RoadRunner and my Motorola modem

RoadRunner and my Motorola modem
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Subject Author Date
RoadRunner and my Motorola modem BR549 01-20-2007
Posted by BR549 on January 20, 2007, 4:12 pm
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For 2 months now I have been having problems with loosing my internet
connection. I have RoadRunner and a Motorola SURFboard SB5120 modem with an
attached wireless router and 2 hardwired pc's. When I loose connectivity
all lights on the modem are normal. No response from a ping of a web
address or an ip address from either the pc or the router, I've tried
pinging both my gateway and dns servers ip address. When the problem occurs
I also cannot navigate to 192.168.100.1 nor can I ping that address from the
router. I also cannot get an ip address from the modem using the routers
screen to do a DHCP renew. I ran for a while with a pc attached directly to
the modem and when the hangup occurred I cannot renew the ip address.
I'm on my 2nd modem and even though it failed the same way when I direct
connected it, I changed the router. Doing a power cycle of the modem always
fixes the problem. The problem also seems to vanish on it's own if you
leave it for a few minutes and try again. The RJ45 cable is also a
different one between both routers.
It's hard to believe that I've gotten 2 modems with the same problem but I
can't for the life of me figure out what to change next. The modem will
return an ip address without the cable connected so I can't imagine that the
problem is from the cable out. I've also had Roadrunner out here this past
Thursday and they changed a few of the cable connections going to the modem
but said that everything was fine with the signal.
Anyone have any ideas on what to do next.



home networking made easy, greater protection, less stress, introducing nm 5.0, 728x90
Posted by Todd H. on January 20, 2007, 11:24 pm
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> For 2 months now I have been having problems with loosing my internet
> connection.

Oy. :-\ BEen there.

> I have RoadRunner and a Motorola SURFboard SB5120 modem with an
> attached wireless router and 2 hardwired pc's. When I loose connectivity
> all lights on the modem are normal. No response from a ping of a web
> address or an ip address from either the pc or the router, I've tried
> pinging both my gateway and dns servers ip address. When the problem occurs
> I also cannot navigate to 192.168.100.1 nor can I ping that address from the
> router. I also cannot get an ip address from the modem using the routers
> screen to do a DHCP renew. I ran for a while with a pc attached directly to
> the modem and when the hangup occurred I cannot renew the ip address.
> I'm on my 2nd modem and even though it failed the same way when I direct
> connected it, I changed the router. Doing a power cycle of the modem always
> fixes the problem.

Good description.

So you never lose a solid "cable" light?

> The problem also seems to vanish on it's own if you leave it for a
> few minutes and try again.

What do you mean by try again? Try to renew the ip address again?

> The RJ45 cable is also a different one
> between both routers.

Both routers? Please explain. The description above mentioned one
wireless router?

> It's hard to believe that I've gotten 2 modems with the same problem
> but I can't for the life of me figure out what to change next. The
> modem will return an ip address without the cable connected so I
> can't imagine that the problem is from the cable out.

Well, it's important to realize that the cable modem is designed to
give a termporary IP address out if it doesn't have sync to a head
end, but when you are sync'd to a head end, it's actually the
provider's DHCP server doling out the IP's I believe, and not the
cable modem itself.

You could have an intermittent cable signal issue.


> I've also had Roadrunner out here this past Thursday and they
> changed a few of the cable connections going to the modem but said
> that everything was fine with the signal. Anyone have any ideas on
> what to do next.

Post your upstream and down stream signal levels as well as SNR from
http://192.168.1.100/ and are there any entries of interest in the
logs from that page? Such as SYNC loss, etc?

AFter the cable comes into the house, what is the routing of the
signal on its way to your modem (splitters, etc).


--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

Posted by BR549 on January 21, 2007, 1:29 am
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>
>> For 2 months now I have been having problems with loosing my internet
>> connection.
>
> Oy. :-\ BEen there.
>
>> I have RoadRunner and a Motorola SURFboard SB5120 modem with an
>> attached wireless router and 2 hardwired pc's. When I loose connectivity
>> all lights on the modem are normal. No response from a ping of a web
>> address or an ip address from either the pc or the router, I've tried
>> pinging both my gateway and dns servers ip address. When the problem
>> occurs
>> I also cannot navigate to 192.168.100.1 nor can I ping that address from
>> the
>> router. I also cannot get an ip address from the modem using the routers
>> screen to do a DHCP renew. I ran for a while with a pc attached directly
>> to
>> the modem and when the hangup occurred I cannot renew the ip address.
>> I'm on my 2nd modem and even though it failed the same way when I direct
>> connected it, I changed the router. Doing a power cycle of the modem
>> always
>> fixes the problem.
>
> Good description.
>
> So you never lose a solid "cable" light?

