Internet connection dropping

zolton33

Distinguished
Jan 25, 2012
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Ok first off my isp just upgraded the internet in my area i was paying for a basic 15mbs connection and now i was upgraded for free to 50. So that meant a hardware upgrade from my cable company to a newer modem. My modem also has a phone hook up as i have my home phone through them as well.

So about a week after they gave me a new modem my internet went completely dark. Seeing how it was a new modem i contacted my isp and they said things were fine on their end. Worried my router was the culprit i purchased another and tried it with the same results (the router was used).

So i contacted them again and they sent a guy out here. He tested it and said my signal was lower then he thought it should be coming into my home. So he fixed it and boom i was back online. Then my wifes pc just out of the blue lost all connection to the internet. After some playing around i got it connected.

Now when it goes out i can not contact the router at all via the ip address. So i went into her device setting and disabled and reenabled her ethernet port. And it worked. But still from time to time it just drops completely. When it does my other pc's running through the ethernet ports work fine but my wireless drops as well.

So i was thiniking maybe its just her ethernet port going bad as it is an older motherboard so i may just purchase a pci ethernet card to eliminate it as a root cause to be safe. But it does not explain to me the wireless dropping as well. So i am concerned my router may be going bad. Which is strange as it is not even a year since i purchased it.

My router is an e800 http://www.linksys.com/us/support-article?articleNum=136019

My wifes pc is an hp with a ddr2 memory in it so that alone tells me the age its motherboard is in so like i said i am going to get a new card for it any way. But i'm just very confused as to why my wireless is misbehaving. I did reset it to factory settings based on the tech i talked to from my isp but that did not help. And i had to go back into my ip to put a password to it to protect my wireless connection.

Once in a while my other 3 pcs will also disconnect from the router. Now before all of this i never had a problem with my internet it was fast and stable despite only having a 15mb connection. So i'm unsure if its my router or the modem that is the cause of it. So any ideas? My wifes pc does run windows 7 as do all my other pc's. And i only have 3 devices connected through wireless 2 tablets and a playstation 3. But i have 4 pc's connected via the ethernet ports.

My wifes pc seems to be the most troubled one to connect so maybe it could be a bad cable i'm unsure but that would not explain to me why the wireless also drops at that time as well. Although i am going to try a new ethernet cord just to eliminate that possibility.

Sorry this is so long but wanted to put out there all the information i could in hopes of getting this resolved.
 
Try using an old router of yours, or a friends or neighbours router. If the issue goes away from doing that, it will mean it is an issue with the e800. Let us know if changing the ethernet eliminates the issue.
 
Ok an update with more information. The router i was using before was a linksys E800 i purchased a new one a linksys E1200 and replaced the ethernet cord on that pc. Now randomly like before i lose wireless connection completely and when i do i can not access the router via ip address. Although i do have internet through wired connection but i can not access the router via ip from wireless or from wired connection when it does this.

Now to add to this it all started when Suddenlink upgraded the internet in my area making the base speed 50 mbps while also putting in data caps being the basic internet speed of 50 mbps you have an allowance of 250 gigs of data a month. I had to exchange my previous modem for a newer one to access these speeds and when i did this all began. I had to call Suddenlink to have a person come out. But it took 2 calls to get it done as the first person said that the cable modem was working fine. I tried a second router and had the same problem called them back and they sent out a tech.

The tech said the signal was weaker then he felt it should be so did some thing to boost it up. And for a while it seemed fine. Then my wife started to not connect from her pc. So i bought a new router hoping it would fix itself. But just earlier my wireless dropped completely. I tried then to access the router via ip from the tablet and got nothing. So got on my pc and tried and even though i had internet on my pc via a wired connection i could not access my router via ip. I tried ipconfig so i had the ip fine so i tried ipconfig /renew and it just hung there doing nothing at all. Eventually i went and restarted the modem and the router and every thing was fine after.

But its gonna be a huge pita if i have to keep doing this i do not understand why it is behaving like this unless it is some thing with my modem and/or my isp (suddenlink) and these data caps. I mean 3 different routers tried and the latest a brand new one i've only had less then 3 days. Hopefully some one else has an answer as i'm at a loss and very confused.
 
If you check the modem logs you might see a T3 and a T4 timeout but your still getting wired connection so this is probably not the problem. If you do look in the logs and see this event it means that the amplifiers on the cable lines aren't adjusting the gain(signal boost) on the lines outside going too you. To fix this a technician would have to go out and replace/fix the amplifier on the line so that it adjusts this properly. You would notice this problem when there are changes in temperature that would make the cable outside since its a metal expand or contract to the point where the amplifier would not be set to the right limit and start sending errors to your modem since its not the right signal boost(gain). When you are connected to wired connection on pc are you getting slower than usual speeds when the wireless goes down or is it still the same steady connection you were having before.
 
