Disconnected several times a day!

[luckydude]

I don't know if Edwin still checks here. He was real helpful a while back
but...

Through out the day and night I have periods were I can't get to the net.
The cable modem (SB5100) lights are all on as normal. The connection just
goes away for a while and then come back. Sometimes the outage can last 30+
minutes. It's driving my family crazy!!!

I've removed my Linksys wireless router from the network and have the cable
model wired directly to my NIC. I'm able to get to 192.168.100.1 and see the
modem but I can't ping anything else. When I look at the logs on the modem I
see lots of entries like these:
2005-10-03 01:51:00 3-Critical R005.0 Started Unicast Maintenance
Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out
1970-01-01 00:00:17 3-Critical D003.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical
field invalid in response.
1970-01-01 00:00:06 3-Critical R002.0 No Ranging Response received -
T3 time-out
2005-10-03 01:38:35 3-Critical D003.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical
field invalid in response.
2005-10-03 01:38:22 3-Critical R004.0 Received Response to Broadcast
Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4
timeout
2005-10-03 01:37:49 3-Critical R005.0 Started Unicast Maintenance
Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out
1970-01-01 00:00:14 3-Critical D003.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical
field invalid in response.
2005-10-02 20:55:58 3-Critical R002.0 No Ranging Response received -
T3 time-out
2005-10-02 20:55:54 3-Critical R004.0 Received Response to Broadcast
Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4
timeout
2005-10-02 20:55:21 3-Critical R005.0 Started Unicast Maintenance
Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out
2005-10-02 18:22:59 3-Critical D003.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical
field invalid in response.
2005-10-02 18:22:53 3-Critical R005.0 Started Unicast Maintenance
Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out
2005-10-02 18:22:50 3-Critical R002.0 No Ranging Response received -
T3 time-out
2005-10-02 18:22:43 3-Critical R004.0 Received Response to Broadcast
Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4
timeout
2005-10-02 18:22:11 3-Critical R005.0 Started Unicast Maintenance
Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out


Anyone have any ideas??? I'm ready to start looking at DSL. This is getting
worse and worse. The modem is about two months old (had to go to TW and pick
it up myself).

Please help me!

[stevech]

I assume that ALL of the cable modem lights are normal when you have the
outage.

When the PC is accessing the network normally, open a command window on your
PC and do a tracert yahoo.com.
Make note of the net 10 gateway in the route lists
Then with your command window open, do this command: ipconfig /all
then make note of the DNS server address such as 24.25.195.1
Later when the problem is occurring, open a command window on your PC and do
a ping on that net 10 address, like ping 10.x.x.x
Also do a ping to the DNS server address.

We'll assume your PC has its ethernet NIC setup for DHCP.

All of this assumes you have the PC hardwired, not wireless - that's another
can of worms.

[Scott Lindner]

Those are the same logs I had when I had my outtage problems. One way to be
sure, when you are experiencing this, what are the indicator lights doing?
When I had this problem a few would go out and some would start flashing.
If this is the case, you need to get a tech out there to give you a new
cable modem. When it happened to me, it was because they just recently
changed a modulation card in our area and my modem couldn't deal with the
change. You might be having the same troubles.

And another thing, because of the problems I had I was able to convince them
to give me two months free. One month for the outtage period (it was 28
days) and another month because twice the technicians never showed up.

Cheers,
Scott

[luckydude]

Thanks Scott and Steve. I'll try both suggestions. I just went through a 20
minute outage. All the model lights were on the whole time.

Mike

Post by Scott Lindner
Those are the same logs I had when I had my outtage problems. One way to be
sure, when you are experiencing this, what are the indicator lights doing?
When I had this problem a few would go out and some would start flashing.
If this is the case, you need to get a tech out there to give you a new
cable modem. When it happened to me, it was because they just recently
changed a modulation card in our area and my modem couldn't deal with the
change. You might be having the same troubles.
And another thing, because of the problems I had I was able to convince them
to give me two months free. One month for the outtage period (it was 28
days) and another month because twice the technicians never showed up.
Cheers,
Scott

[Scott Lindner]

Post by luckydude
Thanks Scott and Steve. I'll try both suggestions. I just went through a 20
minute outage. All the model lights were on the whole time.

