Routers & Other Networking Stuff

Kedwyn · May 12, 2016

It takes less than 5 minutes to look at your status page and compare the Power and SNR ratios to what is in spec. If they aren't, generally a relatively cheap amplifier can fix it or removing some of the splitters in the house can work wonders.

FAQ: Acceptable cable modem signal levels. Adelphia High Speed Internet | DSLReports, ISP Information

Buying a modem when the ISP or more likely the wiring is the culprit is a waste of money. Now if everything is in spec then a firmware upgrade or a new one may be in order.

If people want to try the new modem right off the bat all the more power to them.

Intrinsic · May 12, 2016

Ronne_sl said:
Time for process of elimination. Wire something direct to the modem and see if it still loses the signal, if it does you've got an isp issue or the modem itself is just a brick.

Very unlikely the router is causing it, as you'd see failures in the interface/local network rather than just trying to get to the outside.

Yeah my wife found a 12 year old laptop that had an ethernet port I could plug directly in to the modem. On a positive note, the same issue presented itself. So I guess that does rule out the router.

The signal levels were the 1st thing I checked because in the past I have had an issue with that. They're all basically perfect. And I also had upgraded the router firmware and reset factory, which doesn't seem that relevant now.

To add to the issue I have found that I can get to Google, Yahoo, do regular searches on anything, but can't get to any page off there. Can also get to Xfinity.com.

Likely not related to anything but just poking around while playing with different things, I can tracert to Yahoo.com and get info on all the hops until the destination IP, but for anything like Rerolled, Yelp, IMDB, it returns nothing but request time out until the destination where I get I guess the info for the final hop.

I'm only fucking with it all because the engineer part of me likes poking and testing and learning things.

Next step may be to call Comcast, but the idea of explaining this shit to them when all they'll want to do is have me power cycle the modem doesn't sound appealing.

Flipmode · May 12, 2016

How old did you say the modem was? It may just need to be replaced

Intrinsic · May 12, 2016

Not sure, tried checking Amazon orders butit wasn't on there. It is a SB6120, so I'd guess 4 years at least. And I may just buy a new one on Amazon as another test point (or go to Best Buy if I can pick one up locally since Amazon won't deliver until Saturday).

ronne · May 12, 2016

Intrinsic_sl said:
To add to the issue I have found that I can get to Google, Yahoo, do regular searches on anything, but can't get to any page off there. Can also get to Xfinity.com.

DNS problems, 100%. Your modem is likely using the Comcast resolvers by default which are huge piles of dookie and go down pretty regularly (especially in the chicago/midwest area, oh don't I know it).

You can check this a couple of ways, either on an individual machine by assigning a static IP and manual resolvers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are Googles and work fine), or depending on your router you may be able to set static DNS in its config that will apply to your whole network, but that depends entirely on the router.

Araxen · May 12, 2016

You may need to get them out there and look at the pole. A few years back my cable modem was losing connection and there something up on the pole(our cable in this area is on telephone poles) and they have to replace something to fix the signal.

Denamian · May 12, 2016

Ronne_sl said:
DNS problems, 100%. Your modem is likely using the Comcast resolvers by default which are huge piles of dookie and go down pretty regularly (especially in the chicago/midwest area, oh don't I know it).

You can check this a couple of ways, either on an individual machine by assigning a static IP and manual resolvers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are Googles and work fine), or depending on your router you may be able to set static DNS in its config that will apply to your whole network, but that depends entirely on the router.

This is the first thing that came to mind when I read you post as well. Time Warner's DNS servers frequently shit themselves as well, so I have my router set up to default to Google. If you don't want to use Google, there's OpenDNS as well.

Intrinsic · May 12, 2016

Can update more tomorrow (going to bed fucking anesthesia still hasn't worn off and I feel stoned as shit), but the short story is that I went to Best Buy and got a SB6190 and it has been stable for over two hours without an issue. Still waiting to see if it holds until tomorrow.

