Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Yaay.. the engineer rang me on my mobile to check I was home, came half an hour earlier than scheduled, asked what problem I had & what speed I was on. Immediately knew the problem, told me its a firmware issue & connected me to a brand new 250, registered the new MAC & got me connected within 5 minutes.. I have run a test download & no more hangings... yaay :) now I can get a :beer: & chill out.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Thanks Mr Chips. Back to ntlhm120_ntl0002 and all's well.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I don't wanna jinx anything but my modem hasn't cut out at all this evening...

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

ntl home 100

Restarts any time I do a bit of uploading, or if im extracting a file over ssh i'll get my modem reset, really annoying. (Cause of the output from the server)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Thanks to Mr Oven for contributing to this thread. I have a 100 modem and have been with ntl for 4 years without a single glitch, only to be plagued over the last few days with this loss of connection.

I didn't think to look at the CM's status page before, but now I get:

Network Access : Enabled
Maximum Downstream Data Rate : 10240000 bps
Maximum Upstream Data Rate : 512000 bps
Maximum Number of CPEs : 1
Software Upgrade File Name : ntlhm100_ntl0002.cpr
Software Upgrade AdminStatus : ignoreProvisioningUpgrade
Software Upgrade OperStatus : completeFromMgt

I wonder if the ignoreProvisioningUpgrade means anything significant. Rebooted the CM this evening when I got home and will see if connection is lost again ;)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

connections been a nightmare all day!!
Ive done a few tests and basically the modem only resets when im using Bit Torrent, (ive even moved away from the default port of 6881)

Works fine on newsgroups
So why? the disconnects on Bit Torrent??

Lets hope this "Maintenence" is over in Hemel Hempstead soon :(

---------- Post added at 01:13 ---------- Previous post was at 01:10 ----------

Mine says this.

Software Upgrade AdminStatus : allowProvisioningUpgrade
Software Upgrade OperStatus : completeFromProvisioning

Why the difference?
What does this mean?

Thx

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Rik, I done a bit of testing, It seems when you reach a certain upload for a certain time, the modem "resets" (This mainly occurs on torrents when you have many peers/seeds connected)

Network Access : EnabledMaximum
Downstream Data Rate : 10240000 bps
Maximum Upstream Data Rate : 512000 bps
Maximum Number of CPEs : 1
Software Upgrade File Name : ntlhm100_ntl0002.cpr
Software Upgrade AdminStatus : ignoreProvisioningUpgrade
Software Upgrade OperStatus : completeFromMgt

Hmm, Looks like the filename changed again, the other day it said 0003, now says 0002 again, but blah

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Thanks Mr OC.

All seems well here this morning.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

mine locked striaght away this morning a few mins ago downloading from newsgroup, have just reset modem.

was the update released last night after all?

---------- Post added at 08:32 ---------- Previous post was at 07:25 ----------

definitely not fixed yet, 20 mins into download and its just hung again forcing a reset.

So twice already this morning

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

3 times in the last half hour here.

120 CM on 10 Mb service.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I don't wish to alarm anyone, but I'm having similar problems with my 250 which replaced my 120 yesterday. Nowhere near as bad as my 120, but sufficient to cut me off a couple of times during an Xbox gaming session (yes, it's definately the modem, not anything else).

It reconnects itself though, I've not needed to pull the wire out once yet, but simply by doing it it's causing me hassle. In the last day it's happened 5 or 6 times. I willing to accept that perhaps I got a duff one and maybe this post should be a separate topic on its own, but before I go down the route of complaining to ntl again I was just wondering if I was the only one experiencing this.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Hmm interesting!
You are right there, disconnects only happen when uploading.

Wonder why this is happening, gonna have to ring NTL today, this has been going on for too long now, might even have to discuss compensation, nearly 3 days without a usable connection :(

Can someone technical actually tell me what is happening and why? im a bit of a tekhead I can handle it :)
Is this purely a Firmware issue, there seems more to this problem than that?

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I've called NTL support three times and they have fobbed me off every single time, they won't even replace my 120 modem. I'm getting extremely sick and tired of being treated this way by NTL. I've given up calling them now - if they do not rectify the problem soon I'm going to look at alternative ISPs.

:sleep:

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

:( Just did my first downloading in a while. Downloading from news server, got to 1.4Gb then modem stalled requiring modem reboot. It then continued downloading for 5 mins then rebooted itself. Was on 0003.cpr yesterday, now on 0002.cpr
ambit 120.
Shall see what its like over the next few hours.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Try this, (if your using a torrent) Put the upload speed to unlimited, and wait about 5 seconds (If i put my torrent to unlimited, My modem will reset within 5 seconds)

Or If im extracting a big file over ssh and I'm getting spammed by what file it's extracting, My modem will reset after that also...

