Are these settings normal?

[iFrankie]

I'm just curious

Cable Modem Downstream
Downstream Lock : Locked
Downstream Channel Id : 175
Downstream Frequency : 315000000 Hz
Downstream Modulation : QAM256
Downstream Symbol Rate : 6952 Ksym/sec
Downstream Interleave Depth : taps12Increment17
Downstream Receive Power Level : 15.6 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 40.1 dB

Upstream Lock : Locked
Upstream Channel ID : 1
Upstream Frequency : 45800000 Hz
Upstream Modulation : QPSK
Upstream Symbol Rate : 5120 Ksym/sec
Upstream transmit Power Level : 41.2 dBmV
Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 4

[jb66]

There out of spec, downstreams too high

[iFrankie]

There out of spec, downstreams too high

Could this affect how i play online games? because recently i've had a lot of lag/fps drop when i'm playing with 16 players.

[jb66]

I doubt it but no harm calling up if you can face the Indian call center

[Sephiroth]

Your upstream is noisy, hence QPSK modulation. Other people on the sdame channel will also be on this modulation and only half the upstream capacity in the channel is available to you.

So notwithstanding the cooking modem (I'd have that attenuated by 15 dBmv using forw3ard path attenuators), VM need to fix your upstream.

Don't take any crap from the Indian Call Centre if they say they don't support the upstream. Without the upstream, nothing can function. Nothing.

[Peter_]

You need a technician as your downstream is way to high and it needs sorting out by a technician so call in on 151 from a Virginmedia phone line or 0845 454 1111 from any other phone line and an agent will help you.

If you ring this morning from 8am you should get a UK agent.

[Nopanic]

There out of spec, downstreams too high

Your upstream is noisy, hence QPSK modulation. Other people on the sdame channel will also be on this modulation and only half the upstream capacity in the channel is available to you.

So notwithstanding the cooking modem (I'd have that attenuated by 15 dBmv using forw3ard path attenuators), VM need to fix your upstream.

Don't take any crap from the Indian Call Centre if they say they don't support the upstream. Without the upstream, nothing can function. Nothing.

You need a technician as your downstream is way to high and it needs sorting out by a technician so call in on 151 from a Virginmedia phone line or 0845 454 1111 from any other phone line and an agent will help you.

If you ring this morning from 8am you should get a UK agent.

:erm: Does anyone actually read the post above them :D

Just in case you're still not sure, get a tech booked :)

[kwikbreaks]

The downstream power is too high and the upstream is noisy so you need to book a tech. :)

[Peter_]

:erm: Does anyone actually read the post above them :D

Just in case you're still not sure, get a tech booked :)
I answered because he PMed me.:rolleyes::D

[jb66]

You need a tech :D

[iFrankie]

Ok thank you all, been a bit busy today so ill ring them first thing tomorrow.

[qasdfdsaq]

You need a tech :D
You volunteering? :p:

[iFrankie]

Just an update, we rang them just now and a tech is coming out on Sunday between 8/12, i've never known them to come out on a Sunday!.

[jb66]

Hope it is me, easiest job ever! 15 or 10db attenuator

[iFrankie]

Hope it is me, easiest job ever! 15 or 10db attenuator

Is an attenuator one of these

http://media.digikey.com/photos/Hirose%20Elect%20Photos/HV-AT(10)-PJ.JPG

If so im SURE i had one of them on my old modem.

[kwikbreaks]

The VM one on mine is squareish rather than cylindrical and has an identifying label saying exactly what it is. Do an eBay search for Forward Path Attenuator and you'll see what the ones on there look like. Mine is like those.

[Wallace]

Poo. My Upstream has always be on QPSK. No wonder it's not very good.

Is there anything I can do without calling a tech?

[jb66]

That's a wideband attenuator, rarely used, you'll get a forward path attenuator

[Sephiroth]

Poo. My Upstream has always be on QPSK. No wonder it's not very good.

Is there anything I can do without calling a tech?

We'd need to see your FULL modem stats, including Operational Configuration and the event log.

Then we can correlate anything we see and provide advice. One thing you can do is ask your neighbours to provide their modem stats so we can see if it's a common cause fault, in which case something rather better than a usual visiting enbgineer would be required.

[Wallace]

Thanks. Here is the current state of play. Unfortunately, I cleared out the log file last night and it has remained so since. Sod's law.

I am sorry I couldn't find a better way of uploading the stats.

Thank you in advance.

[Sephiroth]

Shame about the event log, although if it's clear, then nothing has gone awry since you cleared it.

But there's clearly an upstream problem and no evidence of a downstream problem. Do you have any form of attenuator on your modem? If so, please describe it then remove it and post your stats again.

The stats show double issues with the upstream. Poor SNR (QPSK) and high power (attenuation). This could be due to a cabling issue like not tightly screwed in at either end or in the inside wall box. Or the outside wall box. This is a possibility because downstream power is lowish (but not out of spec). It could be eatwer in the tap point outside your house. If you're in a block of flats, then it'll be the distribution system there (usually a nasty little splitter).

Let us know.

[Wallace]

Thanks for your quick reply.

I have taken the MODEM outside the house and connected it directly to the incoming cable from your street cabinet in the brown weather protection box on our house wall.

I have a very long Ethernet cable and used a mains extension lead.

The Upstream power improved very slightly to 51dBmV (from 55), but Modulation was still QPSK.

I live in a private house. No attenuator fitted at all.

I have now connected everything back as it should be and the levels are as I previously posted above.

Surly this proves that it is not the internal wiring that is inducing the noise?

Thanks.

[Sephiroth]

Good work. There is thus upstream attenuation and noise. The next points of weakness are the drop point in the street, the tap point in the street cabinet, the amplifier in the cabinet. Oh - it could be a failing modem.

You can't avoid a tech, I'm afraid. VM will likely send you the standard engineer who'll swap out the modem. Make sure your upstream is fixed before he leaves. If it isn't make sure he calls in 2nd line there and then because sometimes they promise you next steps and then nothing.

It's worth asking your neighbours if they have problems.

Cheers

[Wallace]

Thanks again.

An old chestnut of a question, when is the best time to call to get a UK operator and is it still 151 from my VM phone?

[Sephiroth]

Masque always advises just after 08:00 weekday. I still don't understand why VM persist with the offshore travesty. The customers hate it.

[Wallace]

Thanks you, once again.

I will call next week.

At the moment, my Internet seems well, regardless of what the stats say. Mind you, the error log is clear at the moment too!

Cheers.

[Sephiroth]

It means that at the current power level, it's pushing through OK and under QPSK modulation it can correct the effects of noise, generally speaking.

It would start to fade if your event log showed T3 events.

[iFrankie]

Good Luck Sephiroth, ill post my stats tomorrow after they leave.

I rang around 7PM and got an Indian woman, she was actually helpful and fast, also i didn't know Virgin Media charged you £10 if you didn't actually have a problem OR you wasn't in when they came.

[jb66]

They dont anymore

[iFrankie]

They dont anymore

They rang yesterday with an automated message saying so and today we got another automated call making sure we still want the tech, unless its out of date :/.

[jb66]

Well, they've took my calling cards with the £10 charge off me yesterday and gave me new ones

[Peter_]

I rang around 7PM and got an Indian woman, she was actually helpful and fast, also i didn't know Virgin Media charged you £10 if you didn't actually have a problem OR you wasn't in when they came.
The £10 charge for missed appointments was withdrawn on Friday 2nd September to help improve NPS email scores from customers and the technicians now have a new calling card to leave you as per jb66's post above.

[iFrankie]

Downstream Lock : Locked
Downstream Channel Id : 176
Downstream Frequency : 323000000 Hz
Downstream Modulation : QAM256
Downstream Symbol Rate : 6952 Ksym/sec
Downstream Interleave Depth : taps12Increment17
Downstream Receive Power Level : 5.2 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 39.5 dB

Upstream Lock : Locked
Upstream Channel ID : 1
Upstream Frequency : 45800000 Hz
Upstream Modulation : QPSK
Upstream Symbol Rate : 5120 Ksym/sec
Upstream transmit Power Level : 40.9 dBmV
Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 4

He put an Attenuator on the modem, he was very nice and helpful!.

[Wallace]

But you are still using QPSK for your upstream modulation?

[Sephiroth]

Downstream Lock : Locked
Downstream Channel Id : 176
Downstream Frequency : 323000000 Hz
Downstream Modulation : QAM256
Downstream Symbol Rate : 6952 Ksym/sec
Downstream Interleave Depth : taps12Increment17
Downstream Receive Power Level : 5.2 dBmV
Downstream SNR : 39.5 dB

Upstream Lock : Locked
Upstream Channel ID : 1
Upstream Frequency : 45800000 Hz
Upstream Modulation : QPSK
Upstream Symbol Rate : 5120 Ksym/sec
Upstream transmit Power Level : 40.9 dBmV
Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 4

He put an Attenuator on the modem, he was very nice and helpful!.

