Supported NIC's
 

Hi,

Does Virgin Media have a list of supported wired NICs that support their CM's

TIA

NemesisUK

Re: Supported NIC's
 

:welcome: ive yet to come across one that does not. Do you have a problem?

Re: Supported NIC's
 

Any ethernet card will work, but if your on the top tier(10mb/20mb) you'll need a 100-Base-T or a 1000-Base-T card.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

Yeah, my NIC keeps going down randomly if connected to the CM. However if I connect it to my second pc the NIC stays up forever.

The NIC I'm using is a Marvell Yukon GIGAbit NIC.

I've also tried a Realtek 8139C NIC and that won't even get DHCP from the CM.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

faulty NIC in the first PC?

Re: Supported NIC's
 

Jon T, I'd thought that but if I connect it into anything else it works fine.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

I take it you've power cycled the cable modem when changing the network cards over(no offence, some people no you have to do this, but a lot don't).

Is the Marvell Yukon card built into the motherboard, if not, just replace it. OK it might work with other devices ok, but it's possible that if it's started to go faulty that the volume of traffic from you CM is causing it to fail.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

No offense taken about the power cycling :) I would replace it but it's on the mobo. For the life of me I can't explain why the marvell nic gets DHCP but a realtek and a 3com dont. I've also now started to have the CM loose connection to VM. I've only had the service for a week and it's turning out to be a pain.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

When you try it on other machines do you use the same cable?

Re: Supported NIC's
 

Yes I do, believe it or not I build and configure servers for a living.
OFT VM support is interesting to go through as soon as they find out I'm running linux, they seem to panic and when I told them I work in IT the support call was ended :(

Re: Supported NIC's
 

Updated the drivers then seeing as you know the score this must have already been tried. Do you not have any nic cards lying around to test in first machine? tbh if your a server tech you must have tried pretty much everything we can point you to

Re: Supported NIC's
 

Unfortunatly VM don't support Linux, so as soon as you tell them that you've effectively give them the OK to not support you.

Two choices, either a) get a windows box conected when you phone the up. b) any diagnostics they ask you, translate into the linux versions, and then relay the corresponding Windows responses back to them.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

you dropping sync here ?

are both the machines your trying nix?

Re: Supported NIC's
 

I've expained to them this isnt a OS problem. I would connect a windows but that would mean I have to install it first and to be honest seems a little over the top, so I'm going for your suggestion of converting linux responses into windows ones. Sitting here staring at the modem and posting replys to here, I've noticed the pc light on the modem, it's gone out but Im still able to surf. This from a tech support pespective is turning into a nightmare that no tech support script is ever going to fix.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

Have you tried different drivers for the nic thats dropping connection?

Re: Supported NIC's
 

Seems to be. As nix yeah I only run oss.

---------- Post added at 15:01 ---------- Previous post was at 14:59 ----------

I have and different nix distros

Re: Supported NIC's
 

so the modem is dropping sync this will be an external fault and not the nic surely?

new card then

Re: Supported NIC's
 

for reference my cm status

Signal
This page provides important information about the status and quality of the communications between your cable modem and the cable modem network.

Downstream Channel
The data shown in the table below provides information about the signal coming from the network to your cable modem.

Downstream Status
Operational

Channel ID
1

Downstream Frequency
339000000 Hz

Modulation
256QAM

Bit Rate
2148000 bits/sec

Power Level
0.8 dBmV

Signal to Noise Ratio
42.1 dB

Upstream Channel
The data shown in the table below provides information about the signal being transmitted to the network from your cable modem.