Was just downloading a torrent @ 1mB/s, about 3-4 minutes later, My modem reset, I think it's something to do with the upstream..

Also got it yesterday while uploading a file to my website...

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Well im gonna roll with it a little longer as the status page does have the info there and duration etc.

Thumbs up for that NTL :)

Definitely a Upstream problem, as ive been downloading from Usenet for the last 1hr at 1200kB/s without a glitch.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Interesting.... I was getting the disconnects all the time - was on the 003 firmware. I stopped downloading and just seeded for a whole day at over 50KB/s without a single disconnect. Then tried to download again and it went to about 550KB/s download for a few minutes and then hung.
The firmware was then reverted to 002 and downloads are back to what they were (upto about 600KB/s). Never near 1000 though.
If you unlimit your upload, your download speed will plummet.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

yea, of course unlimiting your upload speed will effect your download speed, but while seeding, If you unlimit it, You'll notice your modem is more likely to reset, I tried leaving it at about 50~55kb and it doesn't tend to reset

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

This is not a specific issue with ntl, but more the way modems in general work. The modem has a buffer within it that it holds data in whilst it is being transmitted (either out over cable, or to your PC).

The bandwidth available for upload is in the region of KB/s, however your computer can pass data to the modem in the region of MB/s, so the buffer will get filled almost instantly. When download data arrives, the buffer is pretty full,so you don't get your maximum downstream rate.

Probably not explained perticularly well, but hopefully you get the idea.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

well no news then?

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

etc.. I knew that.. It was just that somebody was saying about it being upload related and I tried to say it wasn't 'just' upload related. I always have it limited while downloading - to about 10-15KB/s but it still resets. however, at that speed, it downloads at way over 500KB/s and the upload speed is often only 1-2KB/s - it still crashed though. Simple downloads from servers etc. seemed to fly and don't seem to cause any crashes. People often suggest an upload limit of around 80% capacity but that 'generosity' leaves very little room for download and you will see significant improvements in d/l speed for each small lowering of u/l..
Anyway, like I said, it's all fine again now though.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

no lockups so far.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I shared this with the group on page 9 of this thread. It's definitely to do with either the upload speed or too many connections. Torrents with lesser activity don't seem to be hampered.

Swoopie, how often do you get speeds of 1mb/s with torrents. The best I've ever hit was around 700kb/s, but normally i average about 400kb/s. What client do you use, and what are your general settings out of curiosity. I use uTorrent.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I've tried all sorts of downloads, since having this problem, and i can't see any pattern. I've tried using Newsgroups using fewer connections, more connections, limiting the speed, and i'm always prone to a reset. Sometimes i can download for an hour with no problems, others it happens after a few seconds, sometimes it's when i'm downloading and browsing at the same time, others it's just downloading or even just browsing (on 1 occasion).

I think as Ovenchips stated last night, the firmwares haven't been fully rolled back yet, and although it might be showing as that on our config pages, the truth is we still aren't using the 002 firmware. Hopefully it'll be back to normal soon.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

but DieDie, i have been having similar problems ever since obtaining 10meg on xmas day. It has never been able to handle heavy activity with bittorrent. The recent problem with the firmware has only advertised and aggrevated the problem more.

And as I asked before, but to no avail, it would be interesting to see the amount of users who only have a problem with BITTORRENT and not those with general IE downloads, other P2P, etc...

I just cant seem to hold a connection when bittorrent activity increases.

I wonder where you would stand with CS if you complanied about this. In general I get excellent speeds, its only with the above probs that i get disconnected... FREQUENTLY.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

same as you, right down to the last details, its so random but have expericenced all these problems as you have and is now becoming frustrating to say the least

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Well we would be well within our rights to complain about this to CS even if it is Bit Torrent, there are plenty of Legal Linux Torrents around for instance.

Somethings a miss somewhere, and i believe youve hit the nail on the head, number of connections or a upstream problem.

Ive been downloading for a couple hours from newshosting usenet and there have been no disconnects, yet the moment i start my bit torrent client, the modem resets a few mins later, very very annoying to say the least.

The status page says the work in my area (Hemel Hempstead) is scheduled to end 27th Jan Midnight, so ill roll with it till then and see what happens.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Firmware downgraded to 0002 overnight and still the same problems, possible worse, but that might just be solar flares or something :rolleyes:

Eventually got NTL to replace the modem. First thing the engineer said was "the incoming signal is too high and tripping the modem and to call if it happened again and he'd replace the modem"..he put an attenuator on the line...he'd only just driven away and it died. Then had to go through the hell of explaining the problem to CS again, and then had to wait on hold all in all for 45 minutes. Apparently they HAD to get the same engineer out, so it was more difficult than getting just any engineer to come back. 2 days later a different engineer came out anyway. And he concluded eventually that the modem needed replacing...but he didn't have one with him, so had to drive to go and get one...ffs, does no information get updated on any calls we log? Anyway the result: modem replaced with small blue modem (dunno model and cba to look). And not one single outage all day.

