Cable Nightmare Help

I've got this cable thing that I can't figure out bugging me to no end. It's got a long history, starting back 3 years ago when I got it. The company has changed hands 5 times in the 3 years I've had cable. The Flavor Of The Month currently is Comcast. Didn't matter when it was ATT, Millennium, Corecom or the rest, I can't seem to get it fixed or to the bottom of it so I can fix it.

Here's what happens. I'm surfing the web & the cable droops out. Light on the front of the modem goes out. At the same time, my TV, which is on cable gets fuzzy on the lower channels. I've got it down now to that point. It seems to be random, except you can almost predict that between 9 & 10 AM & noon to 1.30 PM, it'll go. The rest of the time, It can drop at it's own will.

Here's what's been done. I do get the cable TV people saying it's the broad band peoples fault & visa versa, they are 2 separate enties, swell. A new drop from the pole to the house has been done. A splitter in the basement has been replaced. That's about the size of it in 25 repair calls. They come out & put a meter on it & say it's fine, then leave. Within an hour of them going I'm down again.

Do I need a signal booster? If so, what kind do I need? Reason I ask this is because the tech.'s have said I have to much wiring in the house. When I built it I had cable put in every room & several places in the great room. I have a junction box in the basement that they all connect to. So I unhooked all of them except the 3 TV's & cable modem for the puter, that I use & want to use.

Can my cable modem be in compatible with, or going out, with Comcast? Reason I ask this one is, I had cable installed for a client. The installer brought in a Motorola. I said that I was running my own Toshiba that I had bought. He said that they refused to use them because they are just not very compatible with the Comcast equipment & advised me to replace it! WTF, is this total BS or could there be something to it?

Can I get a better splitter? A tech. about the 3 times ago said that I was building up a resistance in the splitter, that splits the signal between the broad band & TV & replaced it. He said that if you unscrew all the cables (3) that the charge dissipates & everything is ok again. There is something to this IMO. Here's how it goes:

Cable goes down, wait a minute see if it kicks back in. Works 25%, maybe.
If it didn't rehook, unscrew that cable from the back of the modem & reconnect it. Works 25%, maybe.
Go down in the basement & unscrew the 3 cables from the splitter, wait a minute or so, reconnect them. Works 35%, maybe.
Do the basement thing, come back up & unscrew the cable from the modem & reconnect it again. Works 10%, maybe.
Like yesterday, none of the above worked. Did them all, nothing TV with snow & lines all through it. Waited 6 hours & cable came back on by it's self, Go figure!!

So that's my nightmare with 24/7 cable!! Any ideas on how to pin it down as to what I really need to do, would be appreciated. Doesn't matter what puter I'm running, my cable is like a 56K shoot out, staying connected, IMO It's plenty fast when it's there,

Edit: Dam small letters again !! Can't figure that one either.

Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS! <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by RCPilot on 01/04/04 08:09 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

Hay Rc then do me a favor , call Asus and tell them to kiss my arse , as i all ready have and now there refusing to talk to me ha ha ha . I am haveing services for my P4 board around 5 pm , so have a minute of silence at that time please. Naw to heck with it , just have a beer . That should be satisfactory .

The man of steel said that

RC first of all its not reccommended to have anymore than 1 splitter between the drop line from the pole and your computer, my moms house was basically the same as yours she has about 6 different TV hookups in her home, with multiple splitters, each splitter has a certain amount of resistance, multiple splitters compounds the problem.

After awhile from corosion and condensation splitters can actually begin to go bad, especially if the cable wire contact points inside the splitter are aluminum based and not copper, over time aluminum based contacts will corode with electrical current passing through them, the higher the voltage the worse the corosion is, it takes a long time for the corosion to develope on cable lines because the voltage is low, but usually once the problems start it just gets worse from there.

Her problem was temporarily remedied when we got her down to only 1 splitter on the computers line, her problem was completely solved when a line crew came back to her home, and ran a dedicated line for her computer, and replaced all her splitters with new ones, now the cable company doesn't really like having to do that, but they will do it, to avoid loosing a customer.

I was having severe reception problems with my own cable service, and got really pissed off about paying for something I wasn't getting, I threatened to have them completely remove my cable service period, and they sent a trouble shooting team, and replaced every wire, splitter, and connection point in it, they also ran a dedicated line to my computer setup, which basically solved all the issues I was having.

I really don't think the brand of modem matters, basically if a modem is bad, once it goes down, it doesn't come back up. The cable service people always want to do as little as possible, and be on their way, you get pissed off and agravated enough, and they'll do everything they can to satisfy you.



