Cable modem trouble

Ok, here goes. My dad bought a cable modem a couple months ago because Comcast had a deal going on or whatever and decided to buy one instead of renting one from Comcast. Well, the modem has been decent, probably not the best, but it does its job.

Lately though, we've been having trouble with it. We'll be online surfing or playing games or whatever (we have a Linksys router and 3 pcs sharing the connection) going along just fine, and then we lose our connection. For about the past month or so (maybe not quite that long), I'll go look at the modem when this happens and either 1) the 'Data' light is solid on with no activity being shown on the wan port on the router or 2) the 'Data' light not flashing or blinking at all and there being activity on the wan port. The only way I've found to fix this is the power cycle the modem. Plug the power back in and it works great.

It doesn't do it all the time though, this week it went 2 or 3 days, no prob., but tonight, I had to cycle it 2 times in about 4 minutes. Anyone have an idea of what's going on? Bad modem or something else? Sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance!

Modem- Best Data CMX110
Linksys Router- BEFSR41 - firmware: 1.40.2

Had this exact same issue going....solved it yesterday by replacing the router with a new one. Yes, I was using the same Linksys as you too. Replaced it with another of the same and I'm flying again.....

[quote]Originally posted by Sowulo:
<strong>Had this exact same issue going....solved it yesterday by replacing the router with a new one. Yes, I was using the same Linksys as you too. Replaced it with another of the same and I'm flying again.....</strong><hr></blockquote>

Would the firmware of the router possibly be a problem? Did the ones you swapped out have the same firmware version? I've heard of several people with particular Linksys routers saying that a firmware update that was available, when installed caused problems and the solution was to install the previous version.

I updated the firmware on the one that went bad trying to fix it and that had no affect whatsoever. The new one worked fine out of the box and then I updated the firmware on that one because I like the newer setup options and it is still running great.....So no, the firmware version had nothing to do with the failure...

Anyone else have any suggestions or ideas of what could be wrong? I can see how the router could be the problem but I'm hoping that it isn't going out after only having it for a little over 3 months... :(

To me it still seems more logical that it's something with the modem itself. I would try another router but don't exactly have the money right now to get another just to test. Oh well. Thanks for your help Sowulo. I appreciate it. :)

No Prob. Mine was only a few months old as well...might have been a bad batch out of the factory....Good Luck.

I had the same problem, but with a dlink.It would only happen when playing games with more than one computer at the same time. The firmware update didn't work. Since the router had a built in firewall it would work for a while but then I would have to reset it 4 or 5 times a night. I just used ics and leave a 350mhz on all the time. It is the only way I can play with more than one computer at once. The router works great with 4 plus surfing the internet, but if you want to play games with more than one computer at the same time my router wouldn't work. It is probably the same way with your router. Hope it helps.

Well, here's an update. I think our modem is about to go. I tried hooking it up directly to my computer to test it and it never would connect, went and looked at the modem and it was doing what it has been doing.

So, I unplugged it as usual and plugged it back in. This time all of the LEDs came on and stayed on. If I waited a few minutes, the Cable and Data led would go off, but the test led would stay on. According to Best Data, the test led shouldnt' be staying on like that. I sent their support an e-mail and hopefully will hear back from them soon. Thanks again for everyone's help!

It is possible you have a signal level issue on your cable line.

I would have a tech come out and check the levels.

If the levels are low it will cause loss of sync and occasionally it will only be for a split second and the modem doesnt know it.

which is why the modem lights never give the indication that you have lost sync.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Mustang:
<strong>It is possible you have a signal level issue on your cable line.

I would have a tech come out and check the levels.

If the levels are low it will cause loss of sync and occasionally it will only be for a split second and the modem doesnt know it.

which is why the modem lights never give the indication that you have lost sync.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I guess that could have been part of the problem. After my last post though, the modem just completely went. All of the leds would come on (Power, PC, Cable, Data, and Test) and on the router there was no link light on the WAN side so it definately wasn't seeing the cable modem.

We called Best Data and they said that it was probably bad and gave us an RMA for it. So I guess we'll just got another modem that hopefully works.

Thanks everyone for your help!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Mustang:
<strong>It is possible you have a signal level issue on your cable line.

