amgqmp1
join:2008-11-10
West Des Moines, IA
 ·Mediacom
| [IA] Connection drops
Anyone else in the Des Moines metro (esp. out west) experiencing random drops of their HSI? For the past couple weeks this has been happening near nightly, and is sometime accompanied by either the modem being remotely rebooted, or just re-establishing a connection. |
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Service Tech
join:2008-01-25
Des Moines, IA | We will need your signal levels posted...192.168.100.1 Also it is helpful if you let us know what kind of modem you have. |
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amgqmp1
join:2008-11-10
West Des Moines, IA
·Mediacom
| reply to amgqmp1
Sorry about not posting this from the start. I should know better. This is on the RCA DCM425.
FWIW, I experienced another few drops again last night. |
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Service Tech
join:2008-01-25
Des Moines, IA | reply to amgqmp1
Levels look pretty good, have you tried to P.M. BAINCH? |
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amgqmp1
join:2008-11-10
West Des Moines, IA
·Mediacom
| said by Service Tech  :Levels look pretty good, have you tried to P.M. BAINCH? Thanks for taking a look at the levels and giving feedback. I haven't yet imposed upon BAINCH.
Things have been good the past couple nights again, so I'll keep observing. The lack of anyone else here reporting a similar experience leads me to believe this is a fairly localized (geographically) issue. |
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rick89
join:2003-12-10
Franklin, NC
| reply to amgqmp1
I would keep an eye out for drops...when you see one check your stats then and see if they change much....If your stats dont change then it could be your UP SNR or a few other things...If you want to pm me your modem log i can glance through it and see if it saids anything...most of the time they dont help but its worth a shot. |
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amgqmp1
join:2008-11-10
West Des Moines, IA
·Mediacom
1 edit | said by rick89 :I would keep an eye out for drops...when you see one check your stats then and see if they change much....If your stats dont change then it could be your UP SNR or a few other things...If you want to pm me your modem log i can glance through it and see if it saids anything...most of the time they dont help but its worth a shot. I had a few more connection drops this weekend. The modem signal status page never has any indication of a problem.
The modem log reports these events only during an outage:
Fri Jun 12 05:34:36 2009 Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Fri Jun 12 05:34:23 2009 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un...
Fri Jun 12 05:33:50 2009 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Fri Jun 12 05:22:06 2009 Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Fri Jun 12 05:21:54 2009 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un... |
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rick89
join:2003-12-10
Franklin, NC | reply to amgqmp1
ya none of those indicate anything. next time you drop call tech support and have them chk your UP SNR just to see. If its above 25dB then you could have a modem and or power problem |
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amgqmp1
join:2008-11-10
West Des Moines, IA
·Mediacom
| said by rick89 :ya none of those indicate anything. next time you drop call tech support and have them chk your UP SNR just to see. If its above 25dB then you could have a modem and or power problem Thanks for taking a look at the logs. If it's believed to be a potential modem issue, I'll take it into the local office and have them switch it out. I can confidently rule out a power problem (the equipment is on a voltage-regulating and monitor-able UPS).
I'd call tech. support if I felt it would do anything beyond trigger an on-site visit from a tech. I really feel for those folks, and I don't want to waste their time anymore than I want to waste mine.
My home has the most absurdly simple setup possible. I have one device (cable modem). It is connected as directly as possible (by a previous Mediacom on-site tech. visit) to the outside drop. I only subscribe to HSI service. I've also checked the outside drop, and the connections are as secure as they were when the tech. last visited.
I ended up canceling my Mediacom HSI at my office due to connection drops like this (that was just a few months ago). I don't believe the issues are related, but I don't think that the response times are real hot for fixing these types of issues either.
As I had more random drops last night, perhaps I'll get around to imposing upon BAINCH via PM.
In the meantime, if anyone else is reading this thread, is in my general area (West Des Moines, IA), and is having drops too...share your experiences.  |
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Anonymous
Premium
join:2004-06-01
IA
·Mediacom
| I like simple setups . BTW make sure the cable is not going through the UPS/surge protector. Call tech support and have them check your modem signal history and if needed they will dispatch a tech. |
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amgqmp1
join:2008-11-10
West Des Moines, IA
·Mediacom
| said by Anonymous :I like simple setups . BTW make sure the cable is not going through the UPS/surge protector. Call tech support and have them check your modem signal history and if needed they will dispatch a tech. The coax doesn't run through a UPS. Modem is different for the weekend (or at least through tomorrow). A lightning strike 30ft. from the cable drop last night (hit my neighbors tree) has smoked the RCA modem. It will no longer power on. I have a feeling that some collateral arcing off the lightning strike sent a good buzz up the line.