<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=2541" target="_new">My Rig</A>

I don't have any actual cable experience, but from DSL and dialup I can tell you a few things.

The modem matters. If you have a crappy modem you'll get a lower bandwidth and for all I know you might have some of the problems you're experiencing. My friends had a crappy MSN modem and their bandwidth was a fourth of what it was supposed to be.

Filters burn out. I don't know if you have filters with cable, but with DSL they need to be replaced or you'll lose performance.

Do you live in an area that isn't heavily populated? If you do then odds are that the infrastructure isn't updated since the cable company and phone company won't put out the money.

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<font color=red>12 bit... The way games are meant to be played!</font color=red>

Mine were good. I'm trying to buy a nice 21" or 22" monitor (see the crt section), but it's a pain. Besides that I've just been working.

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<font color=red>12 bit... The way games are meant to be played!</font color=red>

Got the snow gods kicked in the ass tonight. Looking at 6 to 8 & she's starting to dump about this pitciular time, under a winter storm warning, IMO Looks like it could miss Crashman, it's not going to far north from the look of things.

I'm going to go out as soon as there's enough to ride in the wee hours. Why in the hell didn't this happen in the last 2 weeks? Now I got to deal with the people trying to go to work instead of sitting back & letting it blow over.



Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS!

I'll have to see about dedicating my line in the house to the computer. It's dedicated from the outside, I believe. Got a red band on it anyway & goes into the first splitter. I may be able to get the line direct to the computer & TV on it's own?



Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS!

Sorry about that!!

I live out in the picky weeds & pucker brush, cable is it for me, & they dam well know it IMO Bastages!!!



Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS!

One thought.
Have you tried video taping when the cable signal is weak and taping when the cable signal is normal so you can show the cable tech the problem when they come out to your home?


<font color=red><i>Doctor Hooter</i></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.page3.com/" target="_new"><b>(·Y·)</b></A>

?
Sounds like we have a failure to communicate!
I thought you had said when your Internet gets slow you can see interference on your tv at the same time.
Anyway I meant to video tape your cable tv reception/interference when your internet slows down. Then video tape your cable tv reception when your internet is at it's normal speed.
Show the tape to the cable tech when they come to your house for service. Sometimes they can identify the type of interference by the picture it makes on the tv.
When I lived in a different community my cable tv reception always had interference on three channels. They were 16, 17 and 18. It turned out to be a pager company's transciever antenna on the roof of my apartment building. The cable tech put some filters on my line which helped a little but it didn't fix the problem.

<font color=red><i>Doctor Hooter</i></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.page3.com/" target="_new"><b>(·Y·)</b></A>

Man, got enough of a dump so far, when my son gets over, we're dropping the sleds & going riding. Not the best yet, but it's snowing like no tomorrow right now, so who knows how good it will be before daylight. Getting the clothes, helmets & all the gear out now!!




Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS!

Ok zpyrd listen to me , pay attention . DON'T GET SAT. INTERNET . It's slow and goes off all the time . I know this cause i got it , the only reason i got it is because thats all i can get or ever will be able to get. You see i really live in the sticks , takes me half an hour to go to a mom and pop grocery store for a loaf of bread . When i asked about broadband or dsl they about choked laughing so hard. Sat. TV is fine , no problemo . Awwww heck you city boys just don't understand ha ha ha ha ha. Hay you getting snow also .

The man of steel said that

Yep RC you can thank me for that , i was suppost to be off all xmas week but , got called in the friday after xmas and been working night and day since then ( plant shut down till after New Years ). I just started a school job friday ( outside of course ) and the weather all changed . Was like 71 degrees fri. , gonna be 18 in morning and going down from there . Crap ola , so you see you can think me ha ha ha. When i was in the plant it was all good weather now i am outside well you can see the problem . Hope you fellers have a real good time ( at my expense of course ) . Ya i will have to say i have had no problems with my athlon sys. and nothing but with the P4 sys. , but i'll get it working right yet . Even if it cost all the money Wandas got . Thats what she says anyway ha ha ha . Sounds like Ryan got the answer to your problem also but , the heck with that you need to be ridin now ha ha ha . Spring is just around the corner donchaknow .

The man of steel said that

zpyrd you got a P4 , what board you got with it . O ya seen your post on Sp 94 heatsink , i just got one of them and works so good . Only had o few hours to work with it before my mother board went south on me though . Really liked it for that short time though .

