to do that easily/in plain English?
Sorry to be such a pain on my first day here, but you know how absolutely infuriating things like this can be, especially since it was working 100 percent FINE with the Samsung box YESTERDAY!! Aaargh!!
Any help gratefully received!!
Michael