Hi there,
Problem with my Internet cable service is a little confusing. Here's the setup:
Service Electric cable Internet in the Lehigh Valley, PA, 7 megabits down and 2 up (not great, I know, but that's not the problem). Cable modem is a Surfboard 5101. Connected to an SMC SWCWGRB14-N 'Barricade' wireless N router:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-184-_-Product
Every so often, as frequently as once an hour and as rare as once every 48 hours, all the clients will just lose the WAN link, but in doing so, also (somehow) screw up the connection between the clients and the SMC router. Win7 clients report 'connected without internet access' when this happens, but all the cable modem lights remain on and the client can't even connect to the wireless router.
I would've thought this was simply a bad router, but I swapped it out with a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 and have exactly the same problem. When the link is up and running, I get 2-5% packet loss pinging www.wsj.com over 6000 pings.
SECV cable guy came out to test the line, which is in a new construction (first occupant of a just-finished apartment in a building about 1.5 years old). Verified that the signal was fine but got the same rate of packet loss due to an over-subscribed 'head end' in our area.
I understand a congested node, but it seems to me that that should just be causing a slow-down rather than actual packet loss; and even then, why would a low (but consistent) rate of packet loss interfere with a connection between the clients and and the wireless router? The logs in the wireless router are full of things like this:
[INFO] Thu May 13 16:50:49 2010 Blocked incoming TCP packet from 83.170.92.31:45446 to 70.15.x.x (cable modem IP):21 as PSH:ACK received but there is no active connection
The cable company is the only one in the area (3 megabit Verizon DSL is the only alternative) and they want to work with me to solve it, though I haven't barked far enough up the tree yet to figure out when they'll be upgrading the equipment at the local head-end; if I had a clear understanding of what was happening such that I could claim righteous indignation that 'things are that bad' then it would certainly help.
In the meantime, I've ordered an SB6120 Docsis3 modem from Newegg on the off chance that the problem is in the modem they've given me. The only other thing I can think of to do is to buy a dual-WAN router and pick up Verizon DSL as backup, but that isn't really a solution. What else can be done? What would YOU do?
Thanks so much,
S
Problem with my Internet cable service is a little confusing. Here's the setup:
Service Electric cable Internet in the Lehigh Valley, PA, 7 megabits down and 2 up (not great, I know, but that's not the problem). Cable modem is a Surfboard 5101. Connected to an SMC SWCWGRB14-N 'Barricade' wireless N router:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-184-_-Product
Every so often, as frequently as once an hour and as rare as once every 48 hours, all the clients will just lose the WAN link, but in doing so, also (somehow) screw up the connection between the clients and the SMC router. Win7 clients report 'connected without internet access' when this happens, but all the cable modem lights remain on and the client can't even connect to the wireless router.
I would've thought this was simply a bad router, but I swapped it out with a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 and have exactly the same problem. When the link is up and running, I get 2-5% packet loss pinging www.wsj.com over 6000 pings.
SECV cable guy came out to test the line, which is in a new construction (first occupant of a just-finished apartment in a building about 1.5 years old). Verified that the signal was fine but got the same rate of packet loss due to an over-subscribed 'head end' in our area.
I understand a congested node, but it seems to me that that should just be causing a slow-down rather than actual packet loss; and even then, why would a low (but consistent) rate of packet loss interfere with a connection between the clients and and the wireless router? The logs in the wireless router are full of things like this:
[INFO] Thu May 13 16:50:49 2010 Blocked incoming TCP packet from 83.170.92.31:45446 to 70.15.x.x (cable modem IP):21 as PSH:ACK received but there is no active connection
The cable company is the only one in the area (3 megabit Verizon DSL is the only alternative) and they want to work with me to solve it, though I haven't barked far enough up the tree yet to figure out when they'll be upgrading the equipment at the local head-end; if I had a clear understanding of what was happening such that I could claim righteous indignation that 'things are that bad' then it would certainly help.
In the meantime, I've ordered an SB6120 Docsis3 modem from Newegg on the off chance that the problem is in the modem they've given me. The only other thing I can think of to do is to buy a dual-WAN router and pick up Verizon DSL as backup, but that isn't really a solution. What else can be done? What would YOU do?
Thanks so much,
S