Cable light is always on.

>> The problem also seems to vanish on it's own if you leave it for a
>> few minutes and try again.
>
> What do you mean by try again? Try to renew the ip address again?

Yes, renew the address. Or if I've never gone into the router and released
it, then I mean try and ping or navigate to a web page from my pc.

>> The RJ45 cable is also a different one
>> between both routers.
>
> Both routers? Please explain. The description above mentioned one
> wireless router?
>
I mentioned that I changed routers to eliminate them as the problem and just
wanted to clarify that when I attached the new router I used it's ethernet
cable.

>> It's hard to believe that I've gotten 2 modems with the same problem
>> but I can't for the life of me figure out what to change next. The
>> modem will return an ip address without the cable connected so I
>> can't imagine that the problem is from the cable out.
>
> Well, it's important to realize that the cable modem is designed to
> give a termporary IP address out if it doesn't have sync to a head
> end, but when you are sync'd to a head end, it's actually the
> provider's DHCP server doling out the IP's I believe, and not the
> cable modem itself.

Yes the ip address must come from beyond the modem because if I disconnect
the cable from the modem and release and renew the ip address in the router
it comes up with something like 192.168.100.something, I can't quite
remember. But with the cable hooked up and everything running properly it's
70.127.151.160.

> You could have an intermittent cable signal issue.
>
>
>> I've also had Roadrunner out here this past Thursday and they
>> changed a few of the cable connections going to the modem but said
>> that everything was fine with the signal. Anyone have any ideas on
>> what to do next.
>
> Post your upstream and down stream signal levels as well as SNR from
> http://192.168.1.100/ and are there any entries of interest in the
> logs from that page? Such as SYNC loss, etc?

The motorola modems downstream signal to noise was 38 dB and power level
was -2 dBmV. Upstream power level was 42 dBmv. Since I posted this info
I had since went a got yet another cable modem. Unfortunately the one I got
is called a WEBstar by Scientific Atlanta and when I navigate to it at
192.128.100.1 I only have the following System screen available, which just
lists Transmit Power Level at 45.5 dBmV and Receive Power Level at -4.9
dBmV. None of the other features screens are available, when I click on
them it states the following:

This feature is not enabled.
This feature has not been enabled in your cable modem.

Please contact your data services provider for more information about this
feature and its availability on the network.

I don't know from that comment if there is something Bright House Networks
could have me do to the modem to enable those features, it sounds like it
but they probably don't want users messing with it. This, the 3rd modem
hung about an hour after installing it but for the last 6 or 7 hours it has
been just fine. To backtrack just a little:
After the cable guy left on Thursday it ran fine the rest of the night. On
Friday we had the same problem so I went to the Bright House offfice and got
a replacement modem, that was the 2nd. It failed and I posted this msg in
the newsgroup. Then today again, I went and got the 3rd modem. It might
run a day or 2 just fine or it might fail, run an hour and fail again.
Every time it fails, all I do is recycle power on it and everything is fine.
I do not have to reset the router and do not loose my ip addresses in the
pc's and I don't believe both my routers cause the same problem. I also
can't believe something in one of my pc's is causing the cable modem to
hang. It's as if some signal comes down the cable line and hangs the modem.

For lack of anything to do I think I will start logging the times it hangs
and see how long it takes to clear on it's own. If it would stay hung long
enough I could probably get Bright House Networks on the line to look at it.
We've had RoadRunner for a long, long time. Well over ten years and during
that time had 1 cable modem, a cream colored Motorola and as long as the
cable light was on we never had a problem. Max speed with it was 2.5mbps.
About 2 years ago they called, set up an appointment to change out what they
called the legacy cable modems. My speed went to 5mbps instantly and
shortly after close to 7. It's been fine up until just a few months ago
when all this started.


>
> AFter the cable comes into the house, what is the routing of the
> signal on its way to your modem (splitters, etc).