FINALLY!!! Only took 2 weeks, and several calls to NTL, and having to listen to them blaming my Linux firewall, even though I explained it did the same when I plugged the modem directly into PC. It must be the PC then they said.

Grrr....thank God that's over - and I'm an agnostic!

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

It's mainly torrents, Uploading + Many connections open (Don't forget normal torrent programs are also sending other packets to all the open (peers/seeds)ers every so often, updating what "pieces" you have etc) which can increase upload.

I experiance it with torrents + extracting over SSH

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

i have been have prob's with my 10meg line, every couple of hours it would go down. unplugging moden got it back. but after 4 days i phoned ntl and was told to ring back whenit went down 'cos they couldn't do anything while it was on. So Tuesday it went down i phoned ntl and was given the usual runaround
then being told my router was the problem ? . It is a new router i had it for 2 months before upgrade with no prob's before . So today it whent down again so i rang ntl again i got the same ruaround and told to unplug router and unplug modem which i did then he said he would do something his end . then i reconnected and he said i should have no further prob's . and my d/l speed on newsreader went up to 1560 kps. where before i was getting 750 kps. So i hope he was right and i have no further prob's

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I've been out since early this morning, and have just checked my e-mail. There are no notifications that the work last night did not proceed so until I can check tomorrow my default is that it went ahead.

I've also heard from a few people directly who have confirmed the problem has gone away, but can see that some still seem to have issues. I'll speak to someone with technical knowledge about this.

Peter

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

That will be a 250 modem.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Not to get humpty over this but can people who are having problems and using torrent programs start their own thread cause constantly posting in this thread about uploads and the many connections causing similar problems when some are not using same modem models or using this firmware or even not on the 10meg connection and its just confusing the whole issue of bad firmware release.

To clarify Since the new ntlhm120_ntl0003.cpr firmware upgrade i and many others on NTLHOME 120 modems have had disconnects at RANDOM times and to this date it still isn't fixed. Yes there may be problems with Bittconnect people but from reading on here there always seems to be have been a problem even BEFORE this firmware and i've never had a problem with any P2P, ftp or newsgroups resulting in Modem resets on my NTLHOME 120 until this firmware 003 was issued last week.

Today i have manged to download 4gigs - modem had to be reset 6 times, if it wasn't for me working from home then the connection would have been useless to me if i had to leave the Pc and hope for the best.

Why am i paying £34.99 to be a test subject?.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

PAGE 7 of this thread.

mcmanic, who said I wasn't using same modem, connection, firmware.... I have every right to post in this thread, as the problem worsened with the release of the new firmware. In a hope to find a fix to this problem, I and others are offering alternative reasons to why we are ALL having troubles with 10 meg connection/120 modems. If bittorrent may be one of those problems surely it should be put forward, who is to say it is not an upload problem. Others in this thread have stated having no downloading/speed probs, but getting disconnected when uploading/mass connections.

We are all upset over this sham, but maybe a combination of ideas may get to the bottom of it. I don't see how members would be confused by a alternative view in this thread.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Well, although my modem now says I'm on the 0002 firmware, it's still dieing after a certain amount of time.

For the record, I'm not using any P2P software. The majority of my bandwidth is used downloading over FTP. My upload bandwidth is virtually nil - only the odd email or file /photo I send over ftp.

In fact, I haven't uploaded anything since this problem started, apart from the random forum post ;)

Although, even though it's still locking up, and i've been put back on the 02 firmware, my ftp speeds are still around the 10Mb mark (currently about 1100kb/s).

That's my perspective / usage at the moment. :D But like some other people here, it's a big pain for me because my PC stays on at home downloading via FTP when I'm at work and no one's here to reset it, so I get probably a few hundred megs and then it dies till I come home in the evening to reset it.

I haven't tried phoning NTL yet - I was hoping this would get fixed on a global scale without requiring intervention on my behalf to solve my personal issue :(

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

well its Friday, put a 700meg nzb file into Grabit for download, 5 connections to newsgroup, 1 min into download at full 10meg speed and then modem froze requiring hard reset of modem AGAIN.

Still not fixed, although something has changed
Software Upgrade AdminStatus : allowProvisioningUpgrade
which was before
Software Upgrade AdminStatus : ignoreProvisioningUpgrade

anyway will leave it till Monday then shall go about getting a engineer called out to replace modem - unless we have some more news from MR Oven chips in the meantime

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Well an update from myself.

Scrap the first reply!!

