Cable Modem Resets

Posts: 21 · Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2003 5:13 pm Post subject: Cable Modem Resets

I live in a high-rise in downtown Chicago, where the cable company is RCN. My confidence is high for Vonage use, since RCN just rewired the entire building with all new shielded coaxial cable, and a very professional job it looks like to me. But alas, it seems they gave me a cable modem from the “nostalgia locker”. It’s a Nortel Networks Cornerstone CM 200 model. And it does this…

Right in the middle of everything going Jake (fine), all the green lights go off, then the power light flashes, then all the green lights start flashing simultaneously. In a minute, everything is Jake again. This also disrupts web browsing, giving a classic “page not found” screen.

When this happens during a Vonage phone call, everyone starts saying, “Hello? Hello? Helooooh?” at both ends. If both parties are willing to wait for the cable modem to take on a more typical look, then we can talk again.

My question is this: If I invest in the purchase of a newer technology cable modem, like the Toshiba PCX2200 that RCN recommends on its Web site, will this cure the problem? My router is a Netgear RP614, which should be good to go.

Thanks,
Bill

Posts: 21 · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2003 5:27 pm Post subject: Addemdum: Cable Modem Purchased

I have indeed purchased the RCN recommended modem, thus eliminating the nostalgia component from the list of suspects. It is a Toshiba PCX2200, and was set-up by an RCN technician today.

This has not solved the problem! During a long telephone conversation the modem cut out about seven times. On the Tishiba, the cable light goes out, niether party can hear the other, then the cable light flickers and comes back solid green. Most annoying.

Posts: 14 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 03, 2003 Posts: 14

Bill wrote:

I have indeed purchased the RCN recommended modem, thus eliminating the nostalgia component from the list of suspects. It is a Toshiba PCX2200, and was set-up by an RCN technician today.

This has not solved the problem! During a long telephone conversation the modem cut out about seven times. On the Tishiba, the cable light goes out, niether party can hear the other, then the cable light flickers and comes back solid green. Most annoying.

Have either of you accessed the config menu in the modem? Most modems use http://192.168.100.1/

What you want to look at is Downstream Receive and upstream transmit Power Levels. The upstream should be anywhere from -55 to 55 dBmv. and the downstream should be anywhere from -15 to 15 dBmv. If anything is outside of those ranges, you will experience a problem. Also, check the event logs to see if anything that might have occured is listed there.

Posts: 40 · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2003 7:33 am Post subject:

Your problem sounds EXACTLY like what I'm currently experiencing here in Virginia.

Some fault or outside line interference is (was) knocking my modem off line. And I'm in an area with all brand-new "digital upgrade" hardware; the fiber from the cable company's "head end" terminates only a few hundred feet from my coax cable tap.

Recommend that you request your cable company to run PingPlotter (or similar program) from "their end" to your modem. This will ping your modem at regular intervals to demonstrate to the cable company that there IS a problem as well as possibly determine the source of the interference. Any outages can then be logged and plotted graphically over time.

The cable provider can also run plots to other modems in your building to determine if it's "just you" or if your problem affects other subscribers too.(who might not be as sensitive to outages as vonage customers are)

Also, HIGHLY recommend that you insist that they use a modem "owned" by the cable company during this test so there won't be any of, "The problem must be in YOUR modem" issues arising.

Both I and my cable company (Cox) use PingPlotter http:/www.pingplotter.com to monitor connectivity. It's proven to be an INVALUABLE tool for me.

In fainess to Cox, once they "saw" that there was a problem, they've been "all over it" trying to restore solid service. The key is getting past the first "line of defense" (customer service agents) to the real techies in the company.

Guest

Heres a way to monitor your pcx2200 cable modem, for signal level and other info.

connect your modem via USB to the internet. get it so it has a connection to the internet fully working. Now plug the ethernet connector on the cable modem to your ethernet connector on your pc. SET the ip address of the NIC on your pc to 192.168.100.2. ALSO put 192.168.100.1 as your gateway in the settings of this NIC. Now disable then enable the NIC connection.
put http://192.168.100.1/ into your web browser and you should see the cable modems diag info page.