Virgin Media Intermittent Connection

[triff]

Hi All,

I have been with Virgin media for about 3 years (when they were NTL) and since moving house recently come across a puzzling problem. Virgin media have basically said the problem is with my own hardware, which I find hard to believe but I would appreciate any suggestions.

My setup is a VM cable modem to a NetGear WGR614v9 wireless router, then wireless to a laptop and a PC. Wireless connectivity never drops. However I often find I loose internet connectivity.

I tend to run a ping test to the VM gateway I'm on 86.16.176.1 and get the following results:

Ping statistics for 86.16.176.1:
Packets: Sent = 6406, Received = 6168, Lost = 238 (3% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 5ms, Maximum = 1785ms, Average = 17ms

Now that isn't too bad, but on bad days I consistently loose packets for 30 mins+ and statistics are a lot worse

I struggle to believe this is a router problem, I've had a LinkSys, TP-Link and now a Netgear router ALL with the same problem. But when I try connecting just a single computer directly to the cable modem the problem isn't there.

During all of this both the green lights are steady on on the cable modem. I even had VM send me out a new cable modem with no joy

Anyone have any ideas how I can diagnose the problem further or what the issue might be?

At the moment I am pinning all hopes on my upgrade from 2Mb - 10Mb in a couple of months, but I think it's a bit far fetched.

Many thanks,

Alex

[roger_chef]

what if u ping your router? can u post results here?
ping -t your router and see if it drops? It could be that something is interfering with the wireless? any new walkabout phones? microwave?

[brundles]

For me the problems I've had have generally been with VMs network rather than my kit, but that said the fact you get a flawless connection with a direct (presumably ethernet?) connection to the modem does hint at something local to you rather than VM.

Have you tried the usual suspects of changing channels, scanning for less used channels, etc?

Also, as this was since you moved house, what type of house do you live in now compared to your old one? New build houses are so flimsy (for want of a better word) in general that wireless signals work really well but older more solid houses, sometimes not so much.

[triff]

Hi All,

Thanks for the responses, the attached picture is the gateway and router pings side by side.

I'll be honest I haven't exhaustive tested the connection direct from modem because my wife and myself both use the internet and I'd prefer intermittent than non at all :)

I'll certainly have a scan of Broadband channels in use in the area, but given the ping test I don't think this would be a factor. In terms of building, I moved from a Victorian to an Edwardian house....so no change with the solid walls.

If you have any more ideas let me know, I really appreciate the suggestions.

Many thanks,

Alex

[triff]

Hi All,

I've been testing my connectivity without the wireless router, i.e. direct to modem and I've noticed the IP address that gets assigned is different:


Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::1d95:e8a1:7b08:58bf%11
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 86.16.xxx.xxx
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.252.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 86.16.xxx.xxx

On my router its:

IP Address 86.16.xxx.xxx
Gateway IP 86.16.xxx.xxx

Is this normal, or could this be related to the problem?

Many thanks,

Alex

Admin edit (Stuart): I have removed parts of your IP. We recommend that you do not publish IP addresses on the web.

[brundles]

Technically as you're on a different subnet it's possible.

Have you tried doing a series of traceroutes to something like Google or the BBC from each and comparing the results?

[Walford]

The IP is different as it assigns an IP based on the MAC address of the device which is connected to the modem. Since your laptop/pc and router have different MAC's you will see a change in IP.

Jack :D

[triff]

I need to try the tracerts, but I did find when I was connected direct to the modem that there were the odd pings dropping, only single ones mind, but I didn't test it for long, is that normal?
Thanks,
Alex

[brundles]

Although having previously ruled out the modem, what signal levels are you seeing?

[triff]

Cable Modem Downstream
Downstream Lock : Locked
Downstream Channel Id : 3
Downstream Frequency : 402750000 Hz
Downstream Modulation : QAM256
Downstream Symbol Rate : 5360.537 Ksym/sec
Downstream Interleave Depth : taps32Increment4
Downstream Receive Power Level : 0.0 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 41.9 dB

Cable Modem Upstream
Upstream Lock : Locked
Upstream Channel ID : 3
Upstream Frequency : 34000000 Hz
Upstream Modulation : QPSK
Upstream Symbol Rate : 2560 Ksym/sec
Upstream transmit Power Level : 42.5 dBmV
Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 2

Does that look bad?

Thanks,

Alex

[Peter_]

Downstream Receive Power Level : 0.0 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 41.9 dB


Upstream transmit Power Level : 42.5 dBmV


Does that look bad?

No that is a model snapshot of what your power levels should be spot on.

[substandard]

I'm having a similar problem.

Speed is fine, but when I load new webpages, I often get the time-out window in the browser, and when I refresh a few minutes later it's fine.

I've called CS and been told all sorts of different stories,but none of them have solved the problem.

Can someone talk me through some diagnostics? I'm running a cable modem and wireless router to my laptop and there's been no problem for the first 3 months of the service and haven't changed the set up at all.

[Peter_]

I'm having a similar problem.

Speed is fine, but when I load new webpages, I often get the time-out window in the browser, and when I refresh a few minutes later it's fine.

I've called CS and been told all sorts of different stories,but none of them have solved the problem.

Can someone talk me through some diagnostics? I'm running a cable modem and wireless router to my laptop and there's been no problem for the first 3 months of the service and haven't changed the set up at all.
Go to Start>control panel >internet options>advanced >click reset> and it should help with make your browser work better.

[substandard]

Go to Start>control panel >internet options>advanced >click reset> and it should help with make your browser work better.

Thanks for that. Unfortunately, I use Firefox, but the problem persists in IE anyway :/

Could it be something to do with being throttled for heavy bandwidth use? I don't use a lot by some standards, but I've recently been watching iPlayer a lot more than before and downloading large demos (around 500GB+) for my PS3.

[triff]

Hi All,

I have attached the result of a ping test and a tracert. The first tracert is when the connection was fine, the second at the same time as all the timed out pings. When the ping came back the tracert resolved.

Does this help pin-point the problem?

Many thanks,

Alex

[triff]

Just as a side note, when I first posted on this thread the problem seemed to have subsided, until today when it has been atrocious:

Ping statistics for 86.16.176.1:
Packets: Sent = 7212, Received = 6654, Lost = 558 (7% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 5ms, Maximum = 1293ms, Average = 17ms

From an "external factors" point of view nothing has changes, no weird weather, no different power outlets, no new/different computer on the network etc etc

So any ideas would be really helpful

Thanks,
Alex

[triff]

Hi All,
My problems continue, I've attached a screen shot of a ping to my GW, and external IP address and a tracert to the IP address. Could someone confirm if this is conclusive that the problem is with virgin media and not my internal network, it seems that way to me?

Many thanks,

Alex