NTL signal problems

[foddy]

Hi,

I have a Pace 4000 series (I think) in an original NTL region. Over the past couple of months, I've noticed a problem with programmes freezing momentarily. This is now happening several times a minute and is unbelievably annoying. The sound is mostly OK.

When my cable modem was installed, the installer said that the signal was unusually high and installed a chunky 10dB attenuator on it (in addition to the loss from the splitter). The cable modem works just fine!

In the past, I've had problems before with the signal being too strong and I was wondering if this could be the problem with the freezing television. I had a look through engineer's menu, hoping for a simply signal strength display, but couldn't see anything obvious.

Is there an easy way (WITHOUT calling out an engineer) to check the signal strength the STB sees, and what it should be?

Many thanks,

Foddy

[foddy]

OK - things got a lot worse. It had upgrade its software some time today, but I doubt that's related. Channel 4, E4, etc. were simply unwatchable. BBC 1 was watchable but had the same freezing problems as before.

I rebooted the STB and now it's stuck on tune.

I guess it's a hardware problem, time for an engineer.

Thanks,

Foddy

[Chris W]

One of my STB's got stuck on tune today... it has been playing up for a while, so i called c/s and waiting about 10secs to get through, and now have an engineer arranged for tomorrow afternoon. They offered me the morning but the thought of being up at 8am was too much!

spot on guys Foddy i hope you get the same good service!

MB

[foddy]

Originally Posted by monkeybreath

One of my STB's got stuck on tune today... it has been playing up for a while, so i called c/s and waiting about 10secs to get through, and now have an engineer arranged for tomorrow afternoon. They offered me the morning but the thought of being up at 8am was too much!

spot on guys Foddy i hope you get the same good service!

MB

Unfortunately not.

I called up at 8am sharp this morning and the best they could do was Tuesday. Shortly after then I lost analogue TV and the cable modem also - so I spent the next two hours on the phone to NTL going around in loops trying to get to someone who could understand that giving them the MAC address of the modem wouldn't help!

In the end I called up billing to ask for compensation and they put me through to someone in faults who said "oh yes, there's a fault in your area, it'll be fixed soon". It'd have been nice to have been told that a couple of hours earlier.

Anyway - the cable modem is back now, and I've at least got the terrestrial channels again. I think the STB is toast - I pulled the card out and half of it was brown and a bit melted!

Hopefully I'll get it fixed on Tuesday ... but it's enough to make Sky look appealing.

Thanks for the message,

Foddy

Originally Posted by foddy

Unfortunately not.

I called up at 8am sharp this morning and the best they could do was Tuesday. Shortly after then I lost analogue TV and the cable modem also - so I spent the next two hours on the phone to NTL going around in loops trying to get to someone who could understand that giving them the MAC address of the modem wouldn't help!

In the end I called up billing to ask for compensation and they put me through to someone in faults who said "oh yes, there's a fault in your area, it'll be fixed soon". It'd have been nice to have been told that a couple of hours earlier.

Anyway - the cable modem is back now, and I've at least got the terrestrial channels again. I think the STB is toast - I pulled the card out and half of it was brown and a bit melted!

Hopefully I'll get it fixed on Tuesday ... but it's enough to make Sky look appealing.

Thanks for the message,

Foddy

My box at work occasionaly starts glitching, it can be due to signal levels but can also be due to the STB overheating, if you unplug the box from the mains for half an hour so it cools down, and then retry it.