Cable modem losing signal.

[Pandam00nium]

There have been days where it works for the entire afternoon/evening, but then days where it loses its signal, regains, then loses 5 minutes later. This has been happening ever since I went back to charter.

They originally said there was a bad signal at the pole when I had the installer come by cause at that time neither my modem nor the modem from his truck was getting any connection. But then after a few days I got a signal on the modem.

Now I can't really figure out what's the cause. I'm using a used Motorola SB5101 I got off ebay, and also a 3 year old Airlink router. When I called Charter, they said the router could be the cause, but I don't really understand how that would cause a modem to completely lose its signal as the lights have to recycle and light up again?

Anyone have any input to help me out? :( Here is some info on the modem if it'll help. I may end up buying a new router, but I'd like to know if it can actually cause the modem to stop functioning. You know how these techies can be these companies.. :S

[gigabit]

My modem does the same thing.I gonna call comcast and have them bring me a new modem.

[Pandam00nium]

My modem does the same thing.I gonna call comcast and have them bring me a new modem.

Let me know if it fixes your problem. :) I'm not renting a modem so they can't really do a whole lot other than tell me to replace it. I'd rather buy one than pay them $5 a month.. I only paid $25 for this Motorola. Maybe this is why they were auctioning it. x.x

[BenF]

I also have charter and my modem drops signal relatively often. Its been flaking out really bad today. I have to end up calling charter and have them resync my modem with their branch office. This fixes the problem for the next several days if not more. Your router should not cause your modem to stop working. Its either a problem with your modem or a problem on charter's end.

[Pandam00nium]

I also have charter and my modem drops signal relatively often. Its been flaking out really bad today. I have to end up calling charter and have them resync my modem with their branch office. This fixes the problem for the next several days if not more. Your router should not cause your modem to stop working. Its either a problem with your modem or a problem on charter's end.

Thanks, that's what I figured and it didn't make much sense when the tech person said that.. Just needed some assurance since I tend to question myself even if I'm right. :P

I miss fios.. I wish they offered a "low tier" plan since we don't even get their DSL service here. Lowest is 15Mbps at $50.. That's just too much. :/ I signed a nasty 2 year contract for 8Mbps at $30. Good price, but it's Charter. :( Had them for many many years, and before we left them for fios they were actually a bit consistent, I don't know what happened that made their signal turn to crap.

[Adragontattoo]

I had this happening.

They turned the gain up WAY UP but they didnt fix the problem.

I ended up fighting them for over a year on it and finally got a tech worth a damn to listen to me.

Have them test at the modem, at the pole and at the entrance to the house.

Once they get that have them turn the gain down to normal levels and restest. I had a bad signal and the gain increase was solely to enable the signal to yell over the noise.

[Pandam00nium]

Their customer service is just absolutely horrible.. Trying to charge me $35 just to have a tech come by and check the modem.. Why the hell don't I just rent a modem from them for a month for $5 instead to see if that's the cause. ~.~ This is turning into a vendor rant so I'll shut up until I figure out the problem. :X

[TollhouseFrank]

Their customer service is just absolutely horrible.. Trying to charge me $35 just to have a tech come by and check the modem.. Why the hell don't I just rent a modem from them for a month for $5 instead to see if that's the cause. ~.~ This is turning into a vendor rant so I'll shut up until I figure out the problem. :X

it costs the company time and money to roll a truck out. They can't just eat the cost, as that's bad business.

Here is a tip i learned many years ago doing tech support for phone companies, and it still works today. Don't worry about line maintenance insurance. But if you have an issue happen and you believe 100% it is outside the house on their wires, call up, pay for the wire maintenance insurance (for that month), then get them to roll a truck (free), then next month, take off the line maintenance insurance.

[thideras]

I had this issue recently. The connection where it came out of the wall was toasted. The only solution is to completely re-run the wires since the walls are solid and the wire left was too short for them to strip back and use. I just moved the modem to a different room; worked great.

[fabulouscoops]

I had intermittent drops recently and called Optimum. They sent a knowledgeable tech. It turns out the problem was the close proximity to my wireless router. Interference caused a build up of errors the modem could not correct until it just dropped the signal. Restarting the modem would give me a fresh signal but it would start to degrade over time until it dropped again.
(Which might explain Thideras solving his problem by moving the modem.)
I had recently upgraded my router firmware to tomato and boosted my transmit power. I was using Channel 6 on the router and it was 8" away from the modem.

Steps I took:

1. Move the modem. Recommended is 10 feet but the cord is not that long so I moved from 8" to 2 feet.

2. Change the channel the router uses. Default is channel 6 which happens to be the worst. Channel 11 is supposed to work best.

3. Reduce the wireless transmit power of the modem (if possible). My default was 42 mW and I had bumped it to 65 to get better distance reception.

[thideras]

Mine was not due to wireless, it was a very messed up cable. ;)

[Mooyo]

There have been days where it works for the entire afternoon/evening, but then days where it loses its signal, regains, then loses 5 minutes later. This has been happening ever since I went back to charter.

They originally said there was a bad signal at the pole when I had the installer come by cause at that time neither my modem nor the modem from his truck was getting any connection. But then after a few days I got a signal on the modem.

Now I can't really figure out what's the cause. I'm using a used Motorola SB5101 I got off ebay, and also a 3 year old Airlink router. When I called Charter, they said the router could be the cause, but I don't really understand how that would cause a modem to completely lose its signal as the lights have to recycle and light up again?

Anyone have any input to help me out? :( Here is some info on the modem if it'll help. I may end up buying a new router, but I'd like to know if it can actually cause the modem to stop functioning. You know how these techies can be these companies.. :S

Signal levels at the time of that screenshot look good. When you're loosing sync are you able to pop into the modem and take another snapshot of levels by any chance?

Modem light status when the internet flakes out wouldn't hurt either.

[Psycogeec]

We had the same problem adragon had, crank up the signal it cranks up the noise, it wasnt long after they added in a booster, that it began to fail again.
they said "you gotta have the modem right next to the wall", then run the CAT wires (or whatever) from there.
I say, your signal has gone downhill since it was installed. Feex it.

then they checked the aged wires THEY had installed in house original, and the DB drop on the 150Feet from the Box to the room to the modem was unreasonably high.

because those were "my wires" i knew who would pay to have them changed, soo i told the guy if he would give me some wire, then i will do all the work of installing it. he reeled me off enough to do the 2 runs, and a few crimp on ends. I bought a good crimp tool , and replaced the wire. has worked without fail ever since.
The new wire was the OXfree type gass filled type, that would degrade much slower than the old junk that was there.
BUT
there is still one wire THIERS from the house to thier box undeground, that isnt very long but sucks too, right now it is "the weakest link" and nobody wants to volenteer to dig it up, because it wont pull through the pipe anymore .

In this place we potentially can go to the box on the house or at the street, and put the modem THERE, with no Splits going on at all, and test if it is a modem (or TV) problem or the signal or splitz or wires.

rarely there is an Outage, and i just wait till 50other customers have called the outage in, then report mine. used to be i would report first, and they would tell me it doesnt exist.