Cable internet connection problem

[Slickone]

Occasionally the Cable light on my cable modem flashes and I have no internet connection. Sometimes I will come back on it's own after maybe a few minutes, up to a couple hours, but often I can reboot and it's fixed. What causes this? It seems to come in spurts, happening every night for a couple nights in a row, and maybe some more a few days later, then not for a couple months. Anyone else ever had this problem? Is this just an ISP problem? I use Comcast, and Win XP Pro.

 

[yadda]

Line condition problems to your cable modem??? I would ask Comcast.

T

 

[Dru22]

I have Adelphia Cable internet and mine does this too. Alot of people run into this problem. Not sure what it is but when you turn your computer off or restart it, it resets the ip address, which makes it work again. Who knows whats going on, all i know is that its a pain in my ass!

 

[Googer]

Trust me, this is the one time when Anandtech forums won't help you as much as a friendly call to speak with comcast technician. He can do stuff that only comcast employees can do, like check transmit signal, recieve signal, node testing, modem diagnostics (remotely), and get you back up and running with out giving your self a headache.

http://www.comcastsupport.com/...user/userchatstart.asp

It could be your DHCP server releasing your Dynamic IP address and you modem/pc failing to renew. It that could possibly explain why it works after a reboot.

 

[conehead433]

I had a similar problem recently and my ISP provider was clueless as to why I would lose my Internet connection. I finally figured it out on my own. The BitTorrent client I was using had a problem with my Zone Alarm firewall. I uninstalled it, installed Sygate's firewall and have not had the problem since.

 

[Malak]

Some software can kill your internet. Realplayer killed my cable all the time, and when I figured out that it was realplayer I just uninstalled it. No more problems. Spyware can do it too.

Also, sometimes Comcast can go in and out because of upgrades. They upgrade the network all the time.

 

[Slickone]

Originally posted by: Googer
Trust me, this is the one time when Anandtech forums won't help you as much as a friendly call to speak with comcast technician. He can do stuff that only comcast employees can do, like check transmit signal, recieve signal, node testing, modem diagnostics (remotely), and get you back up and running with out giving your self a headache.

I must disagree. I've called Comcast so many times over the past few years about this and other loss of connection problems, and they never know what they problem is. They have you go through the same procedures every time, which never help and are just a waste of time. I'm always even more frustrated after speaking with them.

It could be your DHCP server releasing your Dynamic IP address and you modem/pc failing to renew. It that could possibly explain why it works after a reboot.

Why would that happen?


I have no spyware according to Adaware and Spybot S&D. No realplayer. Only firewall is XP Pro's.

 

[Malak]

Well Comcast will always tell you the same thing because there is only so much that can go wrong on their part, chances are it's something on your machine doing it. If rebooting the computer fixes it, I'm led to believe it's software on your computer that's killing it. Like I said, realplayer killed my modem, maybe something is killing yours. Just gotta start eliminating apps till you find the culprit.

 

[Slickone]

Sometimes it will fix itself if I just wait. Also sometimes I can unplug the modem power then plug it back in and the Cable light will flash slowly, then fast, then go solid, and I can't connect right away, but after a few seconds, I can. This has worked a couple times and not worked a couple times. That's all I've tried it. A couple times trying that, the Cable light went solid but I could never connect, then it went out again. But waited around for awhile, and it came back on on it's own, which seems like a connection problem to me. I do have ghosting on one channel on my TVs.

 

[Slickone]

My incoming coax cable connection runs to a coax two way splitter, with the other out going to a TV. The splitter is a cheap Gemini 5-900Mhz. Do I need a higher frequency splitter?

 

[corkyg]

About once a week I need to do a reset of everything. This is w/Comcast, BTW. That means pullthe plug on the cable modem and let it sit for a minute or so, and also do the same to my router. Then reconnect the cable modem and let it go through its complete cycle - and reconnect the router. This usually fixes it all. I learned this by calling Comcast and they kept walking me through it after they pinged me and got no connection indicated.

 

[Slickone]

When would a splitter above 900Mhz be needed? What frequency does cable internet use?

Maybe I just need a better quality splitter, and not really a higher freq. I seem to have determined that with the cable that went from the splitter to the modem wasn't good enough (it was very old - probably from the 80's, the ends weren't shiny anymore, and it was probably RG-59), so I replaced it with RG-6, and got better results for awhile, but still had problems later that wouldn't go away until I removed the splitter.