I would have a tech come out and check the levels.

which is why the modem lights never give the indication that you have lost sync.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ever since Comcast@Home became Comcast high-speed internet access (a few months ago) the connetion has been horrible. Slow, lost connections, much slower transfer speeds than when they went though @Home...

I've had it all checked out, and they say nothing is wrong. :mad:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Draggar:
<strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Mustang:
<strong>It is possible you have a signal level issue on your cable line.

I would have a tech come out and check the levels.

which is why the modem lights never give the indication that you have lost sync.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ever since Comcast@Home became Comcast high-speed internet access (a few months ago) the connetion has been horrible. Slow, lost connections, much slower transfer speeds than when they went though @Home...

I've had it all checked out, and they say nothing is wrong. :mad: </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, last night I was downloading several things from several different sites and the slowest one was coming in according to IE at about 128 kbps and the fastest was close to 400. But we have had trouble with e-mail and when they first moved over, there were several outages, but other than that, for us, Comcast has been pretty decent so far.

I agree with mustang. A lot of time it is noise on the line that cause those problems. What I would do is take disconnect all the cable connaction (for tv's) and see how it work. If it works, starting adding them back on, one by one. Sometimes it is a bad spliter, signal amplifier, cable box, tv, etc. Also sometimes the back on a couch or the spliter laying on the rug cause noise on the line. I live in an area that is heavily populated with cable modems, Noise on the line is the biggest problem with cable signals.

This is why I use SMC home routers...

maybe a little overkill, but when I got my cable internet service, I went out to the point of presence box on the outside of the house and ran a brand new cable just for the modem. I now have 2 cables running out of the box, one into a fourway splitter for the tv, and one through a low pass filter for the cable service. I can't tell any speed increase, but I have had the service for a ear and a half and it has never been out. Oh, by the way, I purchased a linksys router identical to yours and sowulo's, and it was shipped DOA. After a long rant I got not only the next step up router, a wireless linksys, but 3 wireless nics and a pc card nic. I emailed the guys back and told them they had my business for good. Place of purchase was <a href="http://www.tcwo.com" target="_blank">Thompson Computer Warehouse</a>

Well, we don't hvae cable tv service, so there is only one line coming out of the box outside, and that goes directly to the modem.

I just did a little experiment to see what would happen: I plugged the modem directly into my computer (not in the router) and was able to get online. It worked for about 10 minutes and then did the exact same thing - data light stopped flashing, I lost all internet connection. So it doesn't look like the router is involved in this problem, unless it's done something to the modem.

Hopefully we'll get it sent in and get a replacement and see if it acts any differently. If the replacement we get acts the same way (both on the router and bypassing the router), would everyone suggest trying to get Comcast to come out and test the line?

Thanks for everyone's help. I really appreciate it!

I would contact the isp as it stands right now.

It could very weell be a signal issue.

the techs have equipment that allows them to check everything out.

this will save you a tremendous amount of time.

We have determined and fixed the problem. Just to let everyone know that helped, the problem was that the modem was not compatible with Comcast. We found this out after talking to Best Data (who were very helpful and even replaced the modem with one that was compatible for FREE). They sent us a new modem (which came while we were out of the country on vacation) and we just now got it going and it's working great.

So thanks to everyone that helped and gave their input on this problem. Thanks!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by flyboy747:
<strong>We have determined and fixed the problem. Just to let everyone know that helped, the problem was that the modem was not compatible with Comcast. We found this out after talking to Best Data (who were very helpful and even replaced the modem with one that was compatible for FREE). They sent us a new modem (which came while we were out of the country on vacation) and we just now got it going and it's working great.

So thanks to everyone that helped and gave their input on this problem. Thanks!</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks for the follow up. I was not even aware modems had to be compatible.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Larommi:
<strong>Thanks for the follow up. I was not even aware modems had to be compatible.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm not sure if compatible is the right word or not, but somehow Comcast didn't approve it for use on their network and something else. It sounded like it was just a bunch of pointing the finger at the other guy from both companies.

At least it's working now and that's all I care about, well, that and we had a great first experience with Best Data support. They were very helpful, especially in replacing the modem for free.