This is weird, cable modem seems to be screwing up the monitor

This is weird, cable modem seems to be screwing up the monitor

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Subject Author Date
This is weird, cable modem seems to be screwing up the monitor rred_ 11-22-2006
Posted by Bit Twister on November 22, 2006, 10:25 pm
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On 22 Nov 2006 18:50:33 -0800, rred_@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> By "wonky" I mean the picture on the monitor gets wavy and distorted
> (colors out of phase). It looks like interference, you know like in
> the old days when you're TV wasn't tuned in properly. I too thought it
> was electrical, and I'm still open to that. It just seems to weird to
> start happening all of a sudden,when as far as I know, nothing's
> changed in the way the equipments is set up. I do wonder about the
> house heat causing something, I may have to grill pop-in-law to see if
> anything's changed along those lines.

could be a component failure, or a ground gone bad,....

If you want to rule out your operating system download a knoppix iso
image, do a md5sum or sha1sum check, burn it and boot it.

Now you have a third party cd to check your hardware to rule out software.

Pure Networks
Posted by DLR on November 23, 2006, 6:35 am
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Bit Twister wrote:
> On 22 Nov 2006 18:50:33 -0800, rred_@yahoo.com wrote:
>> By "wonky" I mean the picture on the monitor gets wavy and distorted
>> (colors out of phase). It looks like interference, you know like in
>> the old days when you're TV wasn't tuned in properly. I too thought it
>> was electrical, and I'm still open to that. It just seems to weird to
>> start happening all of a sudden,when as far as I know, nothing's
>> changed in the way the equipments is set up. I do wonder about the
>> house heat causing something, I may have to grill pop-in-law to see if
>> anything's changed along those lines.
>
> could be a component failure, or a ground gone bad,....
>
> If you want to rule out your operating system download a knoppix iso
> image, do a md5sum or sha1sum check, burn it and boot it.
>
> Now you have a third party cd to check your hardware to rule out software.

I tend to go with the power / ground loop issue. Or a bad Ethernet port
on the computer.

To try and isolate power, I'd put a switch in between the modem and
computer. (Or get a router. They SHOULD have one but that's another
story.) With modem off but router and/or switch on see what happens. Now
turn on modem. If "wonky" then it's in the modem. If not then the
router/switch is isolating the issue.

Assuming power I'd check for a bad ground at the cable entrance to the
house. Also unplug EVERYTHING else you have from your cable service. Try
another power strip and make sure the computer and modem are on the same
power strip.

It could also be a blown modem or bad power brick (if one) for the modem.

If not in their house / unit it could be something being done by a neighbor.

If the problem happens with just the router/switch turned on, very
likely your computer has a problem with it's Ethernet port.

Posted by Robert Heiling on November 22, 2006, 10:48 pm
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rred_@yahoo.com wrote:
>
> Sorry I should have been more specific.
>
> Yes, by plugging in I mean powering up. The cable modem is connected
> via ethernet, not USB.
>
> As for how far the computer getson start up, it's usually starting
> Windows when it shuts off. If you think of the screen that comes up
> showing "Windows XP" with the little status bar underneath that
> repeatedly goes from left to right until the desktop appears it pretty
> consistently completes the "left to right" sequence 7 times and then
> shuts down (my father in law counted them). I tried starting in safe
> mode but got the same result.
>
> By "wonky" I mean the picture on the monitor gets wavy and distorted
> (colors out of phase). It looks like interference, you know like in
> the old days when you're TV wasn't tuned in properly. I too thought it
> was electrical, and I'm still open to that. It just seems to weird to
> start happening all of a sudden,when as far as I know, nothing's
> changed in the way the equipments is set up.

Sort of. It's been accumulating dust all along and might have hit a critical
threshold. I say that because you haven't mentioned opening up the box and
blowing it out. You've mentioned Dell, so I suppose it has motherboard graphics,
but if it has an actual video card with its own cpu & fan, that could be clogged
up.

> I do wonder about the
> house heat causing something, I may have to grill pop-in-law to see if
> anything's changed along those lines.

That would add to the problem per above.

> Also that fact that it stops at the same point of start up almost every
> time makes me think it's happening when Windows loads a driver or
> allocates resources for the modem. On the other hand every once in a
> while you get through to the desk top and the icons load up, everything
> looks good and then bam! it turns off. So I'm getting some conflicting
> results. I tried booting off the XP disk, thinking that the monitor
> driver file was corrupted somehow, but again it would shut down while
> starting Windows.

When restarting and as you would hit F8 to get the menu to go into Safe Mode,
enable Boot Logging instead, which I think will show the point of failure.

> I know enough to be dangerous, plus a little more as I sell software
> for a living, but I'm pretty stumped. I will bring my modem over
> tomorrow and see what happens.

Understand that you will not be able to use your modem for the internet as its
MAC Address is registered elsewhere. Its only help will be as an electrical
connection and I personally doubt that you have any problems in that regard.

