My 50MB connection keeps dropping out

[Rags868]

I wonder is someone from Virgin or anyone else can offer or suggest any advice.

I've been a VM customer for over ten years now - ever since the telewest and NTL days subscribing to their phone, tv and internet package. Back in march '09 I upgraded to their VM 50MB service. After some initial teething problems - my internet connection has been running with out any problems for months now.

But recently Virgin Media had a major hardware failure and this caused customers to lose some of their services. Me living in the Walsall area (WS3) - it only seemed to effect my TV service which was back working within 24hrs.

Anyway since this hardware failure I've notice that I've been losing my internet connection on a daily basis and even more recently 2 - 3 times a day. It's only down for like 5 mins or so but it can be quite annoying when using it for XBOX live and connecting to work.

Looking at my modem configuration I've notice that the downstream and upstream levels are as follows:-

Downstream

DS1 DS2 DS3
9.79 9.45 9.04 (Power Level DBmv)
0 0 1 (Correctable Codewords)
296 303 339 (Uncorrectable Codewords)


Upstream

US1
39.75 (Power Level DBmv)
0 (T1 - Timeouts)
0 (T2 - Timeouts)
2889 (T3 - Timeouts)
0 (T4 - Timeouts)

and in the event log I'm getting numerous errors like

Sun Jan 3 22:06:19 2010 Sun Jan 3 23:07:25 2010

Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;
CM-MAC=XXXXXXXXXX;CMTS-MAC=XXXXXXXXXXXXXX;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

Do these levels look okay or are they high ? and should I phone the support line and get them to check anything out.

Any information would be great.

Cheers

Rags (In the Walsall area)

[Sephiroth]

We should see the full upstream/downstream data and event log rather than your selection - particularly as problems occur throughout the day. The downstream SNR is important too. You know everything about your situation - we're miles (in my case 100) away from you.

Also a pathping www.bbc.co.uk might be helpful if we see latency between particular VM nodes.

Plus if you go to the Connection link at the top of this page and copy your CMTS details, removing the customer ID and not posting the IP address, that could be helpful too.

Cheers

[III]

Downstream power is to high Rags, you need to call support and have tech sent out to you.

[Kymmy]

Please do not post MACs in signal reports

[Rags868]

Thanks for the information guys - I'm at work at the moment - so will get the information when I'm back home laters :-)

[Ignitionnet]

Noise problem upstream too:

2889 (T3 - Timeouts)

[spaff]

completely irrelevant but i just heard that VM have a 200mb service sat there ready to roll out, just the government are stopping them because other companies like Bt are so far behind.. just thought i would let y'all know :)

[Ignitionnet]

completely irrelevant but i just heard that VM have a 200mb service sat there ready to roll out, just the government are stopping them because other companies like Bt are so far behind.. just thought i would let y'all know :)

No they don't have it ready to roll out it's just been trialled in a very small area, and the government would certainly not stop them from rolling it out :)

Yes other companies are miles behind, so what's the point in rolling out 200Mbit when 50 is, for now, quite enough to be fastest?

Look for 100Mbit coming at some point in the likely not too distant future though, along with increases in upload speed.

Just as an FYI as to where you might have heard that, I have 200Mbit going to my modem, but I share that 200Mbit with everyone else on 50Mbit and various people on 20 and 10Mbit in my area too, so while VM could set my 50Mbit to allow it to go to 200Mbit it's dubious as to how often I could get there, just like on the old network while VM only offered 20Mbit the network was actually delivering as much as 50Mbit to each area so they could have gone higher but people would have rarely seen full speeds, if ever.

[Rags868]

Sorry it's took some time but heres the information required in the attached document file:-

Let me know if you need anymore information

the strange thing is that when I do a pathping do the bbc there seems to be a strange ip address 10.19.140.1 - not sure what this is - I can see my internal router etc..

Any ideas ?

Cheers

Rags

[spaff]

well actually yes the government would prevent them from releasing it because some time ago (nots sure timescale) but the government used to own BT and still own some of it apparently. Therefore it is quite possible that they would prevent it because otherwise Virgin would have monopoly of the market and this is from a virgin guy that came to my house today :)

[Sephiroth]

well actually yes the government would prevent them from releasing it because some time ago (nots sure timescale) but the government used to own BT and still own some of it apparently. Therefore it is quite possible that they would prevent it because otherwise Virgin would have monopoly of the market and this is from a virgin guy that came to my house today :)

"spaff" is a very well chosen handle for you :angel::angel:

---------- Post added at 14:22 ---------- Previous post was at 14:17 ----------

@ Rags

The Pathping, in so far as it may be typical of what you experience, shows no bottleneck on the network.

Here is the key data pulled from your modem stats:

Power Level (dBmV) 9.91 9.43 9.09 N/A

T3 Timeouts 2889 0 0 0

There is instability on your line. It may be due to the highish downstream power level (consensus here generally is that it should be below 6 dBmv) but could be due to other network causes. That power level needs sorting anyway.

Best thing you can do is post the modem stats on the VM support newsgroup. They respond quickly and you avoid the offshore agent hassle.

[Ignitionnet]

well actually yes the government would prevent them from releasing it because some time ago (nots sure timescale) but the government used to own BT and still own some of it apparently. Therefore it is quite possible that they would prevent it because otherwise Virgin would have monopoly of the market and this is from a virgin guy that came to my house today :)

I see.

1) The government sold their last shares in BT in 1993.
2) The government can't prevent Virgin releasing products. If they tried VM would have them in court rather rapidly.
3) Virgin engineers tell some interesting stories

:)

[spaff]

this is just what i was told...

[Ignitionnet]

Wikipedia is your friend, and saves a few blushes when you post rumours online ;)

[Rags868]

Thanks for the assistance guys..

I posted on the newgroups last night and I got a reply from a VM Technician who said that my power levels were why to high for a 50MB connection. (like you said). So he said send he a suitable time and he'll organise a suitable time for an engineer to come out, which I've duly done.

So once hes come and done what he needs to do I'll let you know how I get on.


Cheers

Dave