@home sucks!!!!!!

bozack

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2000
7,913
12
81
Ok Here is my rant for the day since my cable modem was down all yesterday and this morning.

let me first say that I am a tier 2 technician for NASA HQ in DC, so I think I sorta know what I am doing when it comes to computer config..with that said here is my story.

The problem started yesterday morning when no machine on my network would connect to the internet (I have one dummy computer sharing the internet connection to two workstations, all run 98se), the only page I could pull was yahoo.com and I figured that it was cached I also couldn't ping anything either). So I checked the lights on the modem, they seemed fine, it is a com 23 modem and the first two lights and the last light were all lit up green, however whenever I tried to access a page the second to last light would blink (which indicates my computer sending its request) but the other light wouldn't (which usually indicates traffic on the cable modems side.)

I then went on to check Network preferences, read the IP config, blah blah blah, and everything was as it should be. So I Called Comcast/@home to see if they were having an outage.

Turns out they were having all sorts of problems, but the rep said there were no issues in my area and proceeded to tech support.

He said that he was able to ping my modem and stuff so the connection looks good on their end and they said I should restart and see if that works. Well needless to say it didn't and I called back at what time they sent me to tier 2 support.

So I was talking to the tier 2 guy who said they couldnt ping my machine at all, they said they could see my modem but not my computer. He had me

Release/remew IP
Static congfigure an IP
Change workgroup settings
and Reboot the machine (what is this their failsafe?)

None of that worked and his last option was to blow the TCP/IP stack and start new This after him telling me my in house network violated their TOS and I could either have my service revoked or I could be fined for running it, even though the tech that installed the cable modem had no problem with me having it and said it was infact allowed.

Well rather than dealing with re-configuring my hardware on that machine which I knew was good I asked if it would be easier to set up one of my workstations as the host and try that to save myself from the headache of redoing what I feel is a perfectly good stack. He said that was fine.

So to make a long story short I did everything on the other computer on this new machine and big surprise, it didn't work and his final conclusion was to try blowing this TCP/IP stack as well.

At this point I told him to forget about it, and then he asked wich nic I was using and if it was the @home certified NIC, I told him no they never offered it to me when they did the install and I probabily wouldn't have let them put it in anyway, at which time he told me he couldn't go any further with troubleshooting since I didn't have their NIC and he asked if I would like a technician to come out and install said nic so that I can have a guaranteed install, I told him to shove it and that there was no way I was letting one of their techs even get near my computer. I told him I would wait a day and see what happens and take it from there.

Well after hanging up with him I let the computer sit (the workstation I had reconfigured and was off the network) and after a few hours I was able to only ping yahoo.com and www.gwu.edu, as well as the fact that I can as of now connect to some telnet talker and converse with people online.

Now what do you guys think? Am I right in saying if it doesn't work on two computers that it was working on a few hours ago and no changes of made more than likely it is not the computers?

I am about ready to go to dsl, I bet it is something on their end and they don't want to refund me for the day or something. Any opinions would be appreciated thanks
 

Raspewtin

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 1999
3,634
0
0
@home definitely sucks. Their service is so bad it isn't even funny. I had a horrendous experience with them every time I've talked with them, and had to eventually threaten to sue to get the help I needed (and a worthless corporate apology).
 

nateholtrop

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2000
5,349
0
0
I will forward this to one of my friends an @home tech and see what he says bout it... I personally like my @home...i have it through at&t..you said comcast but whatever.

Nate
 

MustangSVT

Lifer
Oct 7, 2000
11,554
12
81
bozak u are scaring me. now it seems that we have same isp too?! same machine, same video card, same os and same taste in cars?! who are u!!!:confused:
 

Adul

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
32,999
44
91
danny.tangtam.com
@home service varies from place to place. did you happen to try reseting the modem? I have had to, on occasion, unplugged modem for a little while and replug it back in. That usually cleared things up. And if that didn't do it then L call and complain.
 

bozack

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2000
7,913
12
81
yeah I reset the modem like 8 times and it still didn't do anything, those com 23 modems blow anyway, why they are not on the 3com units is beyond me but oh well.

Hey mustangsvt, kinda odd huh, if your using a BH6 then that will be even scarier, but I have a sblive x gamer so we are a little different, well that and I am getting a 700 celeron
 

Futuramatic

Banned
Oct 9, 1999
728
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They do not use 3com because they are more expensive (I think).

I have Comcast@home with same modem. I have NEVER had a connection problem that wasn't solved by a reset of hte modem (not that this is your problem), but email has been shoddy for the last 3 months... takes 5 minutes for htem to tell me I have no mail.

