ntl home:120 hanging from today

[jonze]

I can't tell you how happy I am this thread exists. I was on the verge of buying a new router because I'd managed to convince myself it was the router!! (sometimes my housemate can download/access the web just fine, and I get the problem - 99.5% of the time it locks up and we need to cycle it).

NTL Home:120
00:02:8A
Leicester (LE2)

I'm paying £70 a month for all of this NTL stuff, and they go ahead and release disruptive firmware. I'm a student, I can't afford for my net to go down when I'm working (Computer Science student), especially when I have e-lectures and I'm developing a web-based service application for my finals. Have NTL not got a Quality Assurance process? Do they not perform verification and validation on the firmware they create? I really, honestly hope that they lose a few customers just to warn them that this sort of thing isn't on. five-ten days of downtime might not seem a lot but it is highly disruptive; I wouldn't mind it if we were given some sort of compensation.

Mr. Chips, you're a godsend. thanks for sticking here and listening to our complains, and most of all taking a proactive approach to getting this all sorted. Hopefully my Ntlhome:250 modem will be on its way to my house asap.


-Jonze

[Rik]

Originally Posted by Oven Chips

A bit of an update for you all.

Ntl: will be taking corrective action mid week. I will have a definitive statement on "when" on Wednesday AM 25th January 2006.

Thanks for all the info so far. At this time we don't particularly need any more MAC Address / Location info.

Peter

Many Thanks For the update
Mr Chips!!

PS why oven and not fried

[Jay NI]

Just to let everyone know that the NTL engineer that i had arranged arrived on time this morning and listened to what i had to say about what i was experiencing and what i had read about the problem on this forum. He replied saying that the 100 and 120 modems were not capable of 10mb and have been having problems and replaced the modem with a brand new shiney 250 modem, also wiring it up via ethernet and i am now recieving a full 10mb connection, no more between 5 and 7 like what i was recieving before the problem ocurred. So this confirms that there is definitly a problem with the 100 and 120 modems and im once again a happy NTL customer lol.

btw thanks very much Oven Chips for acknoledging everyones complaints on here and keeping us up to date with progress of whats being done about it, your 1 in a million.

[Albie]

Originally Posted by Jay NI

He replied saying that the 100 and 120 modems were not capable of 10mb and have been having problems

That's a load of bloody nonsense.


I'm on the 1MB tier with a 120 modem and still getting disconnected.


It has nothing to do with the modems - it's the connection itself.

Originally Posted by Albie

That's a load of bloody nonsense.

It has nothing to do with the modems - it's the connection itself.

Um, no .....

The problems in this topic have nothing to do with the connection, they are modem issues. The 100 & 120 modems could not run at 10 meg with their original (v1) firmware, so ntl released a firmware update (v2) for those people on 10 meg. Last week they did another update in some areas (to v3) and this has caused the current problems that many are experiencing. As above - "corrective action" is expected later in the week (which one would assume is either v4 of the firmware, or a restoration to v2).

[Mr Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Paul M

As above - "corrective action" is expected later in the week (which one would assume is either v4 of the firmware, or a restoration to v2).

Though quite why there has been no quick reversion to the previous version is beyond me - surely it's simple enough for them to do that to restore functionality before getting down to the meat of the 'corrective action'? Not to mention the question of why the firmware was released seemingly having had no testing beforehand.

Who said there had been no testing ? I'm quite sure it was tested and whatever this problem is, it didn't show itself in testing. It's quite obviously only happening in a small percentage of updated modems, otherwise huge numbers of people would be having problems.

Similarly, it makes no sense to rush into a reversion of hundreds of thousands of modems, and remember that it was only really over Friday & the weekend that enough information was collected to confirm there was a real problem.

[Albie]

Originally Posted by Paul M

Um, no .....

The problems in this topic have nothing to do with the connection, they are modem issues. The 100 & 120 modems could not run at 10 meg with their original (v1) firmware, so ntl released a firmware update (v2) for those people on 10 meg. Last week they did another update in some areas (to v3) and this has caused the current problems that many are experiencing. As above - "corrective action" is expected later in the week (which one would assume is either v4 of the firmware, or a restoration to v2).

Well how am I getting the same problem with disconnections on 1MB?

Originally Posted by Albie

Well how am I getting the same problem with disconnections on 1MB?

Do you have one of these modems, with v3 of the firmware ? If yes, then the answer should be obvious, if not then you have problem with similar symptoms, but not the problem this topic refers to.

[JamShady]

I just thought I'd post this in case it helps anyone. I've found a way to force the modem to hang, useful for demonstrating to a techie who doesn't believe there's a problem.

I managed to get a Premium Xbox yesterday, so the first thing I did was to try and download fight night 3 (400+ Mb). I've been using a core for the past few weeks so everything to do with Live is OK, plus I know my way around the network.

Anyway, out of the 20 or so times I tried, the modem hung after 20 seconds - consistently. Didn't matter if it was in one stretch or not, I tried to download for 10 seconds at a time, after the second time the modem hung. Basically, it would only allow a set bandwidth to be downloaded before crashing.

Just to make sure it wasn't something else, I downloaded a different demo - exact same thing happened. The funny thing is, I've calculated that the modem is allowing about 7-8Mb to be downloaded before cutting out. But from my PC I downloaded a 30Mb file with no problems

Something definately dodgy is going on, but hopefully someone might be able to use this information to force their modem to hang as a demonstration of the problem.

[mcmanic]

what PAUL M states is correct:

My History with NTL 120 HOME:
3meg on firmware 001 = fine
10meg on firmware 002 = 5/7meg BUT could get full 10meg of newsgroups
NTL update to firmware 003 = Hangs on any downloading at random points during download

[tomw|neowin]

Just an update from my neck of the woods. Nearly a week later (when I was promised a 3 day response, which is still poor) I've received a phone call to say that there is a known issue (well done, this forum told me that) and that they're looking into it and escalating cases. I asked if I could be swapped to an NTL 250 modem but I need to contact NTL customer services and speak to them regarding this and the constant loss of connectivity.

I hope they hurry this issue to get fixed but knowing NTL it will be weeks or maybe even months before it's fixed. They should just roll the modems back unless there was a real reason to roll them forward in the first place.

[JamShady]

Originally Posted by mcmanic

what PAUL M states is correct:

My History with NTL 120 HOME:
3meg on firmware 001 = fine
10meg on firmware 002 = 5/7meg BUT could get full 10meg of newsgroups
NTL update to firmware 003 = Hangs on any downloading at random points during download

I think the 5/7Mb is a limitation of other websites and servers. On mine, I consistently got 10Mb from robin walkers test site and some sites gave me 1000Kbps+ downloads for a short while. It depends on how fast the servers can send you the information.

[markknell]

I'm getting my modem swapped out on Saturday with, I assume, a 250. I don't think I will stop that happening even if NTL get it working during the week. If there weren't issues they wouldn't of updated the firmware in the first place.

[bugheadcjd]

I noticed this evening that my firmware has resorted back to Version 2:

ntlhm100_ntl0002.cpr