N00b question

[WayAbvPar]

So- every night at 6:27, my cable connection briefly cuts out. I assume this has something to do with the lease on my assigned IP address being up or something, right? I did an ipconfig/release and then renew, but it still cut out again at 6:27 the next night. I am sure there is a simple fix to this. Someone telll me what it is  :-D

[Yegolev]

Get off the cable and go DSL.

[WayAbvPar]

Never again. Last time I had DSL it was through Qwest. They were the worst bunch of chucklefucks that ever bilked me out of my money. Plus they can't come close to matching Comcast's speed.

[Riggswolfe]

Get off the cable and go DSL.

*laughs, rereads and laughs some more*

Are you using a router WAP? I've noticed with my router that once every 2-3 days I have to reset it because I lose connection. If my computer is plugged straight into the wall I never, ever lose connection unless the cable itself goes down for some reason.

If you are using a router, what model are you using?

Have you checked your TCP/IP settings? Does this happen to every computer in your house or only one?

Finally, how old is your cable modem? COX bumped up their speeds recently and some older modems would lose connection once in awhile because they couldn't handle it. Perhaps COMCAST bumped speeds as well.

[WayAbvPar]

Modem is newer- got it from Comcast in November. Linksys router; can't remember the model. It is probably 3 years old.

[MisterNoisy]

So- every night at 6:27, my cable connection briefly cuts out. I assume this has something to do with the lease on my assigned IP address being up or something, right? I did an ipconfig/release and then renew, but it still cut out again at 6:27 the next night. I am sure there is a simple fix to this. Someone telll me what it is  :-D

Ipconfig /renew is renewing the IP your PC gets from the router.  You typically renew the IP lease (and check lease status, etc.) from your ISP at the router's config page.

[Furiously]

I think Comcast is doing something oddish currently, because your's will go out then 20 minutes later mine drops. I think they're trying to find people who are stealing/reprogramming their modems for higher speeds.

Try going to 192.168.100.1 That should be your cable modem. You can then check when it renews it's lease. It might just be expiring every 24 hours and for some reason not renewing it gracefully. If you unplug it when you get home and then let it renew - your problem might be gone. Or do it when you wake up some morning.

[Riggswolfe]

Modem is newer- got it from Comcast in November. Linksys router; can't remember the model. It is probably 3 years old.

My guess is a hitch on the modem side during IP renewal or the router. My router is also a Linksys, one of their wireless models and like I said I have to reset it every few days because of random connection losses.

[Engels]

Try going to 192.168.100.1 That should be your cable modem.

I think it might be 192.168.0.1.
Also http://www.phenoelit.de/dpl/dpl.html

[Sky]

192.168.100.1 is for motorola surfboards.

[Yegolev]

I will never be able to generate enough urine to piss on Comcast as much as I would like, even if I were to live for five hundred years on a diet of water, beer and asparagus.  I have zero problems with my connection through BellSouth.

[Alkiera]

Modem is newer- got it from Comcast in November. Linksys router; can't remember the model. It is probably 3 years old.

My guess is a hitch on the modem side during IP renewal or the router. My router is also a Linksys, one of their wireless models and like I said I have to reset it every few days because of random connection losses.

Flash it.  The linux-based replacement kernals do not have the stupid issues the default linksys software does, and has better options for configuration, to boot.  http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/index.php  They only support routers with wireless, unfortunately, or I'd flash my non-wireless Linksys too.

--
Alkiera

[Riggswolfe]

Modem is newer- got it from Comcast in November. Linksys router; can't remember the model. It is probably 3 years old.

My guess is a hitch on the modem side during IP renewal or the router. My router is also a Linksys, one of their wireless models and like I said I have to reset it every few days because of random connection losses.

Flash it.  The linux-based replacement kernals do not have the stupid issues the default linksys software does, and has better options for configuration, to boot.  http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/index.php  They only support routers with wireless, unfortunately, or I'd flash my non-wireless Linksys too.

