Connection not responding

[avid.merrion]

Hi

I have a problem with my Virgin broadband. Everyday for the last 2 months it keeps losing connection. It is particularly worse in the day, as I have been working from home, and really notice the problems.

The modem does not lose connection, as in the sync light stays solid. However I am unable to check mail. Browse and my MSN disconnects. This lasts for a few minutes. I have spoken to the Indian call centre an several occasions and have ran through their scripts. Eventually we had an engineer this weekend. He said straight away that they shouldn’t have sent him, as the modem is not losing connection to the network. He did check the power levels and they are apparently fine. He said he would swap the modem over and the off chance it was something to do with that. So we now have a Virgin Media badged 250 modem

The problem has not gone away. Today the connection is virtually unusable, to the point where I will have to cut and paste this before I post, as I can almost guarantee I will be greeted with pages cannot be displayed.

In the last 2 months I have bought a new router and replaced all the CAT5 cable, and even tried it without the router. The result is always the same.

When the connection problem occurs, I can browse my internal network, connect to my router and my partners share drives etc, but can not get access to the cable modem config screens. The router is not showing that it has dropped a connection to the cable modem, it is just unresponsive. I spoke to VM again today who advised me that there is work going on in Swansea. I don’t want to disbelieve them but there is no mention of this on their server status or planned upgrades. I always get the impression that when we discuss the problems, sometimes they just want to get me off the phone as they have no idea where to start.

Hopefully someone has seen this before and can offer some advise

Thanks in advance


SPEC HERE

VM 250 Cable Modem
D-Link DGL 4300 Gamerlounge router
2 wired pc’s
1 wireless laptop


P.S. Whilst writing this MSN disconnected and reconnected 3 times

Virgin - Please bring back the tech support in Swansea. I am sick of calling India and ending up turning my pc and modem off and on again.

[PlanBee]

Sounds a nightmare... Using my best Network+ skills :-) I'd say we need to eliminate pieces of the puzzle. If I were in that situation (I have two wireless routers and Isa2004 on my system)... I'd look to connect a PC directly to the cable modem (maybe change the MAC address on the LAN card so you don't have to reprovision) I'd open a command prompt and ping the router clean side and something on the dirty side - use /T and watch. If there are no timeouts, the problem lies on your side... As the modem has been replaced and the sync light is on I suspect the problem maybe on your side. I know there are better tools than PING but is a simple elimination needed at this stage... I don't suppose you have a duplicate IP address anywhere or a duplicate MAC address. ...and I didn't mention your firewall :-)

[avid.merrion]

Sorry I should have said in the first post that I have eliminated the router from the equasion during tests as well, and connected the pc to the cable modem (rebooting the cable modem in between) same problem. I even thought it may an issue with the network card, so rebooted the cablemodem and connected the laptop to it. Same thing.

Ohh and it stops happening at night

[PlanBee]

I assume you've eliminated the cable as well... just a thought - although why it would work at night is beyond me.

General brainstorming: any interference, earth loops, mains noise (I know I'm grasping at straws but its always easier to tell VM what it isn't)

The fact it stops at night worries me... it sort of says enviromental issue. or a DOS attack - have you tried pinging yourself from off your network? Maybe your new IP address is the problem - have you tried powering down overnight to get a new address... another straw I'm afraid... please post an update when you have one.

[avid.merrion]

Will try the new IP, although I am sure we got a new one when they changed the modem over on saturday. The router does not respond to ping requests and just drops the packets. Can't think of anything that would cause interferance here during the day but not at night, but will look into it.

We play online games at night (battlefield 2142 and WOW) and don't have problems.

Could it be business use on Virgin during that day that is causing network problems, as I am in the city centre. Seems strange that the bulk of the problems are during office hours.

Anyhow thanks for your help

[afraser2k]

This is the same problem I've been getting for about the last two weeks although it happens mostly in the evening. I've tried the usual solutions from the call centre like removing my router and using a NTL proxy but nothing works, then I get about 6+ random reboots of my cable modem (Surfboard 3100 on the 10 Mb and yes it had coped with the speed upgrade) during the evening and sometimes a couple during the day if I'm browsing. The power levels seem fine according to the stickied thread. Playing World of Warcraft has also become impossible due to lag spikes and disconnections though I'm not sure if that's just an issue with Blizzard as lots of other players using VM are reporting problems.

[avid.merrion]

Does your modem reboot? mine does not

I have just spent the last 90 mins playing 2142 with no problems. Weird how different times of day affect it

[afraser2k]

Does your modem reboot? mine does not

I have just spent the last 90 mins playing 2142 with no problems. Weird how different times of day affect it

It does though it's only happened twice tonight and that was earlier on.

