Hello all...

I have an old 3Com CMX modem that I wanted to upgrade. I went to
CompUSA and brought a new Surfboard SB5120 modem. I brought it home,
plugged it in and waited... and waited.. and waited....

The modem would never come online. The first three lights, Power, Send,
Receive were a steady green. The fourth light, the "Online" light, just
flashed... and flashed.... and flashed...

I called Optimum Online Customer Service who told me I had a defective
modem. They did, take my new Mac address, had me reset the modem, etc,
to no avail. They ran a signal test and came up with:

SNR: 34Db
Power Level Downstram: 4dbmV
Power Level Upstream: 50dbMV

I returned the modem and picked up a second one. Plugged it in, turned
it on, etc. Same problem. I went to the diagnostics page of the modem
and the signal was as follows:

Freq: 6030000000 Hz
SNR: 34db
QAM 256
Network Access Control Object: On
Power level: 4dbmv

for downstream.

For upstream:

Channel ID: 3
Freq: 25008000 Hz
Range Id: 5335
Symbol Rate: 2.560 Msym/s
Power level: 50dbmV

I went to the STATUS page on the diagnostics and saw that the modem was
hanging on the "Registering connection" step. It would hang there for
about 5 minutes and restart the process all over again.

Optimum Customer Support gave me the run-around. First, I was told it
was a bad signal, although the specs above seem to be ok. Also, my old
cable modem was working fine and after I plugged it back in, I was back
online with the old modem in 5 minutes flat. After the tech checked my
signal with the old modem, and said it was fine, he said the modem was
bad.

Can someone tell me what is going on here? I've had TWO SB5120 modems
that were supposedly bad, and quite honestly, I'm not buying it. I
suspect there was some sort of problem on Optimum's end, but I couldn't
get anyone who was willing to help. The answer to every question was
either "we need to send a tech out" or "your signal is bad".

I want to upgrade to the SB5120 so I can take advantage of higher
speeds. Am I out of luck? Is there that big a difference between the
SB5120 and the SBV5120? Optimum tech support told me both should work,
but that the SB5120 just didn't have the VoIP, which I'm not using
anyway.

Can someone help?

Thanks.

-Spo-

Your Tx levels are elevated: Power level: 50dbmV

This can be caused by a couple of things:

Split TV/HSI signals
Damaged Cables
Bad Signal from supplier

The key thing to have your ISP do is check your neighbors TX levels on the
same node...if all customers are high, then they have a plant issue


Hope this helps.

BDR

Why did you buy the SB5120 from CompUSA instead of getting a new one
with higher speed capability from optimum online? I am assuming that
you want to get the new 30mbps service. If you are only interested in
the free new 15mbps you probably wouldn't need a new modem--at least I
know that the MotorolaSB4100 get the 15mbps speed. Also, when you
hooked up the new modem did you get the OOL screens about having to
register your new modem and go through the steps for swapping the modem,
detecting the new modem's MAC # etc. ?

spomospathi@hotmail.com wrote:

Ken,

I never made it that far. Cablevision claims they couldn't see the new
modem hooked up to the line. When I put my old modem back on, they
found it immediately.

I don't get what the problem is.... maybe the modem has to be from
Cablevision?

Anyone else have any other suggestions?

-Spo-

Kenneth J. Harris wrote: