Internet drops, now extremely slow downstream

[rmullin]

Our internet speed has generally been good, but since we got our modem we've been experiencing complete disconnection from the internet at least 3 times a day, if not more. This usually lasts for 5 minutes or so.

The first visit we had from technicians at spectrum, they noticed that the wiring was done wrong on the box outside, and "fixed" it for us. This did nothing but to increase the amount of disconnections per day (now 5 or so in a single hour) and drastically lower our download speed. We've been sitting around roughly 1-5 mbps since then.

The second visit, we had the technician come in and inspect our modem. He decided to take off the amplifier that was attached to the modem, saying that it might have caused the signal to be too strong and knocked the modem offline. It's been a day and we've only been knocked off the internet twice. I decided to take things into my own hands and investigate for myself.

I've been using a python script to automatically log the modem page every 10 minutes. I've noticed that there are a few channels with a huge amount of uncorrectables. downstream 2 is sitting at roughly 84 million as I type this. I also notice that this is the channel with the lowest power, at around -16dBmV and an SNR of 26.47. Sometimes the channel doesn't even display on refresh. I also have noticed that I'm getting a ton of MDD timeout errors. The modem has only been up for an hour and there's already dozens.

Does anyone know if there's anything I can do to fix this, or am I going to have to get a technician to come out again  and pray that they find the root of the issue?

[MsRaye]

Copy and paste the signal level and error log pages and if you're internet only. If cable TV, where's the modem splitter wise?

you have a wiring issue...

[rmullin]

 

Heres a few screenshots of my stats. I don’t know about splitters, all I know is there are 2 long coax cables coming from behind the wall in a closet downstairs, one that goes to a tv and another that they decided to use for the modem. There are no visible splitters so I’m unsure. I don’t know a lot about the wiring in the house since it was put in a long time ago, and I wouldn’t know where to start.

i’d also Like to make note that I unscrewed the coax from the modem and screwed it back on and it briefly bumped my speed up to about 40 mbps. This only lasted for a few minutes before it quickly deteriorated down to about 10, then 8, and now back to 3-5.

[reds91185]

Copy and paste the signal levels. The screenshots aren't viewable. Also, trace the coax backwards from the closet to the point where it enters your house on the outside. There has to be at least one splitter on the main line. 

[rmullin]

	DCID	Freq	Power	SNR	Modulation	Octets	Correcteds	Uncorrectables
Downstream 1	16	705.00 MHz	-10.30 dBmV	32.96 dB	256QAM	98451132	156	0
Downstream 2	1	615.00 MHz	----	----	----	----	----	----
Downstream 3	2	621.00 MHz	-15.90 dBmV	26.68 dB	256QAM	53167620	466360356	24087312
Downstream 4	3	627.00 MHz	-13.50 dBmV	28.94 dB	256QAM	48293300	1509465	268
Downstream 5	4	633.00 MHz	-15.50 dBmV	26.94 dB	256QAM	69394751	274286444	2594004
Downstream 6	5	639.00 MHz	-12.30 dBmV	30.65 dB	256QAM	55986677	1523	0
Downstream 7	6	645.00 MHz	-16.30 dBmV	27.28 dB	256QAM	55943632	58368451	20629
Downstream 8	7	651.00 MHz	-11.10 dBmV	32.24 dB	256QAM	60725627	199	0
Downstream 9	8	657.00 MHz	-15.60 dBmV	28.79 dB	256QAM	54412676	427900	23
Downstream 10	9	663.00 MHz	-11.10 dBmV	32.24 dB	256QAM	42780787	182	0
Downstream 11	10	669.00 MHz	-15.00 dBmV	28.94 dB	256QAM	50499548	219724	15
Downstream 12	11	675.00 MHz	-11.40 dBmV	31.14 dB	256QAM	57849802	1809	0
Downstream 13	12	681.00 MHz	-13.30 dBmV	30.15 dB	256QAM	76967311	11704	0
Downstream 14	13	687.00 MHz	-12.40 dBmV	30.59 dB	256QAM	103428854	175125	20036
Downstream 15	14	693.00 MHz	-11.20 dBmV	31.69 dB	256QAM	106071557	10947	787
Downstream 16	15	699.00 MHz	-12.80 dBmV	31.14 dB	256QAM	112301513	2643	0

	UCID	Freq	Power	Channel Type	Symbol Rate	Modulation
Upstream 1	92	37.00 MHz	40.00 dBmV	DOCSIS2.0 (ATDMA)	5120 kSym/s	16QAM
Upstream 2	91	30.60 MHz	39.50 dBmV	DOCSIS2.0 (ATDMA)	5120 kSym/s	16QAM
Upstream 3	90	25.00 MHz	38.50 dBmV	DOCSIS1.x (TDMA)	2560 kSym/s	16QAM
Upstream 4	89	21.00 MHz	37.50 dBmV	DOCSIS1.x (TDMA)	2560 kSym/s	16QAM

Looks like downstream 2 is completely unviewable now. downstream 3 is starting to disappear too when I refresh the page.

[rmullin]

I've traced my cables outside. Their are 4 separate cables that run from a box on the opposite end of the house. One of the cables goes up to the living room, and the rest travel together to the other side of the house. One is fed into a bedroom, and the other two are the ones fed through underneath the front porch to the modem and tv downstairs. There doesn't seem to be any splitters that I can see. The technicians did install new lines to the telephone pole that run directly through the squirrel infested trees in the front yard though, which was during the visit that initially triggered the slow internet speeds.

[MsRaye]

Call TWC back out, The line is chewed up again... Trim the tree so they can't sit on branches and chew the line.

Your levels are all out of spec, the high loss on DS indicates water into a chewed up line.

Anything below -8 dBmv is trouble and below -12 won't work on QAM 256

 s/n must be greater than 34dB and most of yours are lower, at 30 dB s/n, good luck.

I'd also make sure there's only enough splitters/ports in the outside box that feed the active devices.  So if there's only one cable that feeds the modem and tv, there should be no splitters outside.

[rmullin · Accepted solution]

The technicians came out to look again, told them about everything I noticed. They replaced all the wiring coming from the box to my modem and replaced the modem itself. Now I'm registering a consistent 22 mbps, which is a lot better than 1-3. We'll see if it continues throughout the day.

[reds91185]

Are you on a 20 Mbps plan? Post your signal levels again for comparison.

[karlbeckman]

I hate to go all the way back to your first posting, but I just read what you said: 

"Our internet speed has generally been good, but since we got our modem we've been experiencing complete disconnection from the internet at least 3 times a day, if not more. This usually lasts for 5 minutes or so."

So please explain to us, if your speed was good without a cable modem, how you were connecting to the internet before that?  Or did you just replace your older leased modem with one you purchased yourself?  If so include model numbers for both the old and new.