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View Full Version : Heat causes loss of Broadband!


Angua
18-07-2007, 23:27
I am just having a big grumble as whenever the temperature get a tad on the hot side we lose Broadband connection. As soon as it gets a bit cooler everything is back to normal.

Of course whenever I ring up to report a loss of service they arrange an engineer for several days time by which time the weather has turned cooler & the problem has gone and in order to avoid an unnecessary call out fee I cancel the engineer.

So now we do not even bother calling as we get charged for the call, just grumble on here.

Anyone else suffered with this & had the problem solved? If so I will persevere with the engineer call out next time.

BloodyL
19-07-2007, 02:44
As far as I can see it there are three possibilities:

1)The modem is overheating (I had this problem myself, directing a fan to cool the modem worked for a while but the service still degraded after a time, so I unplugged the modem, rung Tech Support and told them that the modem had just gone bang.)
2)The green cabinet at the end of the street is overheating, unless your a VM technician there is no way you can tell.
3)Both 1 & 2 simultaniously.

You will need to get the Technician out, and explain to him the situation, they should be understanding and not charge you the call out fee.

Traduk
19-07-2007, 02:59
It happens with both cable (fibre\co-axial) and BT's copper wires that the hotter it gets the less efficient the service. Line losses increase and other transmission factors come into play and if levels are borderline the heat can tip them into a fault situation.

Two years ago I had months of dealing with NTL over a similar heat related problem and in the end (2 months credit for almost no service) told them to remove the old skinny Cabletel co-axial cable and replace it with the latest vastly superior one or remove it completely. Never had a local end (Cab to house) problem since.

JackSon
19-07-2007, 03:01
Purely speculative statement follows:

Could also be the transformer in the modem's power supply. Baking in its own heat for years can cause it to give out less stable voltages in warmer weather. In that eventuality, only an engineer performing a swap of power supply unit (or if you have a spare one to match spec) will prove/disprove.

Am not sure if generic power supply units are available (being able to specify plug sizes and output levels) but I'd be surprised if a 3rd party solution was not in existence in one form or another.

Mick Fisher
19-07-2007, 03:43
I had what was thought to be a heat related intermittent loss of connection issue once. Eventually I lost the connection entirely and the engineer found the problem was with the splitter. As to the heat related thing, well the splitter was housed in a box mounted (inside) on a wall, the exterior of which, can recieve strong sunlight from mid morning onwards, so could well have aggravated the situation.

papa smurf
19-07-2007, 08:20
its a common problem the CSA cab needs a cooling fan fitted

Angua
19-07-2007, 09:45
Definitely not the modem as we have left it turned off to go stone cold & if it is still hot outside we don't get broadband (TV is ok and the splitter box does not get hot). Does seem to be better when the sun has gone in as the green box gets the sun most of the day until around 6pm but takes time to warm up so mornings are alright.

Will persevere next time there is on outage :D

NTLVictim
19-07-2007, 10:21
What about parking a big vehicle so the box is in the shade?

Or shielding the box with a couple of cheap car windscreen heat reflective thingys? (don't forget to leave an air gap)

handyman
19-07-2007, 10:27
snip

This is a very common problem, especially in the Notts/Leics areas. It is cased by the green cabs overheating and cutting out. Virgins (ntl) way of dealing with this year in year out is to get a service tech to drive over and open the doors for a bit to let out the heat.

Most of the problems are caused by the siting of the cab, I believe they where all planned to be out of direct sunlight as this was a known issue, when it came to installation they found obstacles in the way and some of the cabs had to be re sited in direct sunlight.

What they should do is either fit fans etc to the cabs and also maybe paint them with a sunlight reflective paint but there is no budget for this sort of pro active work.

Angua
19-07-2007, 10:51
What about parking a big vehicle so the box is in the shade?

Or shielding the box with a couple of cheap car windscreen heat reflective thingys? (don't forget to leave an air gap)

Trouble is it is right on the corner of the road which is narrow anyway and why it gets the sun for most of the day :D They could have put it nearer the boundary hedge though rather than out in full sun!

Graham M
19-07-2007, 11:14
Go over and cover it in tin foil :)

Traduk
19-07-2007, 11:28
Have a look at your modem stats for up and down power levels. Depending on what what modem you have then read Robin Walkers fault notes and see if you are borderline.

My downstream was showing neg 40ish most of the time but on a hot day drifted down towards neg 60 at which level it dropped connection. The upstream was of course similarly affected and lost sync.

My quite long co-axial cable run was in the old Cabletel cat 4 (if memory serves me correctly) and after 5 abortive visits by techies I insisted that it was changed. The re-pull of cat11 (memory again?) solved the problem immediately which was evident by power levels (downstream) of zero to slightly plus. I have not had a single CATV problem from the day of the re-pull but during Summer it was almost daily before the change.

Stuart
19-07-2007, 11:34
Most of the problems are caused by the siting of the cab, I believe they where all planned to be out of direct sunlight as this was a known issue, when it came to installation they found obstacles in the way and some of the cabs had to be re sited in direct sunlight.



Very possibly true. I know that all the cabinets in my immediate area are installed in shady areas, so they don't get hit by the sun much. Although there is one larger cabinet at one end of our road that does, but this is fan cooled.


What they should do is either fit fans etc to the cabs and also maybe paint them with a sunlight reflective paint but there is no budget for this sort of pro active work.

It always amazes me that companies would rather look at short term savings rather than short term expense and long term savings. Yes, it would probably cost a few hundred pounds per cabinet to fit fans, so would cost Virgin millions country wide. But, how much of the equipment in the cabs fails due to overheating? How much does that cost to repair? How much custom is lost because overheating cabs cause problems for customers? How much valuable engineer's time is wasted due to those faults?

I bet that little lot costs Virgin a lot more than a few million.

Sadly, that sort of short term view is widely held both in industry and government. Where I used to work, they cut PPM back to save money, and ended up paying hundreds of thousands of pounds MORE to replace equipment when it failed.

NTLVictim
19-07-2007, 16:09
Very possibly true. I know that all the cabinets in my immediate area are installed in shady areas, so they don't get hit by the sun much. Although there is one larger cabinet at one end of our road that does, but this is fan cooled.



It always amazes me that companies would rather look at short term savings rather than short term expense and long term savings. Yes, it would probably cost a few hundred pounds per cabinet to fit fans, so would cost Virgin millions country wide. But, how much of the equipment in the cabs fails due to overheating? How much does that cost to repair? How much custom is lost because overheating cabs cause problems for customers? How much valuable engineer's time is wasted due to those faults?

I bet that little lot costs Virgin a lot more than a few million.

Sadly, that sort of short term view is widely held both in industry and government. Where I used to work, they cut PPM back to save money, and ended up paying hundreds of thousands of pounds MORE to replace equipment when it failed.

Bean counters, Stuart..the downfall of many a viable company.

I lost all respect for these creatures when I found out they have something (relating to public transport) called the ADR, or acceptable death rate.

Since then, an accountants death has always been acceptable to me.

piggy
20-07-2007, 17:44
Since then, an accountants death has always been acceptable to me.:D

pmsl :D