comcast cable modem drops anywhere from 3 to 5 times a day, power cycle required

[dalearyous]

basically, i am forced to use comcast. when its working, the internet works great and i can't complain. however, sometimes i can go couple days without any drops. other times it will drop 3-5 times a day sometimes twice within an hour. so i swapped out the modem to a new motorola SB5101 and i still have the same problem. i logged into the modem doing the typical 192.168.100.1 and pulled up the logs and this is what i get (note: the error coincides with time internet drops):

Code Description
E107.0 SW upgrade Failed after download - Incompatible SW file
E102.0 SW Download INIT - Via Config file d11_m_sb5100_silver_c01.cm
R002.0 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
E102.0 SW Download INIT - Via Config file d11_m_sb5100_silver_c01.cm
E107.0 SW upgrade Failed after download - Incompatible SW file

and it just repeats with E102 and E107 error with dates and time matching to my problems. does ANYONE know how to fix this? i would call comcast but i have a feeling the guy would be like what log? now fixing the problem is simple, i just powercycle everything and it starts working again. please help me im being tortured.

 

[mxnerd]

See if this helps

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,14865938

And do you have very old cabling for TV & Comcast cable around the house? I used to have Charter and like you, good for several days, and then dropouts occured more and more. After endless calls they finally came to my house and replaced the aging cable, since then, everything is fine.

Ask Comcast engineers do remote diagnostics see if the signal is good.

And I wonder if you are running P2P file sharing programs. P2P programs can also cause router or modem reboot themselves if it has too many connections at the same time.

 

[dalearyous]

the problem though is i was having the same issue with my 5100 modem. no im not running any p2p files. ive been keeping everything very basic until i can figure out what is wrong.

 

[Kelemvor]

Have they come out to do diagnostics and check the signal strength?

 

[mxnerd]

It still could be the cable. The cable from Comcast could be good. However, the cables around the house probably needs replacement, and you have to have filters on each TV set you have.

 

[Kelemvor]

Eh? Filters on TVs? Is that a Comcast thing? I've never needed any filters with Time Warner. All my TVs work just fine.

 

[mxnerd]

Yes, Charter Highspeed Internet used to needs filters on each TV set, just like DSL. I'm using DSL now, so I don't know if technology has advanced so you don't need filter anymore. Or maybe Comcast does not need filters at all. I have no experience with Comcast at all.

Each company use a little different technology, I think.

 

[dalearyous]

ok, this may just be a coincidence, but it seems to last the longest on the weekends. i dunno. i finally got a hold of a friend of mine who had the same problem. he said it went on for about two months then one day he checked the log and the firmware update went through and he never had problems again. but his error logs were just like mine. so i dunno what to think now. maybe get linksys modem?

 

[mxnerd]

Did you tell Comcast what MAC address your new modem has? My past experience with Charter is if you got a new modem but didn't tell them what MAC address your new modem has, it sometimes work, sometimes it doesn't.

From the messages themselves, it looks like Comcast is pushing out mandatory firmware update to the modems but it fails on your unit.

So, call Comcast and ask if they keep a record of your modem MAC address, if yes, give them the new one.

 

[mxnerd]

And I found this.

http://www.dslreports.com/foru...Normal-Logs-Activities

could it be Comcast is expecting 5100 but yours is 5101?