Greetings everyone,

Ill try to keep this short and sweet. I have Charter as my cable ISP.
I have a Motorola SB5120 cable modem. I have had this setup for almost
2 years without any problems at all. Recently (about a month ago) I
began losing my internet connection during heavy downloading and then
about 5 minutes after that it would come right back (don't need to
restart the modem or anything just pops back on). I download from
newsgroups so this was when i first noticed this. After about 5
minutes of heavy downloading my connection would completely disappear,
downloads would stop and i could not get anywhere on the internet. The
strange thing was all the lights on my modem were still lit up.
I figured this must be a problem with my router so i replaced that.
Same thing happened. I figured well maybe my network card was bad,
still same thing. At this point i tried everything. I setup a new
account with a different Usenet server same thing, tried downloading
directly from a website with large files, same thing. Tried a laptop
on my network same problem so now im completely confused and ready to
give up and just live with it.
I decide what the hell i guess i could talk to Charter's tech support.
I was transfered to someone who i could tell immediately could not
speak English to well (not trying to knock the guy Ive come to expect
that now, and he works a lot harder than i do to earn a living so i
respect that). I tried explaining my situation to him and didn't get
very far so he transfered me to on of the head techs. We talked for
about 20 minutes while i my connection crashed and came back up and he
could see i was losing my connection but had no answers. He said he
opened a trouble ticket and that they would be working on it and have
it back up. Well that was 2 weeks ago and I haven't heard anything. I
have looked all over to find some similar issues and cant find
anything. I am hoping one of you out there will be my savior. If you
have any suggestions on what i can do to fix this i would realllly
appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

Ladlenits wrote:
I've a hunch that you'll see something interesting in your modem logs:
http://192.168.100.1/logs.htm

and your signal levels may tell us something:
http://192.168.100.1/signal.htm

Bob

On Apr 26, 12:48 pm, Robert Heiling <robh...@comcast.net> wrote:
Thanks for the help Bob.

I checked the logs and here are the problems that seem to show up:

2007-04-23 19:25:29 5-Warning D03.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field
invalid in response
2007-04-23 19:25:29 5-Warning DHCP: Renew: Missing Syslog server
2007-04-20 07:25:29 5-Warning D03.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field
invalid in response
2007-04-20 07:25:29 5-Warning DHCP: Renew: Missing Syslog server
2007-04-16 19:25:29 5-Warning D03.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field
invalid in response
2007-04-16 19:25:29 5-Warning DHCP: Renew: Missing Syslog server
2007-04-13 07:25:29 5-Warning D03.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field
invalid in response
2007-04-13 07:25:29 5-Warning DHCP: Renew: Missing Syslog server
2007-04-09 19:25:29 5-Warning D03.0 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field
invalid in response
2007-04-09 19:25:29 5-Warning DHCP: Renew: Missing Syslog server
Here is my signal status:

Downstream
Value
Frequency 643750000 Hz
Signal to Noise Ratio 37 dB
QAM QAM256
Network Access Control Object ON
Power Level 9 dBmV The Downstream
Power Level reading is a snapshot taken at the time this page was
requested. Please Reload/Refresh this Page for a new reading

Upstream
Value
Channel ID 2
Frequency 31392000 Hz
Ranging Service ID 27
Symbol Rate 2.560 Msym/s
Power Level 37 dBmV

I'm glad this might mean something to you because it is greek to
me . Thanks again Bob.

On 26 Apr 2007 20:04:39 -0700, Ladlenits wrote:
They indicate levels about what your modems is hearing and talking to
the headend and how good/noisy the signal.

Signal to noise is indication of quality of the signal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio

Downstream is level that modem receiving (hearing) the signal.
Upstream is level modem is sending (talking) to headend.

It looks like your headhend is SCREAMING at you
and you are talking at a normal level to the headhend.

Values from my setup.

