Broadband down - Technician coming - what to expect

[Markly Darkly]

Hello

My broadband died last night - sync light steady but rdy light permanently flashing. It is a SACM a 200 model. I am on 2Mb service.

I'm in Kettering area.

Called faults and I have a technician coming Monday, but out of curiosity i have a few questions:

1) With those symptoms what could it be? I've noticed my downstream power is around +10dBV - could that have been a symptom of impending doom?

2) Is there a number I can call to confirm the appointment?

3) Could this actually be an outage that the call centre in India didn't know about? It is still out this morning - I checked and rebooted before I left for work.

Thanks

Mark

[monkey2468]

It could be an outage. Flashing RDY light normally means loss of return path (upstream). What part of the country are you in?

[Markly Darkly]

Hi Monkey

Thanks - I'm in Northamptonshire. I noticed there was some planned outages for this morning in Northamptonshire, but this happened yesterday.

[KevAmiga]

What did the tech say??

[Markly Darkly]

Hi Kev

No - tech visiting Monday - I've only spoken to Indian call centre so far

[KevAmiga]

Eh... Oh i see :)

They are coming monday coming... not monday just gone.

With the Terayon, have you tried re-seating the coax, checking that side of things?

[Markly Darkly]

Thanks Kev - yes unscrewed and re-fitted coax. Modem is a 200 - is that a Teryon - I thought it was a ntl branded one.

[KevAmiga]

Nope, thats an ambit.

Duh... i really need to read the post again! You said the Sync / RDY light was flashing - thats only on ambit modems lol

[hairy_mick]

Hi do you know what your return path power level is.

[Markly Darkly]

Return path power level - is that this:

Downstream Lock : Locked Downstream Frequency : 402750000 Hz Downstream Modulation : QAM64 Downstream Interleave Depth : 32 Downstream Receive Power Level : -9.4 dBmV Downstream SNR : 30.9 dB Cable Modem Status (http://root:root@192.168.100.1/P_status.html) Upstream Status (http://root:root@192.168.100.1/P_upstatus.html) Upstream Burst Descriptor (http://root:root@192.168.100.1/P_ubd.html)

Or this:

Upstream Channel ID : 1 Upstream Transmit Power Level : 61.0 dBmV Upstream Symbol Rate : 2560 Ksym/sec Upstream Frequency : 33584000 Hz Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 2 Cable Modem Status (http://root:root@192.168.100.1/P_status.html) Downstream Status (http://root:root@192.168.100.1/P_downstatus.html) Upstream Burst Descriptor (http://root:root@192.168.100.1/P_ubd.html)

Thanks

Mark

[Markly Darkly]

Hello - any answers to my last posting with my configuration results.

And it is working now and speed test gives good result - 2MB. Should I now cancel the engineer?

[homealone]

Hello - any answers to my last posting with my configuration results.

And it is working now and speed test gives good result - 2MB. Should I now cancel the engineer?

I'd let him have a look, still, as your modem is at the top of the acceptable range for upstream power

- have a look here

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/showpost.php?p=430166&postcount=1

for an idea of what the various levels should be.

[Markly Darkly]

Thanks Homealone

Will there be any hassle if it's working when technician arrives - in other words, will they charge me because I should have told them it was better again?

[homealone]

Thanks Homealone

Will there be any hassle if it's working when technician arrives - in other words, will they charge me because I should have told them it was better again?

so long as the power levels are near the ones you got earlier, I think you can truthfully say that the problem you experience is intermittent. The technician should see how borderline your connection is & understand that the problem may not be apparent at all times - sods law says if you cancel, the problem will re-occur ;)

[Markly Darkly]

Thanks - so you don't reckon they'll try and charge me for a wasted call out then?

[homealone]

Thanks - so you don't reckon they'll try and charge me for a wasted call out then?

don't think so, if they charged every time they attended an intermittent fault that happened to be working ok when they arrived, I reckon they would come in for a lot of flak.

I can't say for certain, though & it would be wrong of me to suggest otherwise, as it would depend on what the technician found on the day - and even whether you gave him a nice cup of tea & a chocolate biccy.

It is your call, though - and your dosh, at the end of the day, cancelling, you risk it going wrong, again, taking a chance on the technician being an ok guy could cost you 50 notes. Not an easy decision, I grant you :)

[sparky]

hi guys i'm in corby area{northants} and my cable modem {terayon 120}was doing the same as yours
its been down since thursday 16.00 -but just come home from nightshift right now and its back on-phone tech{india} yesterday and they said theres nothing
wrong in my area:dozey: meant to have engineer coming out on tuesday as well
-al well i'll just waste another 30 mins in the phone queue to cancel now

[Markly Darkly]

Hi Sparky

Well I'm also having TV VOD/Interactive problems and after various phone calls we reckon it is linked with dodgy broadband, so tech is coming Monday anyway and also got TV tech for next Friday. If Monday tech solves problem will then cancel TV tech.