--
Alkiera

Oooo...thanks. I'll give that a try. I think I updated to the latest Linksys firmware but it didn't seem to help. I'll try this option.

[Viin]

Somewhat related, but my Vonage VoIP modem died on me this week. It was weird, the phone rang, I picked it up but the line was dead and I couldn't get a dial tone. I unplugged the power to it and plugged it back it but it wouldn't even turn on. After drop kicking it a few times it still wouldn't work. :( Ended up buying a new one for freakin' $60 but it seems to work a lot faster than the old one.

Back on topic, I think the cable dropout issue is simply because all the Tivo's in the area are starting to record I Love Lucy at that time, causing a massive drop in the available bandwidth, which disrupts your connection. You think it's 6:27 but it's really 6:29:59 Tivo Time.

[Venkman]

Quick question not worth a new thread:

Is 10mb about the cap for cable modems? I just recently bumped my speed up to that with Charter Communications and I got to remembering this article from a few years back that talked about max potential across digital phone lines versus cable coax.

I only ask out of curiosty. I don't host FTP sites or shit, so it's all for gaming. And quite honestly, my prior 4mb was fine for that. But when I see Verizon offering their 20mb down, I wonder a) how they can do that; and, b) whether I'll be able to get me some on cable. Sure I don't need it, but no self-respecting geek wouldn't want it.

But that's 10mb+ through my cable modem is all I ask about. I'm not going back to DSL. Not until I can move to an area where I'm not dealing with Verizon. I've been Verizon-free for three years and there is nothing anyone can do short of buying the company and lopping off the top 2/3 of their management that'll make me even consider possibly reviewing some pamphlet enticing me to return.

Their gear works. But fret the day it doesn't, for it will turn into days. At least.

[Viin]

The likelihood you even used 4mb down is pretty slim - unless you are downloading large files from multiple sources at once (such as bit torrent - if it works properly).

For games, it's not so much throughput (though that does matter depending on the game) as it is ping reliability.

[ajax34i]

The coax cable has a lot more bandwidth than 10 mbps; I think that's just the equivalent of one channel.   But I think we're stuck at 10 mbps on cable modems because that's the current business model.

[Trippy]

The coax cable has a lot more bandwidth than 10 mbps; I think that's just the equivalent of one channel.

Yes that's right. Internet access is usually provided through a single 6 MHz NTSC channel which translates into the equivalent of 30 Mbps for the entire neighborhood "node". The 10 Mbps cap is just to prevent somebody from sucking up the entire 30 Mbps by themselves.

But I think we're stuck at 10 mbps on cable modems because that's the current business model.

There's a finite number of channels you can fit on a traditional coax cable with current technology (around 100 analog channels I believe) and with the continued growth in programming material like HDTV programming cable companies are running out of bandwidth unless they can move to other cabling technologies.

[Riggswolfe]

There's a finite number of channels you can fit on a traditional coax cable with current technology (around 100 analog channels I believe) and with the continued growth in programming material like HDTV programming cable companies are running out of bandwidth unless they can move to other cabling technologies.

Yes and no. Each analog channel eats a line, but all of digital including HD eats up like 10 of them total. If Cable could shut down analog it'd free alot of those channels for other uses. People like my grandmother who doesn't like digital cable are holding it back.

[Etro]

What type of coax cable do these modems use, if its a 10base2 or 10base5 cable that would explain the 10mbps cap?

[Trippy]

What type of coax cable do these modems use, if its a 10base2 or 10base5 cable that would explain the 10mbps cap?

No cable coax is a different spec than 10Base2 and 10Base5.

[Etro]

ah my bad 

*scurries off to lurk once again*

[Venkman]

Ah, cool, thanks guys.

Faster is faster, and I agree 4mb or 10mb down isn't going to radically change my MMO gaming really. It's just nice to be able to download those 2.5gb+ beta packages way faster.