[avid.merrion]

if it's rebooting, get them to swap the modem out mate

[Chimpy]

Playing World of Warcraft has also become impossible due to lag spikes and disconnections though I'm not sure if that's just an issue with Blizzard as lots of other players using VM are reporting problems.

It's not your end - lots and lots of people are complaining about this. It's driving me nuts. I'm sure it's a problem somewhere on the Virigin network, but I don't know if they have the expertise to remedy it.

[avid.merrion]

Another day of virtually no internet connection, only for the evening to work fine.

Spoke to NTL today, this time in the UK. Went through a load of things and they agree that the fault cant be here as I have tried it on another pc, and a laptop, with the router, without the router, new network cables and the fact that it always works at night.

They all but said they don't know and that they can't do anything except send and engineer out to swap the modem, but that is pointless as that has been done and more than one occasion.

We left the conversation with the suggestion of putting me on another UBR as I am in between 2, and that a second line tech would call me back later that morning. Well no call......the modem has not rebooted and I have the same IP so I guess I am on the same UBR

The impression I get, is that unless it is a complete outage where they can send an engineer, or a simple setup problem, then they have no idea where to start.

It never used to be like this

[avid.merrion]

some tracerts showing it not working and then working and then not working again. As you will see it seems to fall down right away. I assume the first IP from my router is the UBR

C:\Documents and Settings\Me>tracert www.bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.227.72]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 73 ms 41 ms * 212.58.227.72
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * 18 ms www2.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.227.72]

Trace complete.


12:39pm 6th March

C:\Documents and Settings\Me>tracert www.bbc.co.uk (http://www.bbc.co.uk)

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.226.232]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 12 ms 7 ms 8 ms 10.217.132.1
3 16 ms 36 ms 11 ms swan-t2cam1-b-ge-
4.145]
4 8 ms 37 ms 8 ms swan-t2core-b-ge-
.13]
5 21 ms 12 ms 36 ms win-bb-b-so-710-0

6 21 ms 29 ms 11 ms win-bb-a-ge-000-0

7 12 ms 11 ms 14 ms gfd-bb-b-so-100-0

8 32 ms 15 ms 43 ms tele-ic-1-so-110-

9 18 ms 14 ms 37 ms 212.58.238.189
10 17 ms 14 ms 38 ms 212.58.238.133
11 15 ms 33 ms 13 ms 212.58.238.145
12 14 ms 37 ms 24 ms 212.58.226.232

Trace complete.

12:45pm 6th March

C:\Documents and Settings\Me>tracert www.bbc.co.uk (http://www.bbc.co.uk)
Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk (http://www.bbc.net.uk) [212.58.226.232]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * 15 ms 12 ms 212.58.238.133
11 13 ms 14 ms 24 ms 212.58.238.145
12 15 ms 26 ms 14 ms 212.58.226.232
Trace complete.

[avid.merrion]

Spoke to VM in Swansea today, and they decided to escalate the call to their FMC. Apparently the UBR is over utilised, with over 1000 users on. They said that it will be fixed shortly.

I asked about the UBR I was supposed to be changed to on Wednesday. Apparently I am on the correct UBR, and the one I was told I was going to be moved to does not exist.

[avid.merrion]

*update*

I was passed to customer services to explain to them what has been going on, after 35 mins waiting I spoke to someone who will escalate it. He advised me to call them in 2-3 weeks to see how they are getting on upgrading the UBR

2-3 WEEKS! What is wrong with this company....do they want to hack off customers?

[Paul K]

And you expect them to do what? Magic new equipment out of the air and send the pixies directly to your UBR to sort it out? Resources are never infinite in any compnay.

[avid.merrion]

No I expect them to have equipment in stock to be added in. I work for a large IT firm, and we have massive amounts of spares in stock, or setups in place for 24 hour swap out.

Our customers would not tolerate it, and would look at other solutions providers. Especially if we sold them a solution, and then added another load of customers on to the server, and our excuse was that we have to many customer on it. How you can think that this is ok is beyond me. I would assume that they have regional engineers in place, and if not why not.

So as a multi million pound company, I would expect them to have spares, or the ability to upgrade.

[Paul K]

So you would expect a company with Multi-Million pound debts to have money tied up in assets that may or may not be needed? VM is looking to upgrade equipment but as with any company you need to balance the books or you end up in the situation that NTL found itself in when it was on the brink of bankruptcy.

[avid.merrion]

No I would expect them to to have network design plans in place and load balancing, like we do with our managed servers. We look at how many people will be using a set piece of hardware and upgrade when it hits 70% capacity. And Yes I would expect them to have spare equipment in-case of failure or upgrade. Ours is stored centrally and can be dispatched within 24 hours to where it is needed.