This is getting complicated!!!!!!!!!

[DocDutch]

Marky where bouts in Kettering as my connection is perfect ditto as my tv.

am near the St' Peters Ave / Mill Road so town center myself.

---------- Post added at 09:15 ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 ----------

MArky and Sparky perhaps an idea, if your connected straight to the modem go into a DOS prompt and ping the modem continually for say 2 hours and see what happens. to go into dos you go to START --> RUN --> type CMD then press ENTER. now type in the following command ping 192.168.100.1 -t -w 10 also if you could open another dos prompt and do the same to ping 66.102.9.99 -t -w 10 (ip addy of google.com) and see what your results are after say 3-4 hrs.

[Markly Darkly]

I'm in Barton

Neither VOD or interactive working. Normal programmes OK - very occasional pixelation and brief freezing though.

Am pinging as suggested - how do I stop it and then how do I post results?

Ta

Mark

[DocDutch]

if you press CTRL together with the C then you cancel the pinging, what I would like for you to tell me is what it looks like ie:

Ping statistics for 66.102.9.99:
Packets: Sent = 9, Received = 9, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 32ms, Maximum = 52ms, Average = 35ms

this I would like to see with either your modem or the 66.102.9.99 ip address and see how many packets you've lost.

So if you could paste your results here I can have a looksie or even 1 of the others here can help you out with what the results are

[Markly Darkly]

Hi Leviq

Ping stats for 66.102.9.99

Sent 9297
Received 9230
Lost 67 (0%)

Min 20ms
Max 303ms
Average
33ms

Ping stats for 192.168.100.1

Sent 9290
Received 9289
Lost 1 (0%)

Min 0ms
Max 34ms
Average
1ms

[DocDutch]

Markly that looks fine to me, not alot of packets lost at all and the times are not too bad either.

trick question here, the problem you have is intermittend sometimes you got perfect internet and then all of a sudden nada??

I've had this problem as well but then with a 120 (ambit ditto), I logged a couple of calls with NTL about it and everytime just before the engineer came it was fixed so closed the call, then say 3 days after that it would start again, but with me it was only my BB not my TV and thats something I find strange with your problem.

as far as I can see this looks like crappy signal coming from the NTL box in the street so best thing is to wait for the engineer to have a looksie

[Markly Darkly]

Thanks Leviq for looking. I don't know much about the stats I sent you but I guessed they were OK!!

Yes - engineer coming tomorrow so I'll post the result

Mark

[DocDutch]

Markly if there would've been something wrong with your connection then the ping to the 66.102.*.* address would've shown it. as in if say of the packets that have been sent more then 40% is lost then you've got small problems if above 70% then you know your in the deep end. The ping to your modem was just to double check to see if your connection itself is fine.

ow btw what are your signal levels now on your modem?

[Markly Darkly]

Hi again

Downstream Lock :
Locked Downstream Frequency : 402750000 Hz
Downstream Modulation : QAM64
Downstream Interleave Depth : 32
Downstream Receive Power Level : -10.7 dBmV

Downstream SNR : 30.6 dB
Upstream Channel ID : 1
Upstream Transmit Power Level : 61.0 dBmV
Upstream Symbol Rate : 2560 Ksym/sec Upstream Frequency : 33584000 Hz
Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 2

That's not brilliant is it?

[DocDutch]

upstream signal is too high find it strange that you can still browse the web with this.

[Markly Darkly]

Hi Leviq

OK - engineer been.

This doesn't mean a lot to me but here goes.

Signal level poor so he corrected it on litle grey box but said it actually means there is a poor signal from green box. Means either wrong amplification in green box or cable to house wants replacing. He check green box and fortunatelt it is the amplifier. Is getting another technician to come round later to adjust (not sure why he couldn't do it) That technician will then readjust other signal back down again.

The engineer was really helpful and explained everything - a good service from ntl in spite of all the stories we hear.

Mark

[sparky]

hi guys my pcs back on now after being down since saturday-i keep losing connection
any ideas
tech coming tomorrow

[DocDutch]

Markly, check what your signal level is at now...

[Markly Darkly]

Hi Leviq

Downstream Lock : Locked Downstream Frequency : 402750000 Hz Downstream Modulation : QAM64 Downstream Interleave Depth : 32 Downstream Receive Power Level : 1.9 dBmV Downstream SNR : 30.9 dBUpstream Channel ID : 1 Upstream Transmit Power Level : 42.25 dBmV Upstream Symbol Rate : 2560 Ksym/sec Upstream Frequency : 33584000 Hz Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 2
That's a lot more sensible isn't it!!!!!!

Mark

[DocDutch]

yeps thats totally right looks wayyy better now.