I had never accessed a cable modem before but looked up how to do it and i'll post the event logs it shows:

Docsis(cm) events

8/5/2015 14:36 82000900 5 B-INIT-RNG Failure - Retries exceeded;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 14:36 82000200 3 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 14:39 82000900 5 B-INIT-RNG Failure - Retries exceeded;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 14:39 82000200 3 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 14:45 82000900 5 B-INIT-RNG Failure - Retries exceeded;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 14:45 82000200 3 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 14:46 68000401 5 ToD request sent - No Response received;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 14:46 73040100 6 TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 15:02 82000200 3 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 15:03 82000300 3 Ranging Request Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 15:03 82000600 3 Unicast Maintenance Ranging attempted - No response - Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 15:03 82000200 3 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 15:04 68000401 5 ToD request sent - No Response received;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 15:04 73040100 6 TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/5/2015 15:05 82000200 3 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/7/2015 2:29 68010600 6 DHCP Renew - lease parameters tftp file-^1/5527DF54/VSE=VSE/TYPE=RES/COS=181/IP=2 modified;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/7/2015 6:45 82000200 3 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/8/2015 14:03 68010600 6 DHCP Renew - lease parameters tftp file-^1/1181B3BF/VSE=VSE/TYPE=RES/COS=181/IP=2/VSE=VSE modified;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
1/1/1970 0:00 68000401 5 ToD request sent - No Response received;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
8/15/2015 21:25 73040100 6 TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=ac:b3:13:57:f0:60;CMTS-MAC=24:e9:b3:1b:80:88;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

PacketCable(MTA) Events

7/26/2015 13:13 14 Power Supply Telemetry Log - BATTERY TEST IN PROGRESS
7/26/2015 16:00 14 Power Supply Telemetry Log - TELEMETRY NORMAL
8/4/2015 23:14 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = IS, New State = OOS
8/5/2015 0:04 16 MTA TFTP: Successful
8/5/2015 0:04 26 MTA PROV: Successful!
8/5/2015 0:04 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = OOS, New State = IS
8/5/2015 0:04 14 Power Supply Telemetry Log - TELEMETRY NORMAL
8/5/2015 0:09 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = IS, New State = OOS
8/5/2015 0:16 16 MTA TFTP: Successful
8/5/2015 0:16 26 MTA PROV: Successful!
8/5/2015 0:16 14 Power Supply Telemetry Log - TELEMETRY NORMAL
8/5/2015 0:16 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = OOS, New State = IS
8/5/2015 0:26 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = IS, New State = OOS
8/5/2015 0:36 16 MTA TFTP: Successful
8/5/2015 0:36 26 MTA PROV: Successful!
8/5/2015 0:36 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = OOS, New State = IS
8/5/2015 0:36 14 Power Supply Telemetry Log - TELEMETRY NORMAL
8/5/2015 14:18 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = IS, New State = OOS
8/5/2015 14:47 14 Power Supply Telemetry Log - TELEMETRY NORMAL
8/5/2015 14:47 16 MTA TFTP: Successful
8/5/2015 14:47 26 MTA PROV: Successful!
8/5/2015 14:47 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = OOS, New State = IS
8/5/2015 15:03 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = IS, New State = OOS
8/5/2015 15:05 16 MTA TFTP: Successful
8/5/2015 15:05 26 MTA PROV: Successful!
8/5/2015 15:05 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = OOS, New State = IS
8/5/2015 15:05 14 Power Supply Telemetry Log - TELEMETRY NORMAL
1/1/1970 0:00 14 Power Supply Telemetry Log - TELEMETRY NORMAL
8/15/2015 21:26 16 MTA TFTP: Successful
8/15/2015 21:26 26 MTA PROV: Successful!
8/15/2015 21:26 14 Power Supply Telemetry Log - TELEMETRY NORMAL
8/15/2015 21:26 3 Voice Line State Change, Line Number = 1, Prev State = OOS, New State = IS

Maybe one of you with more knowledge on these can enlighten me a bit?
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/21085-42-cable-internet-connection-constantly-timing ellis056 explains the issue in this post
Ellis056
Ok, I hope to shed some light on everyone's issues and pull the curtain back a little. I WAS a Charter Communications Senior System Tech. I was responsible for maintaining and repairing all mainline issues. The problem that you guys are having is, i repeat, IS a problem with your cable companies hardline distribution plant. In other words, don't waste your time or money replacing modems and or routers. If you are experiencing problems at certain times of the day, it is related to temperature. I know that sounds crazy, but hardline cable is metal. It expands and contracts with hot and cold temperatures just like any other metal substance. When this happens, the metal is either less dense(when hot) or more dense(when cold). Therefore, the signal passes differently depending on the temperature. Causing higher or lower signals when the sun comes up or goes down. Now, to battle this phenomenon, the amplifiers hanging on the lines are designed to automatically adjust the Gain (signal boost) accordingly. Now, these have to be adjusted and set up properly at least a couple times a year. Mainly due to the changing of the seasons. They can only handle so much temperature change before they start to cause serious errors. Thus your problem begins. Now keep in mind, that most newby service techs for most cable companies are clueless about anything to do with mainline issues. They are only trained to diagnose problems inside your house, and depending on their training(which usually isn't much) they probably won't even know any of this. Also, in most areas, the service techs are scared to put in a "Line Problem" because if they have missed any problems inside your house that could be causing the problem, then they are given a hard time by the system techs (who will find it). So, you should definitely insist that a line problem be put in. Also, talk with any of your neighbors and see if they are having the same issues at the same time. This will help you in your request for a line problem.

Hope this helps

Justin

 
My only problem with your theory is that I've had my service through Suddenlink for years now. And never have i ever had this problem until very recently right after they upgraded their lowest internet to now be 50 mbps and i received this new cable modem. Before that i never had a single random disconnect or problem with my service. That be a major coincidence that the line started acting up once i got a new box to push out the faster speeds. But i'm no cable expert by any stretch of the imagination so i do not know what exactly could be the culprit.