Upstream Status
Operational

Channel ID
1Name
WebSTAR EPC2100R2

Modem Serial Number
210005232

Cable Modem MAC Address
00:1a:c3:1b:bb:42

Hardware Version
2.1

Software Version
v2.0.2r1256-060303

Receive Power Level
0.6 dBmV

Transmit Power Level
36.0 dBmV

Cable Modem Status
Operational

Upstream Frequency
29200000 Hz

Modulation
16QAM

Bit Rate
256000 bits/sec

Power LevelName
WebSTAR EPC2100R2

Modem Serial Number
210005232

Cable Modem MAC Address
00:1a:c3:1b:bb:42

Hardware Version
2.1

Software Version
v2.0.2r1256-060303

Receive Power Level
0.6 dBmV

Transmit Power Level
36.0 dBmV

Cable Modem Status
Operational
36.0 dBmV

Name
WebSTAR EPC2100R2

Modem Serial Number
210005232

Cable Modem MAC Address


Hardware Version
2.1

Software Version
v2.0.2r1256-060303

Receive Power Level
0.6 dBmV

Transmit Power Level
36.0 dBmV

Cable Modem Status
Operational

Re: Supported NIC's
 

your downstream power level looks low to me but im no expert on this that is if the 0.8 is for that

Re: Supported NIC's
 

It just jumped for 0.6 to 2.1-2.3

Re: Supported NIC's
 

still looks low to me

Re: Supported NIC's
 

The receive power is all over the place from 0.6 upto 4. I'll try contacting VM again see if they can do anything their end.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

that look slike your problem

Re: Supported NIC's
 

yeah it does, but I still can't get them to look into it. I've spent about £10 so far on the phone with them and nothings resolved. Have they always been this bad with customer service?

Re: Supported NIC's
 

what are they saying? is will need an engineer visit to up thew power to you and or add an attenuator. PM a mod on this forum and see if they can raise it for you :)

Re: Supported NIC's
 

They say they can't see a problem their end. I've explained the power levels to them and still it's my problem.
How do I contact a mod?

Re: Supported NIC's
 

just look for one in online members :)

Re: Supported NIC's
 

for the moment it's working and all I did was add BT's DNS Servers

Re: Supported NIC's
 

I'm really getting fed up with VM support, As soon as I say I have a green cable connected light they dont want to know. When I attempt to explain the problem they say there may be a problem their end and it will be fixed sometime soon. I wouldn't mind so much but how long does it take to frix a problem as this problem has been happening for over a week now.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

I have heard of issues with these nics, the latest drivers (on windows) seems to fix the issue

Re: Supported NIC's
 

Since yesterday, I've stopped using the onboard NIC and I'm having exactly the same issue. Last night I phoned VM support again and they said it was a fault their end, that would be fixed soon. As I work in IT I can understand how problems arise that may take awhile to fix, but the connection issues with the CM have been happening from day one. I can also now say that it can't be a problem my end as I've now tried 4 different NICs which all exhibit the same problem.

Richy99. I have 3 computers using these nic's and have never had a problem, there again I'm not using windows but Linux with open source drivers which until getting Virgin I've had no problems with. The cards I've tried so far are.

1. Marvell Yukon (Gets DHCP but can't keep a connection)
2. 3com 905B (Doesnt get DHCP, whatever cable I use)
3. Realtek 8139c and 8139D (Same as the 3com)
4. Intel 10/100/1000 (we use these at work as their compatible with mostly everything)

Cheers for the advice about windows though.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

I told you your downstream power level was to low

Re: Supported NIC's
 

Indeed you did, however they still havent done anything to remedy it :(

Re: Supported NIC's
 

What level of service are you on? 20Mb, 4Mb or 2Mb? I've heard problems with webstars and 20Mb, so that may be an issue.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

2M

Re: Supported NIC's
 

So far I've been with VM for 12 days and out of that I've had 2 days when it's worked well. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. I really do hope it gets better as I dropped BT for this.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

**UPDATE**

As of 10/08/07 all is fine. Had a tech out today who did some testing and it turned out to be of all things a bad cable supplied by VM.

The Tech said that the cable they send out with self installs is the cheapest cable they can get. On replacing it with a piece on non self install cable the modem sprang to life.

Re: Supported NIC's
 

That's good news - and yes, VM customer service is pretty atrocious! The upside as far as I can see is that the cable BB service is generally very reliable and now you've got yours sorted yours should be too... :)