Common failure mode of cable 'modem' ?

S

Stangy

n00b
Joined
Jan 25, 2005
Messages
13
Hey guys,

Lately my cable internet has been extremely slow. Downloads average 8 - 20kbps, pages like hotmail take up to 1 full minute to load - and sometimes they don't even finish completely.

Occasionally, I'll have no internet service at all and I'll have to go reset the cable modem and router. I thought about the possibility of it being the router, but even with the cable modem powered down for a long period of time it will NOT assign an IP to my PC without the router.

Basically, I am wondering if this is a common failure mode of cable modems and if a new one would cure this problem. My buddies in the area with the same ISP are not having such slow download speeds. The only real confusing part is that one of the online "speed tests" showed a maximum throughput of 409kbps. Thats a lot more than I had been recieving from ANY site, but friends with the same service in the area were scoring 835kbps +

Also, if I do replace the cable 'modem', what steps need to be taken?

Thanks!
 
What type of modem?
have you checked your signal levels?
 
Its a Toshiba PC1100U (pretty old)

Heres a speedtest I ran just now:


Edit: I'm not familiar with cable modems at all, so I'm not sure how to check signal levels or anythin. I looked it up online, but I can't get many websites to load, so resources are very limited to me.
 
Crosshairs said:
What type of modem?
have you checked your signal levels?
Click to expand...

More importantly, what did the tech support have to say about this?

I cant imagine how you could be getting lower numbers than dialup, and pings down to what I see on a LAN. It has to be either a horrible connection between your modem and the outside world (Coaxial cable gone to shit/eaten apart by mice), or a dead modem.
 
Are you using the ISP's modem? I had the same problem a while back with my charter modem. I ended up buying my own modem and replacing the nic whiched fixed it.
Good Luck
 
Call tech support. Though I had to deal with them for a week and a half when the boost signal shit the bead, that's unacceptable speed for the price IMO.
 
Stangy said:
Its a Toshiba PC1100U (pretty old)


Edit: I'm not familiar with cable modems at all, so I'm not sure how to check signal levels or anythin. I looked it up online, but I can't get many websites to load, so resources are very limited to me.
Click to expand...


Type 192.168.100.1 into your browser....Not all modems support this, but most do...
Look for transmit and receive power levels......


Acceptable Signal/Power Levels
Receive/Downstream: -10 to +10 dBmV
Transmit/Upstream: 30dbmV to 52dbmV
Signal to Noise Ratio(SNR): 32dB or Greater

Rated levels
Receive/Downstream: -15 to +15 dBmV
Transmit/Upstream: 30dbmV to 56dbmV
Signal to Noise Ratio(SNR): 32dB or Greater

if your levels are no good, call your cable company and have them come out....
 
Thanks for the help everybody.

New cable modem = perfect.
speedtest scores are now 6332 downstream, 312 upstream. Still seems low compared to others, but SO much better than it was :)
 
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