My cable comes to the house and attaches to a 3 way splitter. From there
one goes directly to my cable modem, the 2nd to my living room (split there
for tv, dvd recorder) and the 3rd to the family room ( split 4 ways for 2
tv's and 2 pc tv cards).

Thanks for the interest.



Posted by Todd H. on January 21, 2007, 2:46 am
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> I mentioned that I changed routers to eliminate them as the problem and just
> wanted to clarify that when I attached the new router I used it's ethernet
> cable.

Oh, okay.

> Yes the ip address must come from beyond the modem because if I disconnect
> the cable from the modem and release and renew the ip address in the router
> it comes up with something like 192.168.100.something, I can't quite
> remember. But with the cable hooked up and everything running properly it's
> 70.127.151.160.

Right.

> The motorola modems downstream signal to noise was 38 dB and power level
> was -2 dBmV. Upstream power level was 42 dBmv.

Hrmm. That all sounds reasonable.

> Since I posted this info I had since went a got yet another cable
> modem. Unfortunately the one I got is called a WEBstar by
> Scientific Atlanta and when I navigate to it at
> 192.128.100.1 I only have the following System screen available, which just
> lists Transmit Power Level at 45.5 dBmV and Receive Power Level at -4.9
> dBmV.

Transmit power level sounds a tad high.

> None of the other features screens are available, when I click on
> them it states the following:
>
> This feature is not enabled.
> This feature has not been enabled in your cable modem.
>
> Please contact your data services provider for more information about this
> feature and its availability on the network.

Yeah, I have that modem.

> After the cable guy left on Thursday it ran fine the rest of the night. On
> Friday we had the same problem so I went to the Bright House offfice and got
> a replacement modem, that was the 2nd. It failed and I posted this msg in
> the newsgroup. Then today again, I went and got the 3rd modem. It might
> run a day or 2 just fine or it might fail, run an hour and fail again.
> Every time it fails, all I do is recycle power on it and everything is fine.
> I do not have to reset the router and do not loose my ip addresses in the
> pc's and I don't believe both my routers cause the same problem.

I concur that you're probably dealing with a cable system or signal
issue.

> I also can't believe something in one of my pc's is causing the
> cable modem to hang.

I agree.

> For lack of anything to do I think I will start logging the times it hangs
> and see how long it takes to clear on it's own. If it would stay hung long
> enough I could probably get Bright House Networks on the line to
> look at it.

Do get them on the horn while yer hung up. At least you can then tell
if their network can still talk to the cable modem. If they can't,
then you know the problem is with the cable modem, signal issues or
cable network.

> We've had RoadRunner for a long, long time. Well over ten years and during
> that time had 1 cable modem, a cream colored Motorola and as long as the
> cable light was on we never had a problem. Max speed with it was 2.5mbps.
> About 2 years ago they called, set up an appointment to change out what they
> called the legacy cable modems. My speed went to 5mbps instantly and
> shortly after close to 7. It's been fine up until just a few months ago
> when all this started.
>
>
> >
> > AFter the cable comes into the house, what is the routing of the
> > signal on its way to your modem (splitters, etc).
>
> My cable comes to the house and attaches to a 3 way splitter. From there
> one goes directly to my cable modem, the 2nd to my living room (split there
> for tv, dvd recorder) and the 3rd to the family room ( split 4 ways for 2
> tv's and 2 pc tv cards).
>
> Thanks for the interest.

For shits and giggles, I would try running with the splitter removed.
Move the cable modem downstairs with the wireless router if needed, or
just put a female to female f connector in place of the splitter. I'm
curious if that cleans things up.

If it does, get the cable guys out there, report the results of your
extended experiment and get them to get your cable modem feed from
directional coupler instead of that standard splitter. Cable modem
gets the low loss output of the DC, TV's get fed by the tap end
(possibly requiring an amplifier for the TV's benefit).

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

Posted by on January 23, 2007, 12:10 am
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>
> My cable comes to the house and attaches to a 3 way splitter. From there
> one goes directly to my cable modem, the 2nd to my living room (split there
> for tv, dvd recorder) and the 3rd to the family room ( split 4 ways for 2
> tv's and 2 pc tv cards).

3-way splitters almost always have one port with less loss than the
other two (3.5 dB vs. 7 dB). Be sure your modem is connected to that
port.

-Larry Jones

Please tell me I'm adopted. -- Calvin

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