Perhaps just heavy traffic? Hell I dunno, I am an accountant :)
 

Cable God

Diamond Member
Jun 25, 2000
3,251
0
71
I feel your pain man. I have AT&T @home. Late evenings, my pings run around 300-500ms to the sorry piece of junk @home mail server or anything outside the router in the local office. I notice major packet loss and slow speeds when I go thru hop #4 which is thr birmingham,Alabama office. Major problems. If DSl was everywhere, @Home would be outta business I think. Look at their stock prices too, not too impressive....... (ticker is ATHM)
 

KidViciou$

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
4,998
0
0
i have comcast @home, and although they do have outages, im pleased with their customer service. except for how long it takes to get someone to come and fix it. thats why i have a friend who is a field tech for them :p
 

bozack

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2000
7,913
12
81
ehh I kind of want to get out of OCing and the 700 is a nice cpu for what I do, plus with a coupon it is cheaper.

damn you have everything the same as me, you dont by chance live in VA or MA do you? I am in VA now but lived in MA
 

Deslok

Senior member
Oct 9, 1999
507
0
0
What I love about @ss home is that twice in the last three months they have made "upgrades to the network".
well, what this upgrade involves is changing you ip address.
of course- I specified my IP address so nothing worked.
Oh - why did I do this?
Because several months ago I was hacked while online and could not get through to tier 3,4,5 whatever for almost three hours. When I finally got through- their only advice was to disconnect and they assigned me a new ip address out of my normal range.
I mean an email would have been nice.

and the mail service sucks- up to 3 day delay in receiving mail.
I can't tell you how many deals I missed because of this.
If DSL were available to me, I'd get it in a second ( too far from the telco)
 

Pepsi90919

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
25,162
1
81
I have a COM21 modem, never heard of COM23...

Might be an issue with your NIC, how about saying which lights are on instead of saying "the first, second and one at the end are on"? :)
 

Looney

Lifer
Jun 13, 2000
21,941
5
0
The fools at @home tech support are a joke... i really wonder what kind of education they have. I've called them when the service was down (modem wasn't connected), and they were asking me what kind of OS i was using. I told them Win2k, and they said they couldn't help me because they didn't support Win2k. I told them that it has NOTHING to do with the OS... that i could physically see by the lights on my modem that it wasn't connected. I asked them to try pinging me and seeing for themself.

I've had lots of bad experiences with @home, but overall in the past 4 years, it's definitely been worth it.. i wouldn't go back to dialup or even DSL, which i know quite a few people have, and it's not all that great either... infact, they probably have more problems than me.

If it's down for more than a day, or goes down 3 or more times each month (make sure you call and official complain each time), demand that month to be free. I've done it a few times already, and have been granted it.
 

Spindler

Senior member
Oct 3, 2000
381
0
0
deslok might be onto something here about the NIC. i'm no techno guru by any means but maybe my experience might help out here.

i had a cheap $20 linksys 10mb NIC that would work fine, but on occasion, would not let me onto certain sites , like the gaming zone at microsoft network or to espn.net the funny thing is, it seems like it does this randomly, i would be able to get onto the aforementioned sites one day, then not, the next day.

the @home tech support folks try hard, and are friendly, but seem pretty clueless about whats going on. i must've spent close to a total of 5 hours on the phn trying to clear this up w/ them. after getting nowhere, i logged onto the microsoft gaming zone tech support site as a last resort and they mentioned that it was my nic card that was not caching the site info properly. it would not reset itself, so whenever the page info was updated, i was unable to download the new page til it had cleared out its cache. i thot this caching was done on the browser level, but the microsoft guy sys also on the nic level or some effect to that. i didnt really understand. i decided to just give it a shot anyway and purchased a $60 3com 10/100baseT NIC, popped it in, and... voila, problem fixed!! havent had the same problem ever again.

guess it was the NIC after all.
 

szymcom

Member
Apr 25, 2000
165
0
0
Comcast@home sucks. They'll tell you everything violates their TOS. Their mail servers suck, and they have outages in my area all the time. If you need to talk with someone at tech support that knows anything, you have to ask for level 2 tech support.

Szymon
 

Futuramatic

Banned
Oct 9, 1999
728
0
0
You knwo the email problem I mentioned earlier? Yep, the SOB's got email all fvcked up again. I am on the phone with the butt pirates now. My guess is that this bitch I am talking to doesn't know a sneeze from a wet fart!

Their automated menus were fvcked up too... but when I tell the tech that, the dumb bitch (probably blonde) tells me "oh we have NEVER had menus." Makes me think that this is where the workforce development office in that area dumps the "special people."

UPDATE: The bitch I jsut talked to asked me if I was using Internet Explorer or Netscape for my mail program.
 

Deslok

Senior member
Oct 9, 1999
507
0
0
Spindler,
At first I had a "less than adequate-since s****y is not allowed" AT 2000 compatible or whatever is is they install ( or try to ).
A while back I switched to an "extra" intel pro 100 from work. I have not noticed any difference.
My personal opinion is their backbone sucks big time.
 

GoofusMaximus

Member
May 22, 2000
31
0
0
My AT&T@home connection has been flaky for several weeks, with the 5th hop in tracert occasionally becoming incommunicado for periods of 10 seconds to an hour or more, and the latency climbs to 28.8 modem levels in the evening (though they're finally starting to get a handle on that). I've talked to support by e-mail and sent my log of the tracert's I did when the service went down, and they've "escalated" the issue and gave me a work number.

To top it all off, the AT&T billing dept. has messed up our account, claiming we owe last month's payment when the payment was made, and we have the credit card bill to prove it!

At this point, I think I deserve a free month, at least! No DSL in this area, unfortunately, and cable's better than analog at least.