I thought it was fixed, modem has rebooted agained automatically :(

/me sighs

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Nice man from NTL has just turned up,5mins later I'm the proud owner of a shiny new blue 250 :)
Time to put it through its paces and see how we do.
Got it by ringing CS getting through to India where the operater told me how many times it had dropped in a month and arranged for the replacement:)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Just as a side note, for all those people having problems with torrents, you do know to set your upstream limit a lot lower than your maximum upstream, right?

For example on 10mb the upstream is roughly 60k, but your maximum allowable upstream in torrents (combined) should be about 20k (if you plan to get fast downloads) or around 50k (if you're only seeding). Otherwise your upstream will cause a bottle neck effect, and your modem will reset.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

That is true, thats why i'm thinking its got nothing to do with uploads as i'm a newsgroup person and at full tilt my upstream is only 16/20k and all was fine before this firmware issue

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Im getting the exact same problems as everyone, but i am using one of the old USR CMX modems. Can any of the gurus say why im getting this problems as well. Have they secretly "updated" my firmware ?
I am only getting it when downloading, it may download for a few mins then stop for about 30secs / 1min and then spark up again. I dont normally need to power off the modem.
I can do without the hassle of trying to convince India to replace it !

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

These are the settings I use also. It doesn't stop the modem crashing though when upload speeds and connections pick up. Are these settings applicable to the 120 modems only, or would the 250 be able to handle higher settings?

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Why would the connection be working ok for months with the same torrent settings then one day start causing problems? :confused:


Stop making excuses for NTL.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Uploading and Downloading at same time should not "RESET" a modem, if thats the case how come it hasnt happened for the last two months where ive been using Bit Torrent and indeed downloading from Newsgroups and uploading to my webspace at the same time?

That would not cause a modem to RESET im afraid.

Also my problems look like they are sorted :)
Im not gonna shout from rooftops yet, ill monitor the situation :)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

My comment wasn't aimed at everyone, it was just because there seemed to be a few people having problems with upstream on BitTorrent, and sometimes people overlook the simplest of things.

There is definitely a problem at the moment, whether it be with the modem firmware, serverside problems, or whatever, but it does seem that there are a few people experiencing a different problem to the rest of us, if it's based around upstream.

As noted a few times in this thread, the main problem seems to be based around something other than upstream, as people using Newsgroups with minimal upstream are suffereng.

---------- Post added at 15:13 ---------- Previous post was at 15:11 ----------

Not sure about a modem reset, but it would certainly cause connection cut outs, i know because i've suffered from it in the past, when i've forgot to change my upstream limitations in torrents, or ran 2 torrents at the same time, without lowering the setting for each one.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I would put it down to pps max rate on the 120 not been very high probably on these newer firmwares, transferring data on p2p has a higher rate of pps then your bog standard http or ftp transfer,

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

yeah but what about now with the supposed rollback to 002 yet we are told its actually 003 but shows up as 002 on your cable congif until a 2nd update is issued ( supposed to be the other night) , did this actually happen, i think not otherwise i would be back to no disconnections and everyone happy.

Everything was fine until they decided to update the 120's to 003, personally i thing they borked them or we ain't back on the offical 002 yet.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Well, it's died again and I've rung TS.
Of course, following NTL's advise whilst on hold, I rebooted the cable modem and of course it was working again.

After speaking to the TS chap, he ran some diagnostics and could only report it was running fine. I did mention the firmware change and he dismissed that (or didn't understand what I was on about).

The only thing the chap could suggest is to call them back once my connection has died because he can then formulate a report to pass on to an engineer.

Oh well, things never get sorted first time round. LOL

I probably only have to wait 30 mins or so before it dies again :D

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

well no crashes for me, back to normal.
hehe shame i'm moving to adsl because of the packet-loss it get at peak time.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Ovenchips:
Modem model - 120
MAC Address - 00:d0:59
Location - Dartford, Kent

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Since my last post yesturday, where it crashed and randomly rebooted, I haven't had any probs, and ive pulled about 25Gb from news groups today....:)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I got rid of my CMX modem for this reason. I was constantly getting dropped on a regular basis, mainly when gaming online. It was every few minutes sometimes too. I have now had the ntl:home 120 modem for a while now and that is fine and has always been fine. So, my CMX was b0rked as far as i am concerned. Bin it!

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I thought the problem was over.

But obviously it wasnt!
Newsgroups fine, but where i have previously had NO PROBLEMS Bit Torrent again resets/reboots the modem.

Straight on to TS Monday
Ive rolled with this now for far too long.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Rik,

I sent you a PM yesterday.

Peter

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Another call to TS this morning.

Had a bit of trouble convincing the TS chap that the problem was with the modem.

Of course, I waited for it to crash before ringing them up and when he tried to run his diags, he asked me to reboot my modem. I explained that rebooting will resolve the issue... ...for a few hours. Once rebooted, of course my net connection was fine.

"So the problem has to be with the connectivity or configuration of your PC, sir".