I also understand cable is a shared connection. I have no idea who else is on my connection, but I seem to be pretty consistently within 10% of the max potential during peaktime. It's nice pushing the edge in the backwoods ;)

[Murgos]

I think I recall that an HD 1080i transmission at 30 Hz is just a touch over 2Mbps when MPEG-4 encoded.

If 1 NTSC analog channel provides 30Mbps (According to what was quoted above, I don't know myself) then presumably you should be able to send 10+ 1080p HD channels in the same space that was used previously for 1 analog channel (I say 10 because there will be mucho overhead for routing and packetization and etc..) or probably somewhere around 60 digitally encoded SD channels.

They are no where near the limit of how much crap can be poured down a coax line they just need to phase out older, less efficient transmission technologies.  It's laughable that cable companies charge you extra for using digital cable, they should be begging you to switch.

[edit] 1080i not p.

[Trippy]

I think I recall that an HD 1080i transmission at 30 Hz is just a touch over 2Mbps when MPEG-4 encoded.

No. DVDs which are encoded in MPEG-2 average around 4 - 5 Mbps at 720 x 480 resolution (4.7 GB / 2 hours + extras). The equivalent 1920 x 1080i video in MPEG-2 would be 24 Mbps. A better codec like H.264/AVC can get you down to around 12 Mbps at the same quality but that's still triple the bandwidth requirements of a DVD. In other words there's a reason why HD-DVD/Blu-Ray discs store much more data than DVDs.

[Furiously]

I was reading there are some re-flashes for certain cable modems. Basically when you plug it in it asks the central server, "Hey, what is my max speed?" along with a few other things. The re-flash ignores this speed setting and gives you all the available bandwidth.

[Bokonon]

Ah, cool, thanks guys.

Faster is faster, and I agree 4mb or 10mb down isn't going to radically change my MMO gaming really. It's just nice to be able to download those 2.5gb+ beta packages way faster.

That won't necessarily be the case, unless torrenting is involved. Odds are congestion/traffic between you and the source of the file is going to drop your rate faster than the pipe from your house to the cable company.

[ajax34i]

If Cable could shut down analog it'd free alot of those channels for other uses. People like my grandmother who doesn't like digital cable are holding it back.

Well, they've been trying to do something about that..  Two more years.

As far as general questions about anything, I really like the howstuffworks.com site.  The answers aren't at the expert level, but I'm curious and also completely clueless about a lot of stuff, so I find that site nice.  They cover cable modems at a basic level, and it's where I got the "one channel = 10 mb" info from, heh.

[Riggswolfe]

If Cable could shut down analog it'd free alot of those channels for other uses. People like my grandmother who doesn't like digital cable are holding it back.

Well, they've been trying to do something about that..  Two more years.

As far as general questions about anything, I really like the howstuffworks.com site.  The answers aren't at the expert level, but I'm curious and also completely clueless about a lot of stuff, so I find that site nice.  They cover cable modems at a basic level, and it's where I got the "one channel = 10 mb" info from, heh.

I'm working mostly from memory in my discussion of coax cable and how it works. I worked briefly for Cox cable and in class they taught us this stuff. If I remember analog takes up a ton of room. Like if the cable has 100 megs available (which I think it does) Analog eats up 60 something of it. Digital only eats like 10 for every single non-HD digital channel. HD eats up more than digital but less than analog. And the cable modem gets the rest. My guess is they keep increasing modem speeds because they're 1) Taking more channels off analog to force people to switch and 2) getting better at compression. This is all from memory of about 3 years ago so I may be wrong.

[Stephen Zepp]

If Cable could shut down analog it'd free alot of those channels for other uses. People like my grandmother who doesn't like digital cable are holding it back.

Well, they've been trying to do something about that..  Two more years.

As far as general questions about anything, I really like the howstuffworks.com site.  The answers aren't at the expert level, but I'm curious and also completely clueless about a lot of stuff, so I find that site nice.  They cover cable modems at a basic level, and it's where I got the "one channel = 10 mb" info from, heh.