Motorola Surboard SB5120 QAM 256 (Working range, my norm)
Down Power -4 dBmV (-10 to +10 dBmV, -1 dBmV)
SNR 37 dB (higher than 33 dB, 37 dB)
Up Power 43 dBmV (30 to 55 dBmV, 44 dBmV)

"Ladlenits" <erik@4qc.com> wrote in message
news:1177615633.137013.145430@u32g2000prd.googlegr oups.com...
I had a similar problem, losing connectivity. Mine was not related to large
downloads though. I was convinced that the problem was between the ISP's
distribution point and my connection at the pole. We would experience
intermittent dropouts throughout the day. I used a program called Link
Monitor, available for free from http://dracuul.tripod.com/ What I did was
ping yahoo.com every 15 sec. and kept a log of the results. I took it over
to my neighbors house, we share a distribution box at the pole, and ran the
program. It helped me prove that the problem was from the pole to my
computer. The ISP's service people were never able to see the problem
because it was so intermittent. I went thru 3 cable boxes. The final fix
was for them to replace every connector and device in the distribution box
where the cable entered my house. It had a feed thru and a 1 to 3 splitter.
Good luck, I know how frustrating it is.

Ladlenits wrote:
I had been expecting to see the remnants of one of those re-boots in the modem
log and the log contents are not consistent with the problem you're describing.
Since I would expect that you would be reporting all this fairly close after one
of the events, I don't expect to see a two week old entry in the log.

My preliminary conclusion is that your modem connection is working just fine,
that's one reason your lights remain normal and these "disconnects" have nothing
to do with your modem connection.

Charter must have some more serious problems or the newsgroup service you use
might be the problem.

Bob

On Apr 27, 7:20 am, Robert Heiling <robh...@comcast.net> wrote:
Thanks for all the feedback, I really appreciate the help. Just for
peace of mind I ordered a new modem yesterday and it should be in
today. One thing I noticed is that if i throttle the speed down to
about 1MBs in my newsgroup software it runs perfect right at 1MBs
without any problems. When i take the speed limiter off my download
speed fluctuates between 100k and a little over 1MBs and will then
drop completely as described in my original post. I have 10Mbs
download speed and its been a while since its been working right but i
think i recall getting near 2MBs download speeds.
I have tried using 3 diffrent usenet service providers and I get the
same problem with all(charter limits my connection speed through their
NNTP servers.) I have an easynews.com account and they have a web
interface to browse their binaries and i get the same issues with that
also.
I live in a Condo complex with about 100 units and im not sure how the
cable company drops their cable to my unit but from what im hearing
above it sounds like that might be the problem. Either that or this is
Karma coming back to get me . I will check out the things you guys
mentioned above and hopefully get some answers from charter. Ill let
you know what i come up with. Thanks again everyone.

Ladlenits wrote:
Your terminology is a bit confusing because you are saying 1 MBs (1 MegaBytes
per second), but the context is of 1 Mbs (1 Megabits per second.

If your download cap speed at Charter is 10 Mbs, then 1 Mbs is pretty bad

It should be up close to 10 Mega bits per second. There is a problem with
Charter.

If you're paying for 10, then you should be getting 10.

Charter is the obviously the problem.

Good luck.

On Apr 27, 9:16 am, Robert Heiling <robh...@comcast.net> wrote:
I was using my download speed as it is represented when i download.
When downloading from my newsgroup browser it lists it in Mega Bytes/
s . My download speed from charter is 10 Mega Bits/s so my download
speed in my newsgroup software is roughly at 8Mb/s peak (although if
my speed limiter is off it rarely touches that speed). Looking back i
guess saying i WAS getting 2 MB/s was a little over what i could
possibly get with a 10Mb/s download from charter. I know it was more
than the 1MB/s max im getting now though. Im gonna stop talking now
because I am beginning to confuse myself .

For the most part I was using either parts I already had or parts I
wanted but needed an excuse to feel good about buying them. This in my
mind justified that urge. As far as this modem my girlfriend is
leasing hers and i found a good deal on the D-Link DCM 202 so i told
her she could have my Motorola and save some bucks. Thanks for the
pinging tips, that all makes sense and I wish I had talked to you a
couple months ago about this. After this i guess I better post "How
to resist impulse buying" on the psychology groups .