Modem Resets - Bright House Central Florida

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Guest

Guest
Hello All,

I appreciate any help I can get, for I am at my last with this problem, and I've run out of options. I hate having to beg for help like this, and I try to save this as a last resort, but I have gone to the very last I can with this.

As stated with the header, I live in Central FLA, and have Bright House networks as my service provider. About 3-4 months ago, we started having random modem resets. Sometimes this will happen 1 - 2 times a day, sometimes 10 times a day. When it resets, it goes through a complete cycle, as if someone unplugged it and plugged it right back in. It reboots, internet comes back. It's quite, quite frustrating. There are 2 computer users in the house, my wife and I. There are 4 computers, 2 laptops and 2 desktops. I'm running Windows 7, she is running XP. We are currently using Road Runner Standard at 10down/1up. Now, let me list all of the things I have done in order to try to find a way to fix this problem.

1. I, of course, searched the internet looking for people whom have this problem. There are a couple, but nothing that is exactly like this.

2. I've contacted Bright House, they've sent 3 techs out to replace the modem twice and check the lines, all of which they've said had reasonable s/n ratios, power levels, etc.

3. I've replaced my router.

4. I've removed any splitters on the line.

5. Made sure the coaxial cable was in good shape physically.

6. Put in a new NIC on my computer.

7. Updated all drivers for the chipsets and LANS for both computers. Rolled-back a couple times too, when I changed hardware or something make sure they weren't the problem.

8. Tried cycling/reseting fully the modem and router on each occasion they were replaced, in the order of modem first, fully cycled, then router, then turning on computers.

9. Removed the power plug to the modem to the wall as opposed to a surge protector.

Now, I want to explain that these resets MOSTLY occur when I am playing World of Warcraft with my wife (I know, my wife and I play WoW, I'm sorry everyone hates WoW people, but it's a cheap pastime for us because we're not rich).

We both get online and do a raid with our friends on ventrilo, and that's USUALLY when the problem occurs. It has also occurred at other times, but not as often. There was actually a time when my modem reset while I was on the phone with Bright House and they asked me why I unplugged my modem. "THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" I replied.

Nothing else has a surge of power. We've moved it from different outlets, but nothing has changed.

I'm fried on this, guys. If there is anyone out there with ideas, please, please, PLEASE help me out.

Thank you for your help ahead of time guys.

 

derrickwmartin

Distinguished
May 11, 2010
65
0
18,630
Hello All,

I appreciate any help I can get, for I am at my last with this problem, and I've run out of options. I hate having to beg for help like this, and I try to save this as a last resort, but I have gone to the very last I can with this.

As stated with the header, I live in Central FLA, and have Bright House networks as my service provider. About 3-4 months ago, we started having random modem resets. Sometimes this will happen 1 - 2 times a day, sometimes 10 times a day. When it resets, it goes through a complete cycle, as if someone unplugged it and plugged it right back in. It reboots, internet comes back. It's quite, quite frustrating. There are 2 computer users in the house, my wife and I. There are 4 computers, 2 laptops and 2 desktops. I'm running Windows 7, she is running XP. We are currently using Road Runner Standard at 10down/1up. Now, let me list all of the things I have done in order to try to find a way to fix this problem.

1. I, of course, searched the internet looking for people whom have this problem. There are a couple, but nothing that is exactly like this.

2. I've contacted Bright House, they've sent 3 techs out to replace the modem twice and check the lines, all of which they've said had reasonable s/n ratios, power levels, etc.

3. I've replaced my router.

4. I've removed any splitters on the line.

5. Made sure the coaxial cable was in good shape physically.

6. Put in a new NIC on my computer.

7. Updated all drivers for the chipsets and LANS for both computers. Rolled-back a couple times too, when I changed hardware or something make sure they weren't the problem.

8. Tried cycling/reseting fully the modem and router on each occasion they were replaced, in the order of modem first, fully cycled, then router, then turning on computers.

9. Removed the power plug to the modem to the wall as opposed to a surge protector.

Now, I want to explain that these resets MOSTLY occur when I am playing World of Warcraft with my wife (I know, my wife and I play WoW, I'm sorry everyone hates WoW people, but it's a cheap pastime for us because we're not rich).

We both get online and do a raid with our friends on ventrilo, and that's USUALLY when the problem occurs. It has also occurred at other times, but not as often. There was actually a time when my modem reset while I was on the phone with Bright House and they asked me why I unplugged my modem. "THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" I replied.

Nothing else has a surge of power. We've moved it from different outlets, but nothing has changed.

I'm fried on this, guys. If there is anyone out there with ideas, please, please, PLEASE help me out.

Thank you for your help ahead of time guys.




It sounds like you need to call up BrightHouse and have them rebuild your boot file, or "configuration" file. Something somewhere along the line it got messed up or erased and i is causing itself to reboot every so often or when it reaches a certain upload limit it sounds like. The boot file is pretty much the quality of service offered by the cable modem, including the downstream and upstream rate caps. It is determined by a configuration file fetched by the cable modem from the ISP's network during the cable modem boot-up sequence. The configuration file also tells the cable modem if there are any firmware updates available for it. These files are invisible to the user: they never reach the PC.

I hope this helps, let me know if this works out for you.
 

Chuina

Honorable
Jan 4, 2013
1
0
10,510
I have the same exact problem with brighthouse, they always tell me it is on my end. I just received a brand new modem today and 10 minutes after the tech left it did it again. It happens when I patch or play Everquest II or Planetside 2 or really download any large file. I am going to call them about the config file and i'll update to see if it fixes it.
 

wacabletech

Honorable
Dec 15, 2012
219
0
10,760
Anon,

Several things can cause constant rebooting, noise on the cable lines from loose fittings, damaged cables are but one, thermal regression at a fitting is a more common one, as it can mot lock in a return carrier. De powering a house amp is yet another reason as no downstream passes through an unpowered active device. And then there are mismatching power supplies [love people who switch their router and cable modems], duplicate mac address has happened a few times in a few companies, suspected someone hacked a modem but never heard it can even be as simple as the modem got flagged for abuse.


Regardless of possible causes, lets try to find the probable ones.

192.168.100.1 this should be the modem stat page, can you see what its signal levels are and the error logs when its online if it has a period it stays online enough.

In the mean time, what you can do is make sure all fittings on all TV's, modems, and splitters are tight, do not try to break them but you do want them tight. Loose fitting = Upstream noise which equals loss of connection to cmts and thus a reboot. Most likely you have some bad cable/fitting that is being adversely affected by the cold weather [yeah yeah I know central Florida is not that cold, from that area myself, but its cold compared to the 90+ degree summer days]

If you can post the requested info here I will look it over, I work for Comcast near Seattle. Some stuff may not be the same from system to system but the DOCSIS standards are the DOCSIS standards, so we'll see what the modem shows us based off them.