Modem rebooting frequently. Upstream problems in Woking.

[DeadKenny]

Okay, thought it would be better to summarise my problems in one place rather than on the back of other people's threads.

The story so far...

26th August 2004, Cable Modem had rebooted during the early hours of the morning and my router needed a kick which made it pick up a new IP address. I noticed at this point that the UBR addresses have changed too.

Since then I'm getting slow upstream traffic causing my web server to be painfully slow (including trying to access via secure shell from work), plus when browsing at home web sites are slow to connect to with almost every request requiring a refresh several times to get the pages to load.

On investigation when IM'ing with (what I assume is) an NTL guy, we work out that this is due to my 58 upstream power level (right on the limit, though it has been for a year without problems), and this can cause packet loss. Sure enough when tested with pings to the UBR, there's a load of packet loss (but none when pinging the modem).

Then on the 2nd September, my cable modem starts rebooting frequently, mostly during daytime hours. This is due to it failing to lock onto the upstream signal (see my avatar). It generally goes down mid-morning and recovers in the evening. It's been like this ever since so I'm now without broadband for the majority of the time except a short slot in the evening.

So, I try calling tech support only to be told by the automated messages that they are having "technical difficulties" and probably can't help as a result, may have to wait a while to get to speak to anyone, and then promptly get cut off when I pick an option to speak to someone.

I try using the email support form on the ntlworld site, only to get a reply to call on the tech support number instead.


As some may remember, I had the same problem a couple of years back, pretty much shortly after I got the cable modem, and it was an on and off problem where it would be down for days, weeks at a time, and then okay for months. Official tech support were no help, but certain people at nthellworld.com sorted me out. There were two fixes as I remember, one was to actually connect the new coax line that had been pulled some months earlier as I was still split off the downstairs flat, though it made no difference to the upstream power, and the other was to tweak something in the green box down the road, although the upstream power always remained between 55 and 58, but at least the connection stayed and it's been like that for a year, until the 26th.

According to another post here there was some work done in Woking on the 26th, which would explain the IP change, and with the new UBR IP address perhaps the UBR has been "upgraded" and it's now knackered power levels or something?

[XahgX]

I live in Ashtead and have a similar experience on NTLWorld.

Intermittent or evening-only connection (sometimes morning only) over the period 26th Aug onwards.

I now have a cable modem that appears to be connected (RDY, SYNC on) but through which I get no service!

Like you, we appear to have been upgraded from a functioning 600k to a non-functioning 750k service!

The symptom at the moment is that my router fails to connect to the ISP.

NTL say the modem is not responding to Pings. Frankly, I get no more than that from them because there are only so many half-hour-waits I can stomach in a day trying to get through to them.

In fairness, the following are also true:

1 My PC has had a WORM (now fixed) - Could this have corrupted the router or modem.

2 The router has hung before - although I doubt if this is the problem now.

Any advice gratefully received.

[DeadKenny]

Here's a record of the last few days with my server going up and down (the server is polled from my work PC every 5 minutes)...

Monitoring www.tjmoore.co.uk...
Mon Sep 6 12:11:26 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Mon Sep 6 12:16:34 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Mon Sep 6 13:27:43 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Mon Sep 6 15:25:15 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Mon Sep 6 15:45:48 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Mon Sep 6 18:36:49 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Mon Sep 6 19:22:51 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Mon Sep 6 19:44:02 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Tue Sep 7 02:54:23 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Tue Sep 7 02:59:40 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Tue Sep 7 09:46:49 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Tue Sep 7 09:51:53 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Tue Sep 7 11:28:42 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Tue Sep 7 12:43:24 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Tue Sep 7 13:19:10 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Tue Sep 7 13:50:58 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Tue Sep 7 14:06:27 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Tue Sep 7 19:32:47 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Wed Sep 8 02:31:57 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Wed Sep 8 02:37:00 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Wed Sep 8 09:02:29 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Wed Sep 8 09:18:15 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Wed Sep 8 12:16:21 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Wed Sep 8 14:24:29 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available
Wed Sep 8 14:34:56 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Unavailable
Wed Sep 8 15:33:33 GMTDT 2004 - www.tjmoore.co.uk Available


Note the times when it recovers in the evening? Some time between 7:30pm and 8pm, and this has been pretty consistent for the last week, same with the disconnects in the morning.

i.e. There's a pattern. Almost as if NTL are doing things at these specific times.

[DeadKenny]

It just gets worse. Crawling along at what must be 1kbps :(


PING 10.136.63.254 (10.136.63.254) 56(84) bytes of data.
[...]
--- 10.136.63.254 ping statistics ---
101 packets transmitted, 48 received, 52% packet loss, time 99979ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 6.213/8.203/31.954/3.594 ms, pipe 2

[Paul]

Clearly duff, I would try the cable support number, I think they are there until midnight. 0845 650 0121

[DeadKenny]

Clearly duff, I would try the cable support number

:LOL:

If only it were that simple. It's been tried but I don't have the patience any more to keep getting cut off every time I call them. Besides its the same old problem I've had over years with NTL and it never really gets fixed.

[johnwileqs]

clearly an upstream problem, you say it starts acting up mid morning until early evening. this being the warmest part of the day. warm weather = lower signal level and hence your modem which has been connected at 58 dbmv (MAX) for a motorola going off line. any good tech should sort this for you either by a repull to a bigger spec cable (eg RG11) or fitting a HDU or maybe both.

[DeadKenny]

clearly an upstream problem, you say it starts acting up mid morning until early evening. this being the warmest part of the day. warm weather = lower signal level and hence your modem which has been connected at 58 dbmv (MAX) for a motorola going off line. any good tech should sort this for you either by a repull to a bigger spec cable (eg RG11) or fitting a HDU or maybe both.

I had a completely new cable put in last time it happened a year or so back. Then had to get another engineer out to actually connect the thing! (the cable at the time was split off the downstairs flat, now I'm on the new dedicated cable).

It made absolutely no difference to the upstream power with the new cable.

I've tried a different modem, no difference.

It was fine for about a year even at between 55 and 58, until NTL did some work recently.

Besides I've been told there are HFC problems in the area and it's being looked into.

Not that it really matters now as I've applied for a BT line for ADSL, but maybe if the real problem gets fixed it will sort it out for any of my neighbours. In the meantime if it gets fixed then at least I have broadband to keep me going, otherwise I'll just live with dial-up. I'm not wasting any more time on call-outs though (over the years I've wasted far too much time on NTL, none of which I can be compensated for).

[Chimpy]

Since I got back from holiday at the start of Septemer, we have had the same problem.

Our upstream power is 61 and the ready light on out modem keeps flashing.

Occasionally it comes on for a couple of hours (the upstream power went to 52 last night for a little while) then it just loses lock again.

It's very frustrating.

[DeadKenny]

Anyone know what...

REG-RSP Msg was not received (TIME OUT) - Status = Failed

means in a Surfboard 4100 status screen?


The latest batch of rebooting (started this afternoon) has left me with packet-loss city again and I noticed the above on the SB status screen.

Back on dial-up now just to even get a page to load properly.


Edit: Changed my upstream channel (don't know if that helps) and rebooted the modem. Packet loss better now, but power level still on 58.

[markmarkymark]

I have all the problems highlighted above - on and off ...

Reading (RG10)

MArk

[Chimpy]

Ours sorted itself out last week and has been 100% up since thursday.

The upstream power still reads very high though (~60), which concerns me.

[Ignition]

Woking should be pretty much there now.

[Thorny]

Ive had the same thing over the last few months. Earlier this year it would go down every 10 minutes,
about a year ago it kept doing it, engineer came round and installed a new cable from the little box to my modem, worked for a few months. then started doing the same thing again. I phone up NTL, another 2 weeks untill an engineer can come round. Engineer comes round, goes to the green box down the road and "tweaks" my connection. Again it workes for a few months. I ring CS again, yet again another 2 weeks till an engineer can come out. This time he gives me the new modem and installs some small device between the cable and the modem, aparently this "levels" the signal. he then switches my channels at the green box to a higher priority one???
Its ok for a few months and now I am back here again. connection going down every 10-15 minutes.

I am seriously fed up with NTL now, I am paying for a 1.5MB service and getting S**T through a straw in return.

NTL have untill the new year to sort themselves out else I am going ADSL. Im fed up of having to get an engineer out 5 times a year to fix problems.

[DeadKenny]

Woking should be pretty much there now.

Woking is da place! :D ( :erm: )

Well, the modem hasn't rebooted for over a day but then I always get periods like this. Upstream power level is same as usual though. 56 to 58 (mostly 58). Same as it has been pretty much since day 1 of getting cable modem, regardless of all the call outs and the new cable pulled.

[bugheadcjd]

I have all the problems highlighted above...

My upstream power is always around 59.

Leicester (LE3)

Chris.

[blackcrow]

Hi

i live in the Woking GU21 area. on 300/64 cable and have experienced solid upstream of ~62kbps or 7 - 8 KB/s upload. Downloads of 30 - 35 KB/s

2nd and 3rd HOP to anywhere (incase you share the same local connections)
2 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms glfd-t2cam1-a-v112.inet.ntl.com [80.4.30.97]
3 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms glfd-t2core-a-ge-wan61.inet.ntl.com [62.254.207.37]

Downstream Receive Power Level : -3.65 dBmv
Downstream SNR : 33.03 dB
Upstream Transmit Power Level : 51.00 dBmv

No problems so far (just returned from a 2 week holiday yesterday to find the upgrade complete)
If there any specific things you want me to test DeadKenny, reply and let me know.