Woah. I wouldn't have expected the lights to be on the entire time with
those logs. Interesting. Be prepared to show the tech the logs. The tech
that came to my place didn't even know about them, or maybe he didn't care
because it isn't part of "his tools" to use. We seemed to only care about
what his meter said, and it said everything was perfect. Obviously because
he performed no diagnostics on the modem, just on the line. He had no
problem giving me a new modem so that wasn't an issue. Just make sure you
ask for you if you go as far as getting a tech out to your place.

Good luck!

Scott

[luckydude]

I talked to the phone support and they insisted that the logs must be from
my router.

"Turning on the log feature on the cable modem costs extra".

I actually had to mute the phone at that point.

Thanks.

Post by Scott Lindner

Post by luckydude
Thanks Scott and Steve. I'll try both suggestions. I just went through a

20

Post by luckydude
minute outage. All the model lights were on the whole time.

Woah. I wouldn't have expected the lights to be on the entire time with
those logs. Interesting. Be prepared to show the tech the logs. The tech
that came to my place didn't even know about them, or maybe he didn't care
because it isn't part of "his tools" to use. We seemed to only care about
what his meter said, and it said everything was perfect. Obviously because
he performed no diagnostics on the modem, just on the line. He had no
problem giving me a new modem so that wasn't an issue. Just make sure you
ask for you if you go as far as getting a tech out to your place.
Good luck!
Scott

[Scott Lindner]

Post by luckydude
I talked to the phone support and they insisted that the logs must be from
my router.

That's fine. When they send a tech out they'll be able to verify that they
are from your modem. :-)

Post by luckydude
"Turning on the log feature on the cable modem costs extra".

You're f'ing kidding me?! They are on by default. I gotta ask, what were
they going to charge you?

Post by luckydude
I actually had to mute the phone at that point.

So you could laugh your butt off or bite your tongue?

Scott

[Robert Williams]

How do you look at the logs on the modem itself?

[Scott Lindner]

Post by Robert Williams
How do you look at the logs on the modem itself?

http://192.168.100.1

There is a log tab.

[Chris]

say, do you use zonealarm? I had problems like this till I put my
network in the trusted zone. I have no idea if I was supposed to do
that or not, (maybe someone will fill me in) but since then no
problems. I did the last ZA upgrade and had to re-do the zone setting.
Good luck!

[Scott Lindner]

Post by Chris
say, do you use zonealarm? I had problems like this till I put my
network in the trusted zone. I have no idea if I was supposed to do
that or not, (maybe someone will fill me in) but since then no
problems. I did the last ZA upgrade and had to re-do the zone setting.
Good luck!

You definitely want your LAN to be a trusted zone. Good choice!

[Chris]

thanks for confirming that. I figured the lan could do its encription
thing and the firewall could do its permission based thing. Its funny
the default setting when I installed the last ZA update was to put the
lan in the internet zone. Maybe its because they figure most people
don't turn on encription? On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 20:33:57 GMT, "Scott

Post by Scott Lindner

Post by Chris
say, do you use zonealarm? I had problems like this till I put my
network in the trusted zone. I have no idea if I was supposed to do
that or not, (maybe someone will fill me in) but since then no
problems. I did the last ZA upgrade and had to re-do the zone setting.
Good luck!

You definitely want your LAN to be a trusted zone. Good choice!

[Scott Lindner]

Post by Chris
thanks for confirming that. I figured the lan could do its encription
thing and the firewall could do its permission based thing. Its funny
the default setting when I installed the last ZA update was to put the
lan in the internet zone. Maybe its because they figure most people
don't turn on encription?

I think you're giving the general public too much credit. Most people still
don't even run a LAN hardwired or wireless. I'm guessing that default
setting to put the LAN as untrusted was more of a stand alone mindset. One
computer for one house. Block all your neighbors on the ISP sorta thing.
That's my guess anyway.

Scott

[Darren New]

Post by Scott Lindner
I think you're giving the general public too much credit. Most people still
don't even run a LAN hardwired or wireless. I'm guessing that default
setting to put the LAN as untrusted was more of a stand alone mindset.

It's called "default deny", and it's the right way to do security. :-)

[Scott Lindner]

Post by Darren New
It's called "default deny", and it's the right way to do security. :-)

I agree.

I really was trying to propose a theory to why the change in ZA default
settings. That's all.