Hohum! After explaining the situation, and reiterating that lots of people are having the same issue so it has to be an NTL issue, not a personal config problem, he agreed to send an engineer round. I now have one coming next Saturday to replace my modem. :)

Wonder what I'll get and whatever it is, I just hope it sorts out the problem!

BTW, I've never had to replace my CM before. If they determine your service speed by MAC address, how long do they need to update their databases? I hope it would be a plug-in and go exercise, but maybe they need a few hours to update before mine comes active? Or can they have two on the go so I won't experience any downtime?

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

not had a reset yet today (saturday), been downloading afew bits&bobs and all fine so far at 1.22mB/sec.

dare i speak to soon and all is well again! - we shall see

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Well, my connection is still dropping every 30 minutes after reboot :( I guess time to call NTL and see if I can get a new modem unless anyone has any advice they can give me? Can I just confirm that rebooting the CM really is just pulling out the power cable and nothing else? I hate calling Tech Support and try to avoid having to do so unless I really have no option... Also, how do I check what version of firmware I have?

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

mines still dropping,its a lot better than it was but its still dropping

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Mine is also still hanging.....4 times this morning.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Called CS last night 8pm, engineer has just left, new 250 modem all seems ok. Simple speed test shows 8 to 10 meg 9 as an avg so I am happy.

He said he has been told to replace all 120's with a 250 if any customers are on 10 meg. He said the 120 can't handle a full 10 meg. We'll see how it goes.

:)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

lol, thats why mine runs at full 10meg then, BTW still no lockups, looks like its fixed at last

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Oops
Didnt notice mate :p:

Had too much of the Vino yesterday! :)

PM Sent :)

---------- Post added at 15:00 ---------- Previous post was at 14:31 ----------

Hmm thats interesting to hear, the first month or so i was on 10meg it was working fine :)

What i would really like is to know what happened and what is being done at the moment to the network, someone with the full sp would be nice, PM if need be, and im a techy for a living so please give me the tech details. :)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Hi Rik,

please can you recheck those levels you sent me and if they are the same or similar post them up.

I doubt that the modem should even work with those levels, and I'll quite happily explain them for the benefit of all.

Peter

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

well so far so good, no problems today, downloaded everything i needed today 3.5gigs without a single problem

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I will do just as soon as im home.
Which should be in the next hour or so :)

Rik

---------- Post added at 20:03 ---------- Previous post was at 19:20 ----------

Got home

Rebooted CM just to start afresh so to speak and here are the readings reported.

I would love to know what each one is and what is should typically be please.
I love all the techy details :)

PS please note Peter there are two devices connected to the line, a CM and a STB connected with one of those splitter boxes.

Ive removed the splitter and just plugged cable directly into CM, and looked at settings and tbh theres only a few dB difference.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Well up front I will say that I am astonished that your modem works at all. I've worked on ntl: BB for 6 years now and have never seen anything even close to being as bad as those readings!

Downstream -22.72 dB. The spec is + or - 15. -10 is borderline and I think ntl: start thinking about sending out an engineer at -6dB. On its own this level should kill your connection with frequent disconections. The splitter you removed would have made this 3dB even lower.

(I know we tested the modems to -22dB in the lab a few years back, but we didn't actually expect them to do anything at that level.)

SNR 28.12dB. This is the best of the bunch but above 30dB is preferred.

Upstream 61dB this is the maximum output from a 120 modem. At this point it is "screaming" back at the network and as a result the signal is clipped and distorted. Again, on its own this level should kill your connection with frequent disconnections.

Conclusion - Forget firmware. It looks like* you have a serious physical connectivity problem. Because the downstream is low and the upstream is high the connection must be pretty close to open circuit. Its certainly high impedance.

(*An alternative could be that the modem power level measurement hardware is fried I suppose).

There is a really good Article on this at http://www.chetnet.co.uk/articles/in...x_v2&id=42&c=7 although it has my name as the author it was written by Bomber. I just added the footer.

Peter

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Hmm guess i better get on the phone then to TS Monday :)

Many Thanks for the Info Peter, its certainly opened my eyes!! :)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

No probs!

TSB is open till midnight tonight and 08:00 to 00:00 tomorrow, so you don't have to wait till Monday. Its 0845 650 0121

Peter

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Many Many Thanks Peter!

What a jolly helpful nice man everyone!! :D

And just to show you it is working (downloading anyway) ive attached a nice screeny for you all :D

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Been keeping an eye on this thread now for while, been suffering the same problems as everyone else for too long.
Eventually gave in an rang up TS and got an engineer out the next day. As mentioned before, he said the 120's just can't cope with the 10mbit and replaced it with a 250. That's been almost a week now and not one drop, back to normal \o/

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Hmm

I was just browsing across the cableforum forum and found this post: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...ad.php?t=42062

I'll shut up now because my modem is an ntl 100 and not an ntl120 which is what this thread is mainly for, but if that information is correct, and ntl know they've upgraded my speed to 10Mb, why oh why did they not get in touch with me to enquire about swapping over modems to a 250 one.

