broncobullfrog
Extra Tender Juicy SPINY
+58|6722|The 70's
i just switched to a Cable connection, and am very happy with my download speeds, but my pings have gone through the roof. This applys in BF2 (Irecieved my first ever kick for ping yesterday and have had loads of glitches etc), but is a more general problem. Every test I have run, DanElwell, Speedtest.net etc is showing very high pings and packet-loss.
I contacted my ISP support (Blueyonder, which is NTL/Telewest), and today recieved a reply. They say that my Modem Power Levels are too low. Ive never heard this explanation before, and wonder if anyone can explain, or has had similar experience. Although they have arranged an engineer visit to 'fix' the problem, I'd like to be a bit more informed about this  so I can judge if they are dealing with my fault adequatly.
Im still in the trial period, so I need to decide quickly whether to stay with this ISP.

So like I say, anyone had Modem Power Level problems?
slo5oh
Member
+28|6632
Modem power levels, when it comes to a HSI Cable connection, can be explained simply as volume level.  Usually the modems figure it out on their own by leveling up or down based on the volume or "power" level of the incoming signal.  if it's too weak your modem will gain up causing the other end to notice the difference and do the same. 
Only reason I know about it is because comcast (or was it At&T at the time?) gave me a new model modem when I first singed up for HSI.  The new modem worked perfect for a week or 2, then stopped working.  They sent 1 tech out that was an idiot.  The 2nd tech was the manager for the area.  He explained to me that they had replaced the equipment on their end and it was not working with any of the "new" modems.  He said he was only at my house to document the exact problem so he could take it to his higher ups and have the internal stuff changed (setup correctly).  2 days later all was well.
Agent_Dung_Bomb
Member
+302|6707|Salt Lake City

Your signal send/receive strength must be within certain limits.  I had a problem with my Comcast account and a technician came out a put a 7 Ohm resistor on the line to change the up/down signal strength.  Unfortunately, I had to have them come out again a short time ago, because whatever was causing me to need the filter had been rectified and was causing my service to disconnect.  They came out and removed the filter, and all was well again.

Chances are that is exactly what they will do for your connection.
broncobullfrog
Extra Tender Juicy SPINY
+58|6722|The 70's
Agent, so did your line work OK with the resistor on? (before they rectified the cause for needing it) Were your speeds etc acceptable then? I think you are right that they will look to look to solve the problem at my end rather than theirs, so did that work well enough for you.
Agent_Dung_Bomb
Member
+302|6707|Salt Lake City

broncobullfrog wrote:

Agent, so did your line work OK with the resistor on? (before they rectified the cause for needing it) Were your speeds etc acceptable then? I think you are right that they will look to look to solve the problem at my end rather than theirs, so did that work well enough for you.
Yes, it worked great after that.  They have a tool that they connect to your coax cable and take a measurement. From there they can determine what they need to do to rectify it.  More often than not it is something simple like I explained in my previous post.  The absolute worst case scenario is that there is a problem with the line running between their box and your house, or possibly a problem at the box itself.  That may require more work from a line crew to fix.
broncobullfrog
Extra Tender Juicy SPINY
+58|6722|The 70's
Cheers guys, you've given me what I needed to know, +1 to both.
broncobullfrog
Extra Tender Juicy SPINY
+58|6722|The 70's
WooHoo, they fixed, just the way you said..

Before...https://www.speedtest.net/result/52962146.png


After...https://www.speedtest.net/result/53295074.png
slo5oh
Member
+28|6632

broncobullfrog wrote:

WooHoo, they fixed, just the way you said..
Beautiful numbers!

2 things I've figured out through my Dr. Watson ways...
#1 when the cable guy came out to do the inital setup he cut the ends off all lines and put new ends on.  He also replaced any splitters with new ones.  At my folks house after my father tinkered with one of the cable splits his internet stopped working.  He called the cable guys and they came out, looked for 2 seconds, and said he needed a new line pulled for somewhere around $100.  I told him not to do it and I went buy after work.  Turns out the cable split he tinkered with that neither of us thought was between the the main feed and the cable modem was indeed in the path.  So I did the same thing the initial guy did... cut off about 2" of cable and put new ends on.  The HSI came right up.
#2 is more about signal quality and I found out about this because of my fox news channel that always showed waves running down it (simliar to looking at a computer monitor through a TV screen).  I thought maybe I had split the signal too many times, having a 5 way splitter at the main line into the house.  I tried swapping it out for a good 3 way, but that didn't help.  I swapped out the cable between the wall and the cable box with 2 or 3 others, but they all did the same thing.  That's when I read about RG6 cable.  Not having any idea about this before now, I ordered a couple RG6 cables from my super cheap cable source (monoprice.com) and sure enough... the problem went away.  I replaced the cable on both my TVs and now the picture is perfect on both.  I even went and put my 5 way splitter back on the main line.
I'm not sure if the RG6 will help with HSI too, but it sure can't hurt. 

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