Observer

Please remove the Motorola Surfboard 6141 from your list of compatible modems for TW Cincinnati!

Several months ago, I purchased the white SB6141 as a replacement for the Toshiba cable modem I was renting from TW Cincinnati.  I cannot stress enough how HUGE of a mistake this was.  I have had technicians out to my home and they assured me the signal was fine on TW's end.  The modem loses signal and resets itself literally dozens of times a day.  Online gaming and streaming movies are not remotely possible with this Motorola/Time Warner combination.  Buying the newest and shiniest technology backfired on me this time.

 

Forums are littered with complaints about this particular modem and Time Warner's service.  Read all the one- and two-star reviews for this on Amazon and you will see how incompatible this modem is with your RoadRunner service.  Unfortunate buyers like myself who only read the glowing five-star reviews are stuck with a white paperweight with pretty blinking green and blue lights (and if you're lucky, a blinking orange light that doesn't seem to stick around for very long).  Please don't let others make the same $75 mistake I did.  Please remove this modem from your list of compatible user-purchased modems immediately, or fix the problem for those poor souls who bought it and just want their otherwise reliable cable Internet service to work as advertised!

 

One of the one-star Amazon reviews recommends the Zoom 5341 or 5341J modem for Time Warner customers who have had a negative experience with the SB6141.  Upon reading the numerous positive reviews on the Zoom, there are many others who also experienced dropped signal and modem resets with the SB6141, only to find no such issues with their new Zoom.

 

I, however, won't be upgrading to a Zoom modem and wasting more money.  After having technicians to my home many times over the years to deal with freezing HD channels, pixellated television broadcasts, dropped cable modem signals, and other Time Warner-related headaches, I have had enough.  Past service calls have seen equipment replaced, powered boosters installed, new wire run from the pole to my house, new ends and tips put on all the ends of the cable going into my TVs and cable modem, and a constant "thumbs up, everything's okay!" report from your technicians before they leave, I still find myself paying a ridiculous amount of money every month for a subpar service.  After 13+ years of calling myself a Time Warner customer and watching my bill exponentially rise on what seems like a monthly basis, I am literally and figuratively pulling the plug on Tuesday and taking a chance on Cincinnati Bell FiOptics.  I pray to the gods of cable TV that Cincinnati Bell has their act together and I don't have to come back.

 

I don't expect a response from a huge multi-billion dollar corporation, as I am only one disgruntled customer out of millions...but then again this is the Electronic Age and one unhappy person with an albeit intermittent Internet connection can still be heard by billions of other people nowadays with just a press of a keyboard button.  I just truly hope the powers-that-be decide to remove the Motorola SB 6141 cable modem from its list of compatible modems, as the inability to keep a solid Internet connection for any reasonable length of time was the last straw that caused me to pick up the phone and dial FiOptics. 

11 REPLIES
Expert

Re: Please remove the Motorola Surfboard 6141 from your list of compatible modems for TW Cincinnati!

Go to 192.168.100.1 and copy and paste the signal page here.

Then copy and paste the firmware version and the last couple error messages.

I can possibly tell better what the issues are than the phone non support

 

Observer

Re: Please remove the Motorola Surfboard 6141 from your list of compatible modems for TW Cincinnati!

I truly understand. I am about to follow you!

Rookie

Re: Please remove the Motorola Surfboard 6141 from your list of compatible modems for TW Cincinnati!

bigo, I feel your pain!  I recently purchased the white SB6141.  It worked fine initially, but then came intermittent delays and connection failures that are cured by rebooting.  Today they are really bad; I finally started over by rebooting everything (modem, router, iMac) and it seems okay for the moment.

 

MsRaye, below is the signal page and last several error messages for my modem; I cannot find a firmware version on the site.

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

 

MrBill

 

Downstream Bonding Channel Value
Channel ID
Frequency585000000 Hz 591000000 Hz 597000000 Hz 603000000 Hz 
Signal to Noise Ratio37 dB 37 dB 37 dB 37 dB 
Downstream ModulationQAM256 QAM256 QAM256 QAM256 
Power Level
The Downstream Power Level reading is a snapshot taken at the time this page was requested. Please Reload/Refresh this Page for a new reading
-2 dBmV  -2 dBmV  -2 dBmV  -2 dBmV  

 

Upstream Bonding Channel Value
Channel ID
Frequency34000000 Hz 
Ranging Service ID7905 
Symbol Rate2.560 Msym/sec 
Power Level46 dBmV 
Upstream Modulation[3] QPSK
[2] 16QAM
[3] 64QAM
 
Ranging StatusSuccess 

 

Signal Stats (Codewords) Bonding Channel Value
Channel ID
Total Unerrored Codewords91177540 90584422 90592608 90576242 
Total Correctable Codewords
Total Uncorrectable Codewords532 569 574 

577 

 

 


 

Time Priority Code Message

Dec 02 2013 16:28:506-NoticeI401.0TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Dec 02 2013 16:28:505-WarningZ00.0MIMO Event MIMO: Stored MIMO=-1 post cfg file MIMO=-1;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:00:156-NoticeN/ACable Modem Reboot due to power reset ;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Dec 02 2013 16:21:526-NoticeI401.0TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Dec 02 2013 16:21:525-WarningZ00.0

MIMO Event MIMO: Stored MIMO=-1 post cfg file MIMO=-1;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

 

Rookie

Re: Please remove the Motorola Surfboard 6141 from your list of compatible modems for TW Cincinnati!

Oops, found the firmware version shortly after my post above

 

MrBill

 

Model Name: SB6141
Vendor Name: Motorola
Firmware Name: SB_KOMODO-1.0.6.12-SCM00-NOSH
Boot Version: PSPU-Boot(25CLK) 1.0.12.18m3
Hardware Version: 7.0
Serial Number: 374781327821024909020022
Firmware Build Time: Mar 12 2013 17:48:19

Expert

Re: Please remove the Motorola Surfboard 6141 from your list of compatible modems for TW Cincinnati!

here's the version I have which is in a new one I got from TWC: it is the .6 not .12 version you have.

Model Name: SB6141
Vendor Name: Motorola
Firmware Name: SB_KOMODO-1.0.6.6-SCM00-NOSH
Boot Version: PSPU-Boot(25CLK) 1.0.12.
Hardware Version: 7.0
Serial Number: 348781306321829109020001
Firmware Build Time: Apr 17 2012 15:09:37

 

What I see by your error messages are the 2 normal TLV-11 & MIMO status lines following the power up reset you did on it. if you didn't do a power off/ on, it looks like your power supply is bad or power was unstable.

 You should see the dhcp renew line once a week.

 

The bottom 2 on mine were the result of doing a reset to default command to see if it would clear up the poor download speed as well as clear out the unrecoverable errors on ch 136 after I made repairs on TWC's head end.

 

 

Time Priority Code Message
Nov 30 2013 19:51:496-NoticeD106.0DHCP Renew - lease parameters time server-65.24.1.48;tftp file-?BEEYDgawd6yPXbgKMkSh@CjJEofJuD_0gagq0_4noAJNLUWdwpiSD modified;CM-MAC=b0:77:ac:8f:5d:b8;CMTS-MAC=00:26:cb:d5:49:9f;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Nov 18 2013 08:43:276-NoticeI401.0TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=b0:77:ac:8f:5d:b8;CMTS-MAC=00:26:cb:d5:49:9f;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Nov 18 2013 08:43:275-WarningZ00.0MIMO Event MIMO: Stored MIMO=-1 post cfg file MIMO=-1;CM-MAC=b0:77:ac:8f:5d:b8;CMTS-MAC=00:26:cb:d5:49:9f;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:01:073-CriticalR02.0No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=b0:77:ac:8f:5d:b8;CMTS-MAC=00:26:cb:d5:49:9f;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:00:146-NoticeN/ACable Modem Reboot from GUI/Configuration page ;CM-MAC=b0:77:ac:8f:5d:b8;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

 

 signal levels and uncorrectable codewords are good, strange yours doesn't show correctable ones like mine does, that sounds like a server issue on TWC's server at the head end.about 1 in 12,500 codewords is errored but is correcting better than 99% of the codewords that don't make it the first time

Around 0.5%  are uncorrectable

 

Status Signal Addresses Configuration Logs Open Source Help
This page provides information about the current upstream and downstream signal status of your Cable Modem.

 

Downstream Bonding Channel Value
Channel ID135 133 134 136 
Frequency117000000 Hz 105000000 Hz 111000000 Hz 123000000 Hz 
Signal to Noise Ratio36 dB 35 dB 36 dB 35 dB 
Downstream ModulationQAM256 QAM256 QAM256 QAM256 
Power Level
The Downstream Power Level reading is a snapshot taken at the time this page was requested. Please Reload/Refresh this Page for a new reading
0 dBmV  0 dBmV  0 dBmV  -1 dBmV  

 

Upstream Bonding Channel Value
Channel ID
Frequency32000000 Hz 
Ranging Service ID214 
Symbol Rate2.560 Msym/sec 
Power Level43 dBmV 
Upstream Modulation[3] QPSK
[3] 16QAM
[2] 64QAM
 
Ranging StatusSuccess 

 

Signal Stats (Codewords) Bonding Channel Value
Channel ID135 133 134 136 
Total Unerrored Codewords58822003907 58821736906 58821968938 58821983332 
Total Correctable Codewords3793430 4058361 3843717 3838251 
Total Uncorrectable Codewords18893 29101 20352 19611 

 

 As you can see on mine, Ch 133 is now a little worst, thanks to the QAM being in the same range as our local FM stations 105.7, 106.5 and 107.9, which i'd expect.


 

 

Status | Signal | Addresses | Configuration | Logs | Open Source | Help

 

Expert

Re: Please remove the Motorola Surfboard 6141 from your list of compatible modems for TW Cincinnati!

If you didn't do a power cycle on it, which power supply is on yours? A 2 oz switcher or a half pound transformer one? I've seen both on ebay pics.

is it on a ups?

 

As a last resort... the other thing you can try is to do a "reset all defaults" on the config page. It gets channel/ timing reassignment and clears the correctable codewords.  If you get a different ranging id, what is the new one?

 

Expert

Re: Please remove the Motorola Surfboard 6141 from your list of compatible modems for TW Cincinnati!

Here's what I got before i fixed ch 136:

I reset everything 22 hours ago due to excessive ping and horrible download speeds. even pulled up the "new" docsis3 (2012) firmware. Below was in just 22 hours online...

Signal Stats (Codewords) Bonding Channel Value
Channel ID134 133 135 136 
Total Unerrored Codewords3664038722 3664047689 3664056803 3659736339 
Total Correctable Codewords11106 11451 10632 2145600 
Total Uncorrectable Codewords1968 788 670 2199002 
Rookie

Re: Please remove the Motorola Surfboard 6141 from your list of compatible modems for TW Cincinnati!

bigo1223:  Not sure if you'll check these boards much now that you've fixed your connection, but just wanted to say thank you.

 

My router died a few weeks back, so I upgraded my router/modem combo to the Netgear Nighthawk and Motorola SB6141 thinking I'd done great.  My connection went out at least 10 times a day since the installation (it was 18 yesterday) and required resets of the modem to *sometimes* fix the problem.  Per your advice, I now have a Zoom 5341J and haven't been disconnected once since it was installed.

 

Nothing against Motorola modems, because they've worked for me in the past, but as far as my area is concerned, the SB6141 is a no go.

Rookie

Re: Please remove the Motorola Surfboard 6141 from your list of compatible modems for TW Cincinnati!

MsRaye, thank you for the prompt and very helpful reply to my posts!

 

The power outages you inquired about are all due to me doing power off/on reboots to restore connectivity.  I have the 2 oz power switcher, not a larger transformer, that is plugged into a surge protector.

 

Last night, as I was surfing on my iPad and watching TV, I lost connectivity.  Not wanting to get up and go into the room containing the modem to reboot, I just ignored it.  About an hour later, I tried checking email, and the system was operating fine again.  Today it has been fine so far.

 

Here is my log for the last 24 hours.  Is this telling you anything?

 

Thanks!!

 

MrBill

 

Time Priority Code Message
Dec 04 2013 00:23:256-NoticeI401.0TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Dec 04 2013 00:23:255-WarningZ00.0MIMO Event MIMO: Stored MIMO=-1 post cfg file MIMO=-1;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:19:413-CriticalR02.0No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:18:543-CriticalD01.0DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:18:213-CriticalR02.0No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:17:393-CriticalD01.0DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:17:103-CriticalR02.0No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:17:085-WarningR09.0B-INIT-RNG Failure - Retries exceeded;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:16:573-CriticalR02.0No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:15:133-CriticalR06.0Unicast Maintenance Ranging attempted - No response - Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:15:133-CriticalR03.0Ranging Request Retries exhausted;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:15:113-CriticalR02.0No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:14:335-WarningR09.0B-INIT-RNG Failure - Retries exceeded;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:14:203-CriticalR02.0No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Jan 01 1970 00:00:156-NoticeN/ACable Modem Reboot due to T4 timeout ;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Dec 04 2013 00:03:203-CriticalR04.0Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Dec 04 2013 00:03:155-WarningT202.0Lost MDD Timeout;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Dec 04 2013 00:02:523-CriticalT05.0SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Dec 04 2013 00:02:503-CriticalR02.0No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
Dec 02 2013 19:18:226-NoticeI401.0TLV-11 - unrecognized OID;CM-MAC=90:3e:ab:66:cd:aa;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:48:88:4e;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;