I'm working mostly from memory in my discussion of coax cable and how it works. I worked briefly for Cox cable and in class they taught us this stuff. If I remember analog takes up a ton of room. Like if the cable has 100 megs available (which I think it does) Analog eats up 60 something of it. Digital only eats like 10 for every single non-HD digital channel. HD eats up more than digital but less than analog. And the cable modem gets the rest. My guess is they keep increasing modem speeds because they're 1) Taking more channels off analog to force people to switch and 2) getting better at compression. This is all from memory of about 3 years ago so I may be wrong.

I can't remember the name of the act, or the timeline, but you're absolutely correct--in fact, legislation is already passed that forces analog signals to be removed from broadcast and re-allocated (sold) to different bandwidth use industries in the future. This will have the effect in this discussion of removing those analog signals from the backbone.

2008 I think? could be wrong.

[MisterNoisy]

If Cable could shut down analog it'd free alot of those channels for other uses. People like my grandmother who doesn't like digital cable are holding it back.

Well, they've been trying to do something about that..  Two more years.

As far as general questions about anything, I really like the howstuffworks.com site.  The answers aren't at the expert level, but I'm curious and also completely clueless about a lot of stuff, so I find that site nice.  They cover cable modems at a basic level, and it's where I got the "one channel = 10 mb" info from, heh.

I'm working mostly from memory in my discussion of coax cable and how it works. I worked briefly for Cox cable and in class they taught us this stuff. If I remember analog takes up a ton of room. Like if the cable has 100 megs available (which I think it does) Analog eats up 60 something of it. Digital only eats like 10 for every single non-HD digital channel. HD eats up more than digital but less than analog. And the cable modem gets the rest. My guess is they keep increasing modem speeds because they're 1) Taking more channels off analog to force people to switch and 2) getting better at compression. This is all from memory of about 3 years ago so I may be wrong.

I can't remember the name of the act, or the timeline, but you're absolutely correct--in fact, legislation is already passed that forces analog signals to be removed from broadcast and re-allocated (sold) to different bandwidth use industries in the future. This will have the effect in this discussion of removing those analog signals from the backbone.

2008 I think? could be wrong.

I think it's Feb 2009.

[Murgos]

I think I recall that an HD 1080i transmission at 30 Hz is just a touch over 2Mbps when MPEG-4 encoded.

No. DVDs which are encoded in MPEG-2 average around 4 - 5 Mbps at 720 x 480 resolution (4.7 GB / 2 hours + extras). The equivalent 1920 x 1080i video in MPEG-2 would be 24 Mbps. A better codec like H.264/AVC can get you down to around 12 Mbps at the same quality but that's still triple the bandwidth requirements of a DVD. In other words there's a reason why HD-DVD/Blu-Ray discs store much more data than DVDs.

I confused a couple of numbers.  The numbers I was actually thinking of was the 2 from 2Gbs for a full 1920x1080 image transmitted 30 times a second uncompressed and confused that with the compressed MPEG-4 (H.264) speed in the  Mbps range.  Everything else flowed from there.  Yeah, well no ones perfect.

Anyway, I saw something where they think it might be possible with a better error correction scheme to get the bandwidth down to 9Mbs for an HD stream.  Not even twice an SD stream.  Lovely, lovely hi-def on every channel.

[WayAbvPar]

I am starting to see ads for Direct TV offering 'up to 150 HD channels in the future.'. I wonder if the Feb 2009 date is what they are referring to? Why the fuck would I subscribe now? It isn't like they won't be begging me to subscribe when all those channels are actually available.


God I can't wait. I  me some HDTV.

[Mortriden]

Dish network is the fucking devil.  Stay Away.  If you've seen the comerical talking about the picture going out all the time... it's fucking true.  I live in the sticks, but that shouldn't make a huge difference.  Hell, I should be their target demographic (cable costs a shitload out here).

You can actually time it, it's quite fun.  About seven minutes between losses of signal with three minutes of static (on HD channels).  It's awesome.  Not even fucking splenda, just awesome. 

Fucking fucks. 

/rant off