The catch 22 of using a surge suppressor with coax...it might have saved the modem, but you and I know what they do to signal quality. 
The connection is dropping left and right tonight. I assume it has something to do with the outage in my area that the phone system was referring to. I had to call to complete my stroll through the walled garden...thankfully, this time I remembered to make note of my #s. |
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postmortem
join:2006-04-28
Cedar Rapids, IA | reply to amgqmp1
Cedar Rapids here, connection has been dropping whole night, and still is. |
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dark1
@mchsi.com
| reply to amgqmp1
Yea, it's been the cable co I think. I'm in carroll and it's the same all over. We had a 5-6 hour outage last night. I have not had any drops after talking to mediacom and then fixing the issues from the outage last night. So we shall see how long it stays. Maybe the areas with the drops and outage last night are prepping for the jump from 1.0 to 3.0. |
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amgqmp1
join:2008-11-10
West Des Moines, IA
·Mediacom
3 edits | reply to amgqmp1
Last night and today (with the new modem) I've had many drops, and the speed continues to be really slow. A trace to mail.uu.net shows really low latency (~25ms). I'm downloading ATI's latest video driver @ 935kb/s right now...
Anyone else seeing slow browsing speed? All the signals from my info in the above paragraph lean towards a wonky proxy (what does they call it...webboost?).
Update: Using the excellent line quality test here @ DSLreports.com, I was able to determine that the slow speeds I've been having the past two days were due to my router. It likely took damage in my recent electrical event. My trusty old $5 spare wifi router is in-service now, and I'll keep an eye open for drops with this new modem. |
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Zoomer30
join:2003-05-01
Mason City, IA
| reply to amgqmp1
Mines been doing that off and on since December....best of luck getting that one fixed (I have had loads of luck in that area)
Just crashed again about 5 mins, after a few weeks of it working fine. Go figure. Makes no sense how a modem can go from +5 power to -18 in the blink of an eye.
Frequency 111000000 Hz
Signal to Noise Ratio 31 dB
QAM 256
Network Access Control Object ON
Power Level -5 dBmV
Upstream Value
Channel ID 1
Frequency 32000000 Hz
Ranging Service ID 6195
Symbol Rate 2.560 Msym/s
Power Level 58 dBmV |
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Zoomer30
join:2003-05-01
Mason City, IA | reply to amgqmp1
And during the 8+ hour TV outage due to the fiber cut a few days ago, my HSI did not even slip once........all I can say is 0-o |
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daveinpoway
Premium
join:2006-07-03
Poway, CA
| With an upstream power level of 58 dBmv, it is not surprising that you are having problems. Make sure there is no more than one splitter between where the cable enters the house and the modem's input and verify that all connections are tight. If the upstream power remains above 50 dBmv after these steps, a tech will have to come out. |
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CappinHoff
join:2007-01-05
Des Moines, IA
| said by daveinpoway :With an upstream power level of 58 dBmv, it is not surprising that you are having problems. Make sure there is no more than one splitter between where the cable enters the house and the modem's input and verify that all connections are tight. If the upstream power remains above 50 dBmv after these steps, a tech will have to come out. Upstream power can be over 50. 55/56 is the limit before it causes issues. |
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rick89
join:2003-12-10
Franklin, NC
| Yep. I've had a modem at 57 with little issue because it never moved from 57. Only reason was the customer was way out in the woods and we had to extend our feeder another ~600-700ft underground and we put the tap on the side of his house....luckly he only wanted internet so there were no splitters and he paid a good bit for the install....Im just glad we use 875 cable for our feeder as well. |
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daveinpoway
Premium
join:2006-07-03
Poway, CA | reply to CappinHoff
Running close to the limit doesn't provide a margin of safety for fluctuations that will occur due to temperature and other factors. |
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