Mist · May 16, 2016

So, yeah, if I stream Twitch at max res on my desktop, while my laptop is on the work VPN doing encrypted tunnelly things over the VPN, my modem will just shit itself and go unresponsive soon afterwards.

Probably time to get a new modem then? It can't be my router, right? Because I can still ssh into my router and ping everything in my network except the modem's IP.

Lanx · May 16, 2016

Intrinsic_sl said:
Not sure, tried checking Amazon orders butit wasn't on there. It is a SB6120, so I'd guess 4 years at least. And I may just buy a new one on Amazon as another test point (or go to Best Buy if I can pick one up locally since Amazon won't deliver until Saturday).

did you click the drop down menu where it has your purchases sorted by year? I can see shit i bought from 2003.

Intrinsic · May 16, 2016

lanx_sl said:
did you click the drop down menu where it has your purchases sorted by year? I can see shit i bought from 2003.

Sorry, haven't updated yet. Everything was rock solid after buying the new SB6190, for about a day and a half. Now it is doing the same thing.

It was also asked about using Google'd DNS, which I was already doing through the Router settings (or at least assumed I am, going to double check that here in a few again).

The other thing I did just test, since Mist mentioned VPN, is that if I connect to a VPN like HMA! my connection is normal and I can reach anywhere.

Mist · May 23, 2016

Mist · May 23, 2016

TomServo · May 23, 2016

Intrinsic_sl said:
Sorry, haven't updated yet. Everything was rock solid after buying the new SB6190, for about a day and a half. Now it is doing the same thing.

It was also asked about using Google'd DNS, which I was already doing through the Router settings (or at least assumed I am, going to double check that here in a few again).

The other thing I did just test, since Mist mentioned VPN, is that if I connect to a VPN like HMA! my connection is normal and I can reach anywhere.

The SB6190 made by Arris sucks ass. trade that fucker in for the MB 7420. Almost half the price for the same performance.

Mist · May 23, 2016

Intrinsic · May 23, 2016

grumblethorn_sl said:
The SB6190 made by Arris sucks ass. trade that fucker in for the MB 7420. Almost half the price for the same performance.

Oh well, too late at this point. Everything's working at the moment and I'm too lazy to try and get it changed out. Thanks for the tip though, if it does crap out I'll get the other one.

What is the negative on the 6190? It was just a quick buy while trying to work out what was going on with the old stuff and I didn't really do any research.

Lendarios · Jun 2, 2016

Good morning guys.
I just moved and switched to comcast as they had better internet than uverse. Comcast provided its own cable modem with Wifi. At first I had isses connecting my samsung smart TV to the wifi, It will find the 5 ghz ssid, but it wont connect. After fiddling with the setting i restricted the 5ghz channel to be .11 n/ac, before it was a/n/ac, and after that, my tv connected. I also turned off MOCA.

So two questions. Should i send back the modem and buy a different router/WiFi device? Or do i just buy two separate devices, one modem an one wifi thingy.

Any suggestion?

a_skeleton_03 · Jun 2, 2016

lendarios_sl said:
Good morning guys.
I just moved and switched to comcast as they had better internet than uverse. Comcast provided its own cable modem with Wifi. At first I had isses connecting my samsung smart TV to the wifi, It will find the 5 ghz ssid, but it wont connect. After fiddling with the setting i restricted the 5ghz channel to be .11 n/ac, before it was a/n/ac, and after that, my tv connected. I also turned off MOCA.

So two questions. Should i send back the modem and buy a different router/WiFi device? Or do i just buy two separate devices, one modem an one wifi thingy.

Any suggestion?

I am a firm believer (and most here are) in two devices, the modem and the router.

Deathwing · Jun 2, 2016

Two devices? Heck, let's just start at "not the shit-tier device your ISP rents out to you".

But yeah, two devices. They can combine all sorts of cool shit into a smartphone these days, but somehow a high quality consumer-grade modem/router confounds the industry.

TomServo · Jun 2, 2016

I third that. Get your own modem and router.

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Routers & Other Networking Stuff

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ronne

Nǐ hǎo, yǒu jīn zi ma?

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