NTL cable modem died?

jvn · 03-09-2005, 20:23

I have the standard NTL 200 cable modem, WinXP pro and ethernet to the PC.

My NTL cable modem seems to have died yesterday afternoon (Fri 2 Sept): No matter how many power-off resets I do, the PWR, ENET lights are ON, the D/S light is permanently flashing, and all the others are OFF. It has been like this for over 24hrs now. Suffice to say I have no NTL network connection. After about an hour in total queuing in the NTL broadband helpline I eventually managed to speak to someone today who said someone would call me back to arrange an engineer visit, but that I did not need a new cable modem. That was this morning, and no one has called back so I imagine I will be waiting until Monday now and having to queue again on the helpline...
Does anyone know what could be the cause for this problem with the cable modem - or does this suggest a network fault upstream somewhere? Also, can I claim compensation if my broadband is u/s for several days?
Thanks in advance for any advice...

03-09-2005, 20:28

Service upgrades and network rebalanicing across the country will result in a breif loss of service for all customers.

This taken off the status checker on NTL.

Hope you're connection goes live again soon.

Hom3r · 03-09-2005, 20:29

to the forum

what area are you in there could be an outage in your area

Stuart · 03-09-2005, 20:29

to Cableforum.

Not sure about compo, but I think you do need an engineer as it sounds like the fault is with the modem, or network. Either way, there isn't anything else you can do.

Try phoning Faults tommorrow (yes, they are open, see http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...19&postcount=1 ).

jvn · 03-09-2005, 20:36

hi there - thanks for the welcome and the replies already. I called a friend who lives a couple of streets away (Barry, S.Wales CF63) and his NTL bb is fine.

I will try calling the faults line tomorrow if indeed it is working, is that the 0845 650 0121 number I called before, or another one I'm not aware of?

anyone else had the same problem (D/S light flashing, all all others OFF)?

thanks in advance

jvn · 03-09-2005, 21:18

Hi again

Just tried the 192.168.100.1 cable modem diagnostic access and get the following info, copy & pasted from the browser window. Interestingly there are several entries all around 2pm yesterday in the event log which is the time everything went pear-shaped...

Does anyone out there know enough about these event logs to determine what might have happened?

thanks again in advance...

Cable Modem Status

Procedure Status Comment

Acquire Downstream Channel 482750000 Hz In Progress

Connectivity State In Progress Not Synchronized

Boot State In Progress Unknown

Security Disabled Disabled

Downstream Status

Downstream Lock : Not Locked

Downstream Frequency : 818000000 Hz

Downstream Modulation : unknown

Downstream Interleave Depth : ???

Downstream Receive Power Level : -1.8 dBmV

Downstream SNR : 0.0 dB

Upstream Status

Upstream Channel ID : 0

Upstream Transmit Power Level : 8.0 dBmV

Upstream Symbol Rate : 0 Ksym/sec

Upstream Frequency : 0 Hz

Upstream Mini-Slot Size : 0

Event Log

Index First Time Last Time Counts Level ID Text

1 Time Not Established THU NOV 25 13:32:52 2004 820Critical (3) 82000200 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out

2 Time Not Established THU NOV 25 13:32:47 2004 40Critical (3) 82000300 Init RANGING Critical Ranging Request Retries exhausted

3 WED JUN 09 13:46:41 2004 FRI SEP 02 14:08:37 2005 48 Critical (3) 84000500 SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Loss of Sync

4 WED JUN 09 13:46:51 2004 FRI SEP 02 14:08:57 2005 41 Critical (3) 82000400 Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 timeout

5 WED JUN 09 13:47:01 2004 FRI SEP 02 14:09:07 2005 31 Critical (3) 85000100 No UCD's Received - Timeout

6 WED JUN 09 14:52:51 2004 WED JUN 09 15:08:55 2004 83 Critical (3) 68000100 DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received

7 Time Not Established Time Not Established 51 Critical (3) 68000300 DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.

8 WED AUG 04 20:17:39 2004 WED AUG 31 05:23:38 2005 2313 Critical (3) 82000500 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out

9 TUE MAY 10 01:14:30 2005 TUE MAY 10 01:14:30 2005 1 Critical (3) 73000200 REG RSP not received

10 Time Not Established Time Not Established 93035Notice (6) 84000100 SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/QPSK symbol timing

11 Time Not Established Time Not Established 2 Notice (6) 84000200 SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire FEC framing

Scopeuk · 03-09-2005, 21:59

i'm no expert but looks liek you've got zero or slose to it conenction to the network have you cheacked all the connections to the modem?

Saneboy13 · 04-09-2005, 17:31

HI JVN,

It looks like your modem isn't getting any Network information. It's not aquiring the data to tell it what downstream to lock on to. It could be a possible modem fault, or a bad connection.

The guys in your area a very good and very competant engineers. All I can suggest is you ring through to faults again and book a Tech. visit

jvn · 05-09-2005, 15:55

Glad to say all is fixed now, after 26 minutes in the queue managed to speak to someone or other in India this morning who after putting me on hold (again) managed to get a level 2 techie (wow what an honour) to speak to me. The engineer duly turned up this afternoon and traced the fault to the NTL local cabinet at the end of the street where my cable had been pulled out of the BNC connector by whoever had been working in there last...

There I was in Woolies this morning picking up a Wanadoo broadband connection pack and all, since I was about to stick the whole NTL thing in the bin...