All 120 users *should* (?) be ok with the 10Mb service with a firmware upgrade - which we now all know is problematic. My question is why did they upgrade my modem (the 100) when apparently it's not 10Mb capable at all, regardless of firmware version :P

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Hi,

if you are talking about Post 1 in that thread it was, and remains, inaccurate about the 100. (Its also wrong about the Motorola 4100). I guess "Jimbo" provided the original info with good intentions back in early November last year.

The 100 and 120 modems are basically the same, apart from changes on the RF side to give the 120 a Dual Mode Docsis/EuroDocsis capability.

Peter

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Hi everyone,

No modem resets today or yesterday (woohoo!). The only remaining problem (and I don't know if it's related) is that I'm not getting anywhere near the download speed that I had been.

My 10Mb service is currently maxing at about 3Mbit. Having read previous posts regarding signal levels, it seems that although my downstream values are OK (6.25dBmv / 30.14dB SNR), my upstream is indeed in the 'screaming back at the UBR' category (60.5dBmv). This is on an ntl:120 modem.

I'm guessing that if my modem's upstream is having difficulty, it may not be able to maintain the upstream flow of TCP ACK responses to allow the full download speed.

Maybe a call to TS is in order?

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Ahh thanks for that clarification Peter :)

I'll just wait till the engineer pops round next Saturday for a swapout.

Out of interest, are all "new" modems supplied by NTL for new customers or replacement modems for existing customers the 250 ones ?

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

no problems today either. Full 10meg speed also from newsgroups on NTL120 Home (who said they cannot do full 10meg, lol).

Glad to see all is sorted now.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Well guys I've been having problems for a week now. I've only just read this big post. Most of you seem to be back to normal but i am not. Below is the info of my modem.. can any one expain why my modem keeps going down? Usually only when I am downloading for about 30mins from newsgroups.

Type : Ambit ETH/USB Combo Cable Modem
Cable modem : Ambit Cable Modem
IP address : 10.137.127.189
Downstream Receive Power Level : 0.78 dBmv
Downstream SNR : 35.48 dB
Upstream Transmit Power Level : 52.00 dBmv

Network Access : Enabled
Maximum Downstream Data Rate : 10240000 bps
Maximum Upstream Data Rate : 512000 bps
Maximum Number of CPEs : 1
Software Upgrade File Name : ntlhm120_ntl0002.cpr
Software Upgrade AdminStatus : ignoreProvisioningUpgrade
Software Upgrade OperStatus : completeFromMgt


If you need to know anything more please ask.

Hope you can help.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

If the disconnects are caused by the power levels, are these levels ok Oven Chips?

(NTL Home 100)
Downstream Receive Power Level : -3.38 dBmv
Downstream SNR : 31.21 dB
Upstream Transmit Power Level : 51.00 dBmv

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

So I spoke with TS yesterday afternoon - they gave me a reference number to give to CS to book an engineer to replace my CM. I call CS this morning to be told that the engineer has to be booked via TS. I call TS back who tell me that it has to be done via CS!! The techie I spoke to was a complete numbnut who I ended up having to shout at. Why oh why does NTHell think it is ok to farm out tech support to an indian call centre that is completely clueless??? :mad:

I work in tech support and would never hire someone who didn't have any clue!!! Anyway, having thrown a strop, the "tech" transferred me to CS who then passed me onto a techie based in Swansea *sigh*

I've got an engineer coming out tomorrow afternoon - hopefully this will be the end of it

Is there any way that we can contact the Swansea techies direct rather than have to go through the pain of talking to an indian call centre that has everything scripted for them?

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

In talking to a couple f users with continuing issues we've identified that some modems have not received both parts of the update.

Please leave modems on at all times for the next few days. Thanks!

Peter

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I had to ring TS regarding my problem which is documented here, and I have to say I was greeted by a Indian Guy, and thought o god here we go, as there have been soo many complaints, BUT i thought NO! dont jump on that bandwagon!

The guy was extrememly helpful, run a few tests, must have seen my power levels and reboot stats, and after about 2 mins said you need an engineer, i asked him about my power levels etc and explained they were rather abnormal (lol thanks for that Oven Chips) and he just said yes your modem is rebooting rather a lot!

He then politely told me he was gonna put me through to someone else to book me an engineer, which he done very promptly.

The service i received from India was very good indeed.
So I have no complaints at all.

Lets just hope my problem gets rectified on Friday when engineer visits! :D

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

All very well, but... for those of us who need the internet for work, we can't just let the modems stay in a perpeptual "hung" state. On the assumption that the modem might get an update at some time that might sort the problem out.

