My new Arris T25 cable modem "rattles" with loose metal inside

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philb2

[H]ard|Gawd
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May 26, 2021
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This new cable modem was delivered today and I unboxed it. There is a distinct rattle inside the cable modem.:confused: The Quick Start guide doesn't mention anything about a bracket or any other piece of metal that requires installation.

I should just return this unit, without even powering it up, right?
 
philb2 said:
This new cable modem was delivered today and I unboxed it. There is a distinct rattle inside the cable modem.:confused: The Quick Start guide doesn't mention anything about a bracket or any other piece of metal that requires installation.

I should just return this unit, without even powering it up, right?
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call them, shake it next to the phone, see what they say. could be a loose rf shield floating around waiting to short out, could be nothin.
 
pendragon1 said:
call them, shake it next to the phone, see what they say. could be a loose rf shield floating around waiting to short out, could be nothin.
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So there was a link in the email from Target to deal with issues. So instead of calling them I followed thislink, and after a few more clicks, I got an email for a prepaid return mailing label. Very easy.

I just didn't want this cable modem to short out when we're asleep or not home, and start a house fire.

I have owned a whole bunch of routers, cable modems, switches, etc, and never had any units with moving parts inside, except for fans. Makes me wonder how this unit got past quality control.
 
More than likely it was a heatsink that fell off because the box was dropped hard during shipping and without proper packing material inside. While product boxes are full of packing material, they're designed to keep the product safe on a pallet, not a single one rattling around in a shipper's box and then then tossed 6ft onto a concrete porch (as happens often with my stuff). That type of an impact was never in the qa phase of testing as a manufacturer would qualify that as abuse.

Worse case it would have started to act wonky when it got warm or just quietly never powered on. The voltages and ampages in electronics is getting smaller and smaller every day so it doesn't take much to short them out, and it also doesn't pose a hazard if it does short out.
 
SamirD said:
More than likely it was a heatsink that fell off because the box was dropped hard during shipping and without proper packing material inside.
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SamirD

Spot on. The product box was put inside a larger shipping box with barely any "air pocket" plastic protection. Before I opened up the shipping box, I could hear the product box moving around.

I bought this modem from Target because they had the best price, same as Amazon, and I prefer to support other websites. Target had this cable modem for $200, several other websites were offering it for $230. Add in the 9+% sales tax, and that all starts to add up.
 
philb2 said:
SamirD

Spot on. The product box was put inside a larger shipping box with barely any "air pocket" plastic protection. Before I opened up the shipping box, I could hear the product box moving around.

I bought this modem from Target because they had the best price, same as Amazon, and I prefer to support other websites. Target had this cable modem for $200, several other websites were offering it for $230. Add in the 9+% sales tax, and that all starts to add up.
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I've seen it too many times unfortunately. (n)

And while I fully support and prefer brick and mortar stores, this is where their 'ship to store' method is just much, much safer. I'm sure they would not have even handed it to you at pickup if it was rattling like that, and it probably wouldn't have been damaged in the first place as all they're really doing is adjusting shipment allocations when placing inventory orders so it still coming on a pallet/truck.
 
SamirD said:
(n)

And while I fully support and prefer brick and mortar stores, this is where their 'ship to store' method is just much, much safer. I'm sure they would not have even handed it to you at pickup if it was rattling like that, and it probably wouldn't have been damaged in the first place as all they're really doing is adjusting shipment allocations when placing inventory orders so it still coming on a pallet/truck.
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Again, good point.

In any case, I dropped off the return box at UPS on Friday, and this morning I got an email from Target saying that the free replacement product was being shipped.
 
philb2 said:
Again, good point.

In any case, I dropped off the return box at UPS on Friday, and this morning I got an email from Target saying that the free replacement product was being shipped.
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Let's hope the new one fares better. I had 2x doa 8TB Exos for a warranty Exos before the 3rd one survived. They just sent that little box with the two plastic shells--great for a pallet--not great for a 6 foot toss onto a concrete porch. (n)
 
Got my replacement cable modem yesterday and installed it. Noticeable improvements in load times for both email (Outlook) and web pages. No apparent differences so far with Roku stick-based "TV" programs.

Some issues with my Comcast cable TV set top box, which is not X1, but I'm working those through with Comcast support.
 
philb2 said:
Got my replacement cable modem yesterday and installed it. Noticeable improvements in load times for both email (Outlook) and web pages. No apparent differences so far with Roku stick-based "TV" programs.
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The reason you may have a different experience is because the IP is different due to the new mac address and the internal routing of that IP is different. I bet if there was a way to manually mac clone the modem, your experience would be exactly the same. Modems don't influence performance in any noticeable way.
 
SamirD said:
The reason you may have a different experience is because the IP is different due to the new mac address and the internal routing of that IP is different. I bet if there was a way to manually mac clone the modem, your experience would be exactly the same. Modems don't influence performance in any noticeable way.
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SamirD

I went from a 100 mbps speed modem to an 850 mpbs modem. I'm sure that influenced the load times for email and web pages. I haven't done any large uploads yet (e.g. hightail.com).
 
philb2 said:
SamirD

I went from a 100 mbps speed modem to an 850 mpbs modem. I'm sure that influenced the load times for email and web pages. I haven't done any large uploads yet (e.g. hightail.com).
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If you changed your plan and your modem, you should see a big change in roku streaming--like waiting to no wait anymore.
 
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