The man of steel said that

OOH!!! a 21" or 22" monitor, I'd love to get one of those, that would be like watching a big screen TV, they're still pretty expensive though, so I've been trying to talk my wife into getting her one, then I'll acquire her 19" monitor and with my 19" and my ATI 9800Pro's Hydravision capabilities I'll be set. I've got a friend of mine running 4, 17" monitors, its really cool but his systems performance is cut way more than I want mine cut. Have you decided on a brand yet?

<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=2541" target="_new">My Rig</A>

Hey Man, got to get the sleds off the trailer, It's time to ride.

I'll get back with you when I'm done, about daylight or after I'd imagine!!! It's time to get it on IMO

I won't hurt myself tonight though, CYA,

Skinny



Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS!

Enjoy yourself Rc , have a great time . If any one gives you a LCD , i'll take it ha ha ha. Think i will go to bed myself .

The man of steel said that

Hi Mike, eventually they'll probably get the LCDs into the gaming realm performance zone, but not today, haven't posted much lately been reloading software, on WinXp and 98SE gone back to dual booting for gaming purposes cause Win98SE's gaming performance kicks WinXP's a$$, hands down any day, also encoding video is much faster with 98SE.

Whats the crack about the Chinese about?



<A HREF="http://forums.btvillarin.com/index.php?act=ST&f=41&t=2541" target="_new">My Rig</A>

IronMike, got some throttle time in, but sled was fouling a plug. It's kinda of humid out even though it's snowing. Had a bit of a rough time getting the sled running. Fouled a plug. It doesn't happen very often with EFI, but first of the year riding, it bit me. I put in a new set cleaned herself out. Got so many R's out of her, The belt hung on the clutch. So you can see in my yard where I tried to stop, but she was locked. I hit the throttle to miss my trees on the back of my lot line, but couldn't stop her, she had a full head of steam & I was a gettin it. I made it between the trees, but locked her down again to miss his garage. He won't be mad at me for the sod damage, I did tonight to both yards. They are over a acre long, but, I can hit 70 in the length of the yard. So I was carrying to full of head of steam into his yard. Woke me up really. I've got realize, I'm not up north here & can't get it on like we usually do.

In taking a beer brake & heading out in another hour or so, Son went home to drop off the Family & he's coming back to ride. Going back out about 2:30. Should be able to really play. Son said my sled was throwing sparks off the studs when I got it on. So we could use another 3 to 4 inches yet tonight.

Sleep tight, Ill let you know how it went tomorrow.

Nothing like a full throttle, premium gas & a heavy thumb on it to keep me awake. Adrenaline pumping!! I'll sleep in the morning when everyone else goes into work IMO

I'm happy to be able to kick the sleds ass again!!!





Dazzle them with Brilliance, or Baffle them with BS!

Only when he sings to me.

_________________________________________
<font color=red>12 bit... The way games are meant to be played!</font color=red>

I don't like telling what brand and model motherboard I have because it brings out the trolls.
It's an Intel D850EMVRL with a P4 3.06HT, 768MB of PC1066, Radeon 9700PRO and an Audigy MP3 soundcard.
The SP94 heatsink with 92mm fan has cut my full load temp by 10C. The highest the temp with the SP94 has been 50C. Idle temp averages 38C.
No snow here. There is some light snow predicted in the forecast. Temperature is -2C (28F).
Sorry can't help you with the job. If I found one like the one you wanted I would take it first.
Haven't been asked to install Chinese fonts either.

<font color=red><i>Doctor Hooter</i></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.page3.com/" target="_new"><b>(·Y·)</b></A>

Ryan , i am getting a install language pack for Chinese everytime i come to Toms , i thought everyone was . If you fellers are not getting it let me know ? Wusy is Asian , but don't like it . I was a kidding him , if he pops his head out of the hole and comes around here .

The man of steel said that

Ok so far you got , sparks flyin , sod bustin , plugs a fowlin , beer a drinkin fun going on there . Wish i was there to keep you straight but alas i will have to leave that to your son ha ha ha. I think he better keep a close eye on you ha ha ha , you de wild man all right. Looks like a trip north may be in the near future . Hay i would like to play in the snow and cold , just not work in it .

The man of steel said that

Jake please don't tell me the temp. where you are at , i might go into cardiac arrest.

The man of steel said that

Actually Mike, it's not that hard. Here are a few links:

1. <A HREF="http://texturizer.net/firebird/index.html" target="_new">Intall</A>

2. <A HREF="http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/" target="_new">Plug-ins FAQ/instructions</A>

Hope this helps.

Jake

<b> ...more people are driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol - W.C. Fields </b>