dingo

I know this isn't travel technology related, though when I'm not traveling I am at home!

My home Internet connection drops frequently. By that I mean that any device trying to access the Internet, cannot. In IE I get the message telling me that no connectio is available and I'm prompted to troubleshoot, which does nothing.

I've spent hours on the phone with my provider (local government owned cable company...ugh). They are unable to see anything except that there is in fact a drop in the connection. They had suggested that it must be my router, which made zero sense to me. Nonetheless, I recently upgraded from my cheap D-Link to an Airport Extreme. I also took the cable modem into the provider and brought home a new one. So at this point, it feels like I've changed everything out except the cable, the devices that access the network, and whatever the cable company has on their end to throttle me down.

When the connection gets dropped, I go unplug the power to the modem and plug it back in. Wait for everything to come back up, and we're set.

I can't figure out a pattern to when the connection drops. Sometimes I am downloading large files, other times it just drops (I know b/c my Dropcam will notify me when the connection is lost and last night no one was online actively downloading anything).

Like most folks, we have a lot of devices that access the Internet these days:
2 iPads
1 Android phone
1 iPhone
2 Newish Dell laptops
1 BluRay player (rarely used)
1 Apple TV device
1 Dropcam
1 ATT micro cell tower

Most of these devices are not used similtaneously; usually we'll have 3-4 of them working at once.

IN addition to the above, we have four cable company provided DVR's. They aren't networkable at all.

I am so tired of trying to tell the cable company that it has to be them, not me. I get the usual run around of "let's try to cycle everything first" and when I can't reproduce the problem on demand they say they can't help.

I'm out of ideas on this one; anyone have any thoughts or things to try to fix it or pinpoint the problem?

djk7

Has the cable company sent someone out to test your line? Back when I had cable internet and it started acting flaky, a tech came out, hooked up some kind of meter and found some kind of signal problem that was resolved by laying a new cable from the street. They should at least test to make sure there isn't a problem.

Another time they determined that the inside signal was weak from getting split too many times (4-5 tvs and a cable modem) and added a signal amplifier.

krpjr

I'll reply when I get back to my desk, however, there are many things to factor in here...

Also I may have missed it on my phone here but I don't recall you mentioning if this only happens when you use your computer and if you are on wireless as well?

cordelli

How often is frequently? For me (dsl not cable) it was every night between midnight and 12:15. To me that was obviously something line related, I just gave up trying to solve it and put a power strip where I could get it easier to click the modem and router off and back on again. When I got a lightning strike and replaced the modem and router I actually made sure to get one I can restart from any connected machine.

They never came up with a reason other than yeah, that happens.

For cable connections, the most common issue is noise on the line, the router reaches a point where it meets the threshold to disconnect and needs to be restarted.

You will never be able to pinpoint the problem, as the cause may not stay there once you are disconnected. You could be disconnected and the line could go back to being fine, but you won't connect again until you restart everything.

Until they send somebody to monitor the line both at the house and at the modem, I would not assume it was entirely your problem.

But it could be you have too many splitters, low quality splitters, low quality cable, etc all contributing to the noise in the house degrading the signal.

Mary2e

A sort of related question

When our house was built we wired every room for cable/internet. As a result, when we can, we are hardwired. We've had to buy a combined wireless router for the basement, as well as a signal booster we keep on our first floor. Where we need more than 1 internet connection, such as at the TV, we purchased a hub.

We're not having any speed issues at all.

BUT, the only item we have never replaced is the actual cable modem, which is now about 17 years old.

Should we, as a preventative, just ask the cable company to give us a newer model cable modem?

glob99

A few years back, I had a problem with my cable modem losing the signal for several hours each day. I noticed it would occur during the (extreme) heat of the day. I got a tech to come out during the hottest part of the day, and he determined one of their amplifiers was the culprit.

CPRich

Simple first step - replace the cable. I recently lost all cable TV reception - the service tech cut off the F-type connectors from both ends of the physical cable, installed new ones, plugged it back in and, presto, cable TV. I replaced it with the other two cables I had tried before calling - nothing from both of them. So I managed to have three bad cables.

DeafFlyer

I used to have this problem until I got a Universal Power Supply battery backup. I plugged the router in to it, and, voila!, no more dropped wifi connections. Someone on a forum had explained that power surges could cause the wifi to drop momentarily (micro seconds actually) and right after that the computer would lose it and not be able to find it again. I did not understand the technical explanation, but it worked for me.

willyroo

If you can separate your internal network from the external one, this might help a lot. Your cable connection would be a Motorola Surfboard (or such), and it should only connect to the internet - it should do nothing else. Make sure wireless and NAT are turned "off" on your cable connection device (if it has such functionality).

The big problem with many cable modems that also do local network functions is their NAT table fills up quickly, this could well be your problem. You have a lot of devices connecting, so your modem should do none of this work.

Your router should have a WAN port (I don't know if the AAX has an incoming WAN port?), which means it takes the internet connection from the cable modem via ethernet cable. Your router (not modem) should then handle all internal networking via ethernet and wireless.

quick_dry

what is the name of the cable modem? Most will have a proper diagnostics page you can bring up if you connect directly to it - I used this on my old Motorola Surfbaud many moons ago when I had to check the signal quality.

SRQ Guy

How old is your router? This happened to me once, the router was about 3 years old and I think was just failing. New router solved the problem.

Also, have your tried plugging a device directly into the cable modem to see if the signal is dropping there? That's one way to troubleshoot the router easily.

pittpanther

You've had the same cable modem for 17 years? I'm surprised that the cable company hasn't asked (or forced) you to get a newer model. So many standards (DOCSIS, if you're interested) have changed and improved in the last 2 decades, that your cable company would probably be happy for you to exchange your modem.

Have you been renting the modem all this time? At $2-$5 per month? Might consider buying your next cable modem instead...

Mary2e

Thanks. I suspected we should probably swap it out.

We purchased it from the cable company. I think it was something like $99.

Thank you.

frankmu

I had our cable company check the connection between their fiber cable and my coax connection at the utility pole. It turned out to be flaky, and the replacement fixed it. This happened after a particularly hard freeze. The cable modem will keep a log, have you checked it (your instruction manual will give you an IP address to its internal web page)?

kerflumexed

Every so often, I will get the red x and no network connection available. My workaround is to open the network connections window, click on manage/change adapter settings, disable theb adapter and then enable it. I have figured the adapter is flaky. This is for the wired connection to the Uverse box btw.