The engineer was never going to sort out your upstream unless the modem itself was faulty.

The effect of being on QPSK is twofold:

1/
It's noise tolerant so that you stand some chance of communicating with the other end. If you don't get T3 errors in the event log, then it's stable and that's positive.

2/
The QPSK channel is 2 bits per symbol (16QAM is 4 bits/symbol). Therefore everyone sharing your upstream channel has only half the normal throughput available to them. That's negative.

So youi need to get VM to sort out your upstream. QPSK degrades performance.

[iFrankie]

This is the event log

Sun Sep 04 16:06:30 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:30 2011 Information (7) Authorized
Sun Sep 04 16:06:30 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:30 2011 Information (7) Registration complete!
Sun Sep 04 16:06:30 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:30 2011 Information (7) We registered with a DOCSIS 1.1 config file!
Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Information (7) Received a REG-RSP message from the CMTS...
Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Information (7) Sending a REG-REQ to the CMTS...
Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Information (7) CableModem SNMP configure complete
Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Information (7) IP init completed ok
Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Information (7) CableModem TFTP init ok
Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Information (7) CableModem DHCP client init ok
Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:29 2011 Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Sun Sep 04 16:06:24 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:24 2011 Information (7) MAP w/initial maintenance region received
Sun Sep 04 16:06:22 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:22 2011 Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Sun Sep 04 16:06:22 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:22 2011 Information (7) MAP w/initial maintenance region received
Sun Sep 04 16:06:21 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:21 2011 Information (7) Downstream sync ok
Sun Sep 04 16:06:21 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:21 2011 Information (7) Beginning initial ranging...
Sun Sep 04 16:06:21 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:21 2011 Information (7) downstream time sync acquired...
Sun Sep 04 16:06:21 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:21 2011 Information (7) Downstream sync ok
Sun Sep 04 16:06:20 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:20 2011 Information (7) starting ds time sync acquisition...
Sun Sep 04 16:06:20 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:20 2011 Information (7) Received a UCD message!
Sun Sep 04 16:06:18 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:18 2011 Information (7) Locked on the downstream. Waiting for UCDs...
Sun Sep 04 16:06:18 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:18 2011 Information (7) Downstream lock ok
Sun Sep 04 16:06:18 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:18 2011 Information (7) DS channel override in cfg file, re-scanning downstream
Sun Sep 04 16:06:18 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:18 2011 Information (7) IP init completed ok
Sun Sep 04 16:06:18 2011 Sun Sep 04 16:06:18 2011 Information (7) CableModem TFTP init ok

---------- Post added at 17:09 ---------- Previous post was at 17:07 ----------

Also the upstream frequency seems to have changed and the channel ID, i don't know what this means :/.


Upstream Lock : Locked
Upstream Channel ID : 3
Upstream Frequency : 27400000 Hz
Upstream Modulation : QPSK
Upstream Symbol Rate : 5120 Ksym/sec
Upstream transmit Power Level : 42.2 dBmV
Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 4

[Sephiroth]

It's a pity the modem was rebooted because that destroyed the historic information. Were there lots of T3 events? Or other critical messages?

The UCD message was when the upstream channel changed. It may be a load balancing decision by the CMTS or the other channel is really noisy. Load balancing which means there are lots of people on QPSk!

[iFrankie]

I can't remember :/, how would i go about sorting this out? could they fix it on their end or would i need another tech?.

[Sephiroth]

I'd put it all on the VM forum and ask them to sort out your upstream. Post full stats (including Operational Configuration) plus the event log with plenty of session period included (like not immediately after a reboot).

They take 4 days to answer but it's better than speaking to that wretched offshore service.

[iFrankie]

I'd put it all on the VM forum and ask them to sort out your upstream. Post full stats (including Operational Configuration) plus the event log with plenty of session period included (like not immediately after a reboot).

They take 4 days to answer but it's better than speaking to that wretched offshore service.

Thanks again, should i post it in this section?

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Fibre-optic-broadband-cable/bd-p/Fibre

[Sephiroth]

Yep. Perhaps take into account what's been said here when you present your problem over there.

[iFrankie]

My connection has started to drop out, its happened a few times tonight, ill see how it is in the morning, ill keep you posted and how things go with the virgin help site.