right, its 10.07 and the engineer has been and gone - an amazing result for NTL!
...and problem fixed too!
seems there's a problem with CR3 on the Bromley platform caused when CS send a reset signal - the frequency is reset to the default, but this isn't the frequency needed, so as the box ranges trying to find the signal it causes the freeze every 6.7 seconds (iirc what the engineer said)
Apparently there's a patch planned for release to CR3 in Jan'05, removing the unwanted stuff thats crippling the PACE boxes, and fixing this incorrect default frequency.