As said earlier in this thread, I've had this hanging modem problem for a few weeks and its just getting silly now. If ntl offered a reversal back to the 3mb service, I would do it without hesitation...I asked ntl if I could just ditch the modem and use the one in the samsung stb and they said no:(

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

finally got an engineer after 6 f-ing telephone calls. Suprise suprise I got one when I went through to a british call centre and not an eastern one. I mean, it isn't their fault it is NTLs for hosting the call centre there, but that was rediculous. I'm dreading my mobile phone bill.

Engineer comes on Wednesday Evening. Hopefully he'll have the sense to bring a 250 along with him.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I have to add that when I called TS it went to an Indian call Centre but the chap was extremely helpful and arranged for an engineer there & then without any hassle. Infact when I rang back the day before the appointment to confirm the visit, it again went through to the Indian call centre and once again the lady was very polite & helpfull.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

To be clear you should not leave it in a hung state. If you get the problem then power cycle it.

Results back so far are that this is working. Thanks for all those who helped out, I think this will probably be my last contribution!

Peter

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Thanks Oven Chips for your help between this topic and the people you spoke too. Since Sunday my connection has been rock solid and running again at full 10meg speed.

If NTL do a firmware upgrade again can you post when this will happen so that we can get a our complaints posts ready to post here, if the modems don't cut us off before we can post that is.

lol - J/K

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I would also like to thank Oven Chips for his assistance, talk about beyond the call of duty!

Thanks for help man!
:D

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I got my CMX swopped out yesterday for a 250. I was pleasantly surprised at how helpful the chap in India was, after all the horror stories I had read. I had no problem convincing him it was the modem and not my computer. Now flying along at the full 10meg.

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Well Engineer came around to look at power levels today, and he seconded what Oven Chips has told me.

He said it was a problem with the network in my area as someone else had complained in street and he was also visiting them,

He said he would report it to network guys.

Then went.

Wonder whats gonna happen now?
When its gonna get fixed?
How i get kept updated?

I will just have to trust NTL on this one! :)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

after ringing india and them arranging for an engineer to come out i am now in posession of a 250 modem :D

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Contacted TS today and just enquired about how long it would take to fix my problem and if I would be told, when it was rectified, and unfortunately got a unsatisfactory answer.

Explained to the Tech Support Guy, it was working but resets itself etc etc.....and he said the engineer shoulve sorted the problem out there and then on Friday. (he came in measured settings and left and said he wouldnt be returning as it was a network local fault).

So now im dangling in mid air, I have no idea when this problems gonna get resolved and just have to wait I suppose.

Im gonna give it a week and then get back on blower.

Just outta intereset tho, if I downgrade to 1/2meg do people still get disconnects?

Whats the betting tho my cable modem settings read the same on Friday this week?

Musnt grumble tho, i can still download, and upload, just not at SAME TIME :(

One more thing that makes me think I was being fobbed off was the guy said the power levels all look normal, which is a load of poppycock, becuase they are the same as they have always been (off the scale) and Oven Chips & The Engineer have both confirmed this.

Oven Chips is still a legend tho :)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Just wanted to add my experience to this extremely informative thread...

I too had the same problem which was resolved when my 120 was replaced with a 250 today. It took 2 visits and 4 engineers to get the modem replaced but the info in this thread at least gave me the knowledge that a replacement modem was what I needed (despite the 4 engineers telling me it had nothing to do with the modem!).

Thanks to all and special thanks to oven chips!

Cheers!

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Well another update for you lovely folks.

Asked TS what was happening with my enquiry, and that surely the engineers findings where on my account and they could tell me exactly what was happening with my fault, but no such luck from the way they were talking there was no notes or any info regarding the engineers findings at all.

Then you get the whole hassle of "Will not talk to you unless you are looking at your screen"
(I am at work)

I deperately tried to explain I DONT WANT ANOTHER ENGINEER!!
I WANT TO KNOW WHATS HAPPENING WITH MY FAULT!!!
WHEN IS IT GOING TO BE FIXED!!!

(Sorry for shouting :))

I lost interest with the guy and then asked to be put through to Customer Care to cancel/downgrade.

I then got through to a very very HELPFUL person called E**lyn!
She was a absolute DIAMOND, and she deserves a pay rise!!!

She tried to speak to TS but got the same old lingo.

So im going to ring tonight, and if i get the run around again, ill either be cancelling or going on to 1Meg.

3 years of solid fantastic service, to this, very disapointing tbh, i used to recommend NTL to everyone I knew, but my opinion is slowly diminshing now :(

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Rik, I will send you a PM

Peter

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Hi all,

Been a long time reader of these forums and they have solved a lot of problems for me in the past. However, I am currently at my wits end...

