[SOLVED] Help w/ regulating cable power

lukev721

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I have been having issues with connectivity and packet loss with my internet connection. I have had my ISP out to check but they would not troubleshoot my modem because it is my personnel modem and not one they provide themselves. I was able to get a hold of Motorola support for my modem issues and they were able to determine that my issue is that the power levels coming from the cable to the modem are too high and they need to be lowered. My ISP was not able to identify the problem and I am tired of going back and forth with them to resolve the issue. I was able to figure out that I can buy a attenuator pad and regulate the power myself, my issue is that I don't know what db I should buy in order to bring the power level in line. Please see my power levels below.
My modem is a Motorola MB 8600
I have gigabit internet provided by COX

View: https://imgur.com/Y8Xl3VA



thank you for any help you can provide.
 
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lukev721

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Do you happens to have the reply from Motorola in written form?

Are your router powered by PoE ? How long cable?

The exact quote from the email is:
"As we can see there ,the PWR values are too high (should be between +6/-6, maybe +1 or -2) annd you are loosing a lot of packages. I recommend you to call your ISP, make an appointment, and change the line and regulate those number. "

As for your second question I'm not 100% sure on how to answer you. My modem has a coax cable and it also has its own power cable to an outlet. As far as how long the cable is I'm not sure, its maybe 4 feet from the wall but it also runs across my house in order to then run from my house to the light poles outside.
 

kanewolf

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Your power levels are OK. You have a couple of channels that are low. But you don't have any uncorrected counts. Your ISP may check the signal level at the outside of your house. But if you have crap coax in your house, it is your problem, not theirs. You need to connect your modem directly to the cablecompany feed and check your signal levels..
 

lukev721

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Your power levels are OK. You have a couple of channels that are low. But you don't have any uncorrected counts. Your ISP may check the signal level at the outside of your house. But if you have crap coax in your house, it is your problem, not theirs. You need to connect your modem directly to the cablecompany feed and check your signal levels..

So the cable being used was installed a little over 1 year ago by my ISP. It runs from the street to my house and directly to my modem. The Motorola tech for my modem told me the power levels were too high. The exact quote is:

"As we can see there ,the PWR values are too high (should be between +6/-6, maybe +1 or -2) annd you are loosing a lot of packages. I recommend you to call your ISP, make an appointment, and change the line and regulate those number. "

Here is another reading from yesterday, I believe this one is worse than the one I posted today.

View: https://imgur.com/OwRCVt6
 
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Your numbers are barely out of the recommended values but still within what they call acceptable. You see a number of different recommendations but anything between -10 and +10 tends to function.

Your values are too low not too high. If you put a attenuate into the line it will make them even worse. Sometimes a ISP will put in a amplifier but generally this is only done when the numbers are much lower than you have.

But as kanewolf pointed out the value that matters the most on this screen are uncorretable errors. When the you have bad signal levels you will lots of uncorretable errors.
 

kanewolf

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So the cable being used was installed a little over 1 year ago by my ISP. It runs from the street to my house and directly to my modem. The Motorola tech for my modem told me the power levels were too high. The exact quote is:

"As we can see there ,the PWR values are too high (should be between +6/-6, maybe +1 or -2) annd you are loosing a lot of packages. I recommend you to call your ISP, make an appointment, and change the line and regulate those number. "
They are not "too high", the values all have minus sign in front of them. The are a little low. So the motorola support person doesn't have a clue.
 
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lukev721

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Your numbers are barely out of the recommended values but still within what they call acceptable. You see a number of different recommendations but anything between -10 and +10 tends to function.

Your values are too low not too high. If you put a attenuate into the line it will make them even worse. Sometimes a ISP will put in a amplifier but generally this is only done when the numbers are much lower than you have.

But as kanewolf pointed out the value that matters the most on this screen are uncorretable errors. When the you have bad signal levels you will lots of uncorretable errors.



I don't understand why Motorola support would tell me the levels are high, this is really frustrating. Here is another capture from my modem I Just took. there are a few uncorrected errors but it fluctuates a bit.

View: https://imgur.com/vSj5ote
 
The ISP is the only one that can fix this unless you have a long cable inside the house. It could be the modem but that is unlikely but if the ISP owns the modem they might try replacing it.

Pretty much they come out and put a meter in place of the modem that can do a much better job of measure signal levels. If it is too low they need to go look for a bad wire or connection.
 
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kanewolf

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it seems so. What would you suggest? have my ISP come back out and ask them to rewire?
I think you need to evaluate your original problem. The data you are showing from the cable modem is not going to cause the issues you describe in your original post. You need to look elsewhere in your network chain.
Are you connected directly to the primary router with an ethernet cable? Is there any other network hardware in the link ?
 

lukev721

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I think you need to evaluate your original problem. The data you are showing from the cable modem is not going to cause the issues you describe in your original post. You need to look elsewhere in your network chain.
Are you connected directly to the primary router with an ethernet cable? Is there any other network hardware in the link ?

Yes, my computer is hardwired to my router. There is only the modem and router.
Modem: Motorola MB 8600
Router: Netgear Nighthawk WiFi router R6700
 

lukev721

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"but they would not troubleshoot my modem because it is my personnel modem and not one they provide themselves "

One of the issues with buying a modem outside their recommended list.

I bought my own modem and router because I figured it would be of better quality then what COX would provide but at this point I might just ask them to give me one of theirs just to see if it fixes the issue.
 

lukev721

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What are you using for DNS? Try using Google DNS.
You should be able to set the DNS server in the router GUI.

Ok, changing the DSN to Google's on my router made a significant difference. It's much better, although I feel like there is still some small latency issues. Regardless I'm having my ISP come back out to check some things so hopefully I can get my connectivity to where I want. Thanks for all the input!