> I may also lug a monitor over there
> just to check everything-the monitor is a Dell made in 99. I'm also
> bringing my laptop,so I can get info from the net (you guys) while I'm
> fighting it. The modem does work fine on a laptop, so it's not
> completely screwed.

If that's the case, then it's obviously not screwed at all.

> I'm guessing that possibly somehow the anti-virus
> program or IE upgrade changed the resource allocation and now the modem
> and monitor are conflicting. I have no idea why those programs would
> do that, but I do know Microsoft seems to like to mess with as much of
> the system as they can when they upgrade their stuff (especially IE).
> It may have something to do with increased security. I haven't seen
> anything like this anywhere though.
>
> Also I had them do a system restore to before the upgrades but that
> didn't help. I'll likely do that myself first thing tomorrow, pushing
> it back until last week (there's nothing important on their computer
> from that time period). I'll probably spend most of my turkey day in
> the computer room, but hey, it gets me away from watching the Lions
> game.
>
> I appreciate any and all help you can give me.

Bob

Posted by on November 23, 2006, 10:41 pm
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It seems to have beeen a bad NIC port on the MB. Put in an old NIC
that I had laying around, disabled the port on the MB and everything's
good to go. This should continue to work right? Should I be concerned
about the rest of the MB going or is usually an isolated thing. MB's
about 3 years old.

Thanks to everyone who replied.

Robert Heiling wrote:
> rred_@yahoo.com wrote:
> >
> > Sorry I should have been more specific.
> >
> > Yes, by plugging in I mean powering up. The cable modem is connected
> > via ethernet, not USB.
> >
> > As for how far the computer getson start up, it's usually starting
> > Windows when it shuts off. If you think of the screen that comes up
> > showing "Windows XP" with the little status bar underneath that
> > repeatedly goes from left to right until the desktop appears it pretty
> > consistently completes the "left to right" sequence 7 times and then
> > shuts down (my father in law counted them). I tried starting in safe
> > mode but got the same result.
> >
> > By "wonky" I mean the picture on the monitor gets wavy and distorted
> > (colors out of phase). It looks like interference, you know like in
> > the old days when you're TV wasn't tuned in properly. I too thought it
> > was electrical, and I'm still open to that. It just seems to weird to
> > start happening all of a sudden,when as far as I know, nothing's
> > changed in the way the equipments is set up.
>
> Sort of. It's been accumulating dust all along and might have hit a critical
> threshold. I say that because you haven't mentioned opening up the box and
> blowing it out. You've mentioned Dell, so I suppose it has motherboard
graphics,
> but if it has an actual video card with its own cpu & fan, that could be
clogged
> up.
>
> > I do wonder about the
> > house heat causing something, I may have to grill pop-in-law to see if
> > anything's changed along those lines.
>
> That would add to the problem per above.
>
> > Also that fact that it stops at the same point of start up almost every
> > time makes me think it's happening when Windows loads a driver or
> > allocates resources for the modem. On the other hand every once in a
> > while you get through to the desk top and the icons load up, everything
> > looks good and then bam! it turns off. So I'm getting some conflicting
> > results. I tried booting off the XP disk, thinking that the monitor
> > driver file was corrupted somehow, but again it would shut down while
> > starting Windows.
>
> When restarting and as you would hit F8 to get the menu to go into Safe Mode,
> enable Boot Logging instead, which I think will show the point of failure.
>
> > I know enough to be dangerous, plus a little more as I sell software
> > for a living, but I'm pretty stumped. I will bring my modem over
> > tomorrow and see what happens.
>
> Understand that you will not be able to use your modem for the internet as its
> MAC Address is registered elsewhere. Its only help will be as an electrical
> connection and I personally doubt that you have any problems in that regard.
>
> > I may also lug a monitor over there
> > just to check everything-the monitor is a Dell made in 99. I'm also
> > bringing my laptop,so I can get info from the net (you guys) while I'm
> > fighting it. The modem does work fine on a laptop, so it's not
> > completely screwed.
>
> If that's the case, then it's obviously not screwed at all.
>
> > I'm guessing that possibly somehow the anti-virus
> > program or IE upgrade changed the resource allocation and now the modem
> > and monitor are conflicting. I have no idea why those programs would
> > do that, but I do know Microsoft seems to like to mess with as much of
> > the system as they can when they upgrade their stuff (especially IE).
> > It may have something to do with increased security. I haven't seen
> > anything like this anywhere though.
> >
> > Also I had them do a system restore to before the upgrades but that
> > didn't help. I'll likely do that myself first thing tomorrow, pushing
> > it back until last week (there's nothing important on their computer
> > from that time period). I'll probably spend most of my turkey day in
> > the computer room, but hey, it gets me away from watching the Lions
> > game.
> >
> > I appreciate any and all help you can give me.
>
> Bob


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