I am suffering from the ntl home:120 on 10 Meg hanging problem, but TS just will not believe me - they say that it is due to my (Belkin) router, even when I explain that, when I plug my Xbox 360 directly into the modem, the problem still occurs under high load.

It's the same old thing - modem flying along, all lights on and fine - then the D/S light starts to flicker and then goes out - connection drops, only solution is to unplug the modem and reboot it. Even 192.168.100.1 won't connect to it once the D/S light goes out... This can happen at any time from every 5 minutes to every 5 hours...

Currently, TS have told me to plug my PC directly into the modem for 24 hours, and monitor the connection - they will not even send an engineer out until I have done this, and were fairly rude about that point, even when I mentioned these forums and other people with the same problem. This is just not good enough as it is not easy to hook my PC directly into the modem - hence why I have a wireless router!!

Any suggestions?? I love my NTL services, and they currently get over £80 a month from me...but maybe not for much longer..

Cheers.

Darren

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Time to pull my hair out I think.

Second Engineer has just visited, adjusted the power levels, so I thought the problem had been sorted, silly of me not to test it while the engineer was here, but the settings are attached and now its doing EXACTLY the same :( modem resets on Bit Torrent, and when uploads and downloads + multiple connections are active :(

I cant ring TS as im on a mobile and dont have much credit lol.

Is there anyway someone from NTL contact me as im gonna have to contact TS AGAIN! and get this engineer to return and fix the problem :(

losing patience now, especially after Oven Chips has put in soo much effort and helped me soo much.

(A rather deflated Rik)

I wonder if a NTL 250 is needed?

Third Time Lucky Perhaps? :)

---------- Post added at 11:29 ---------- Previous post was at 09:49 ----------

Edit.

Quality Control Guy has just visited, very nice chap, and has replaced the modem :)

Looks like problem is all sorted!!
YAY!

NTL are back in my good books and ill recommend them to all my friends again!!

Ha ha

PS Massive thanks to Oven Chips!

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Downstream Receive Power Level : -1.57 dBmvDownstream SNR : 34.02 dBUpstream Transmit Power Level : 61.00 dBmv
^^ upstream power level doesnt seem good was 57 before the problems started now it just keeps locking up. dunno wether to ring NTL or not hmmm...:rolleyes:

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I would, your modem is 'shouting' because it can't get itself heard, I reckon you need an engineer out to adjust the power levels :)

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

I think I'm sufferring the same problem. Ever since my 10mb upgrade my modem stops responding on the LAN side - I can't access it's web page and rebooting my router looses any DHCP assigned IP Address. I've tried connecting modem-PC and suffered the same problem this morning.

I'm at my wits-end with NTL CS, Over the last 8 weeks I have patently gone through their diagnsotic routine 3 times, which each time ends with me power cycling the modem and all is fixed. This morning I nearly got commitment to replace the modem with a 250, but after being transferred 4 times over 70 minutes I was asked to repeat the diagnostics. My modem was working by then so all I got from NTL was no-fault-found.

Each time NTL run diagnostics there is 'nothing wrong' with the modem, the SYNC & RDY are lit. However I cannot connect anything (router or PC) until I reboot the modem. NTL concluded it must be XP SP2 and have requested I downgrade to SP1, however I feel this is poor advice and provably not just a PC connectivity issue.

How do I force NTL to take any responsibility ?

Interestingly (perhaps) it is happening more frequently since I connected up a new VoIP (PAP2) Adapter.

Any advice (technical or 'Supplier Management' tips ) ??

Re: ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

lil update :)

got a tech comming out between 8am and 1pm tommorow. spent 30minutes on the phone to a person in india (really bad english) he didnt understand my problem untill i pointed stuff out for him!

ntl home:120 hanging from today
 

Great thread, stopped me thinking i was going mad!!

NTLHOME 120 Modem
Coventry Area

After reading all your posts I thought better of calling NTL and jumping through hoops, only to have them say everythings fine. I was experiencing the exacty same problems after my upgrade to 10M and was getting worse everyday.

So My modem became strangely "Broken". Called them up at 11.20 and they said an engineer would be here between 12pm-6pm . To my surprise 12.05 an engineer turned up, looked at my "Broken" modem said "oh yeah these go all the time" and " the power supplies are wonky on these too"

I asked "am i getting my 10Meg" he said "line is set for 10Meg but you wont get it with these modems, they dont work properly on 10Meg at all, you should have had a new one...."

Should I have been told? I asked

"Well yes really, but they wont tell you, it would cost too much to replace all the modems so they normally fob you off..."

Very interesting. So he popped popped out to the van, came back with a new blue 250 modem, installed within 2 mins and im happy.

Can tell speed difference too with the new modem.

Just thoguht id share my experience, perhaps its the way to go getting a "Broken" or "Faulty" modem replaced.