Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

Use a non-standard amplifier and coax setup leaking noise onto the network and he'll come and hunt you down!

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

Yellow brick, splitter, tv box, coax cabling all removed. Only coax going directly into superhub right now.

DOWNSTREAM:
Power Level (dBmV) -1.25 -1.77 -1.44 -0.88 -0.93 -1.30 -1.34 -1.72
RxMER (dB) 36.39 36.17 36.17 36.39 36.84 36.84 36.39 36.39


UPSTREAM:
Power Level (dBmV) 45.50 N/A N/A 44.50

Just yellow brick removed:

DOWNSTREAM:
Power Level (dBmV) -5.24 -5.82 -5.34 -4.90 -4.82 -5.02 -5.17 -5.32
RxMER (dB) 35.42 34.77 35.08 35.42 35.97 35.78 35.60 35.42

UPSTREAM:
Power Level (dBmV) 49.00 N/A N/A 48.00

EVERYTHING connected up again:

DOWNSTREAM:
Power Level (dBmV) 9.89 9.80 9.55 10.15 9.81 9.44 9.79 9.12
RxMER (dB) 35.97 36.39 35.97 36.17 36.39 36.39 36.17 35.97

UPSTREAM:
Power Level (dBmV) 49.00 N/A N/A 48.00


I was advised to get this yellow brick from a few people, without the yellow brick the power levels did fall to -9dbmv at times. Which i thought was the reason for the disconnections. The disconnections was happening almost every day till i bought and fitted the yellow brick. Now it happens every now and again (once or twice per week tops). So the figures above all seem OK do they not?. This is what happens when a engineer comes out, they find no fault.


Told vm cs in UK i tried the amp, he said nothing. This guy claimed he was senior.

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

Senior techs do not exist, they were all demoted to just "tech"

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

Even if they did exist, asking the indian call centre to send one wouldn't work. Pretty sure of it.

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

Indeed. Asking them if the sky is blue would probably result in a request for access to your hub to "tweak" your wifi settings.

---------- Post added at 01:49 ---------- Previous post was at 01:01 ----------

Well it has been over 3 years since I had a PT, or even a tech for my residential broadband. So I may be a little out of date on the job titles.

---------- Post added at 02:13 ---------- Previous post was at 01:49 ----------

The above levels look good. Smack in the middle of the range for both downstream and upstream. Which is where you want them.

Looks worse than the first set, with downstream power that is borderline and lower SNR.

Downstream will be 3 dBmV lower because of the splitter.

It's worse to have low downstream power than high downstream power. So I personally wouldn't want my downstream at those levels, even though theoretically it's just about in spec. You're inviting lots of post-rs errors.

You just need the tap changed at the cabinet to get the downstream higher.

You're just pushing up the downstream power with the yellow brick, but not affecting the upstream. Which is the opposite of what you want. The yellow brick has to go!

No. What probably happened was that some engineer made a change in the network which caused your downstream power to drop, or maybe there was/is a temporary/intermittent fault.

Your old set top box could be the problem. If it's babbling noise.

It's also possible a tech just swapped your tap at the cabinet so he could connect a new neighbour up.

Instead of getting the problem fixed the normal way you've made things worse.

---------- Post added at 02:30 ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 ----------

p.s. Looking back at your original low SNR values around 32/33 dB...

Make sure all coax connections are tight with a plastic spanner. Finger tight may not be good enough. It's possible to cause your own SNR fault if not. Which can happen intermittently.

---------- Post added at 04:03 ---------- Previous post was at 02:30 ----------

3 years ago it took me 2 additional tech's after the installer (who left the levels out of spec) to get my levels right. The second tech was very friendly and knew what he was doing. It was no issue for him to change the tap. Just explain the situation that you get low downstream power levels sometimes and drop outs and would he mind..

JB will no doubt cringe at such advice.

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

*if the OP lives in an area with different tap values :)

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

It's a lot more of a problem to have a high upstream than a low downstream....

---------- Post added at 07:47 ---------- Previous post was at 07:39 ----------

Ahh sorry I thought you were comparing low downstream and high upstream, my mistake

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

STOP. ****ING. ABOUT. WITH. THE. CONNECTION.

Phone the god-damned CS agents and tell them that you have a fault. They will send a tech out to fix it, because that's what tech's are for.

Everything you're doing is just a colossal waste of time and liable to do more harm than good.

Bite the bullet, put your big boy pants on and phone vm.

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

I have called them around 7 times about this problem. Engineers have been out 5 times. Also i was getting disconnections numerous times per day and every other day before hand. Since i've swapped a few things over and added the brick i now get a odd disconnection or 2 per week. Surely thats helped the problem rather than making it worse?.

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

For now, but I suspect all you've done is masked the real issue. 2 disconnections a week means there's still a problem somewhere.

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

Yes i have certainly masked it, or quietened it down a bit. The problem IS definitely nothing to do with any equipment in my house or on the wall of my house. I doubt its the cabling from the cabinet to my house. More likely the cabinet itself with the problem on the tap. If i call out a engineer again, i will get another contractor who told me they must close calls down as fixed because they have a certain amount of calls to close every day. The job cannot be reopened within 7 days if so the contractor loses that original call he had closed. The engineers are also masking the problem for this reason. How do i get a senior engineer out? ok i know someone said senior engineers on paper do not exist, but there will be a engineer more knowledgeable than others as with any company in this type of industry. I used to be in IT and same principle applies.


Engineers to me seem scared to go to the cabinet. I remember when i was working in IT that i had similar problems and BT were too scared to go to the exchange, at the time BT agreed after numerous visits from cowboys to send a senior engineer that was working on the Olympic stadium at the time. He sorted it within 10 minutes.

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

your stats with everything disconnected are perfect and reflect what I get all the time. You should keep things this way and then ring VM when they go out of whack so they can have a look their end and see what has changed which could cause it.

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

The problem is, when it disconnects, it happens for a few minutes. By the time i speak with VM CS its working again.

Re: Frustrating virgin media internet cut outs....
 

the problem you are going to have is that if it is an intermittent fault which is being caused centrally (i.e. not your equipment) then you need a lot of customers to notice their connection going down and ring in in order for one of the tech bods to connect the dots and realise what is happening. Alternatively if you do get a tech come round again, explain it to him and ask him if he could escalate it to networks and see if they can run some sort of diagnostic and see what faults have been logged which would cause the disconnects (spiking power levels).