Intermittent Internet Outages

[jockinafrock]

I'd be obliged if someone from VM would provide an answer for me! I have been having intermittent internet outages for the past 4 - 6 weeks - they generally last only 10-15 minutes but is becoming very frustrating. The only symptoms are when clicking on a web site or URL the normal www.xxxxx.com format at the bottom left of the browser (IE8) is replaced by the numerical URL eg 80.221.431 and nothing happens until IE8 decides that there is a URL or connection problem! It seems that this problem arose when our area (South Coast) started the 2 > 10MB upgrade - if this is the reason then I'd be obliged if someone would let me know and we could live with it until the upgrade is completed. It isn't only me - my friend about 1 mile away is having similar problems. I spoke with the Indian help desk some weeks ago who were as much use a chocolate teapot - he completely misread the problem and wanted to post me a new modem!
Any update or advice would be very welcome.
Thanks

[webcrawler2050]

Follow this link and post the results please:

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/94...l#post34852254

If you are experiencing, speed issues with your Virgin Media connection and require assistance. There are a few things, you will be asked for. In order, to make life a little easier, I've put together what will be asked for certain and a few “self help” steps.

These steps also, apply to network timeouts aswell as slow speeds.

Step 1] Reboot Virgin Media Modem & Router

Whilst this may seem, a very simple idea. It's very important indeed.


Step 2] How – are you connected from your PC to Virgin Media.

Are you connected, via Ethernet direct into the Virgin Media Modem or are you connected via another method. Providing this, in your request for help. Will assist everyone. Providing as much information here as possible, will help speed up the process

Step 3] Timing

Is there any specific times, you have your connection troubles. We will need to know, to rule out STM

Step 4] We need to see, PING results.

I strongly, recommend, you do this, on Ethernet, if you have a router and modem, please try Ping'ing sites will both, with router and without router and providing both sets of results.

If you are on Windows XP Please do the following..

Click start >> then run >> in the run box type cmd and press enter.

A black box, will pop up and in the black box, type ping www.bbc.co.uk (Or the website / IP you are having network timeout with)

If you are on Windows Vista please do the following

Click Start >> Then in the search box, just about the start button, type cmd – don't press enter, at the top of the start bar, cmd.exe will show up. Please click “cmd.exe”

A black box, will pop up and in the black box, type ping www.bbc.co.uk (Or the website / IP you are having network timesout with)

Once, you have done a PING please, keep CMD open

Step 5] – We need to see a trace route

I strongly, recommend, you do this, on ethernet, if you have a router and modem, please try traceroute for both, with router and without router and providing results for both setups.

You should, have CMD still open...

type tracert www.bbc.co.uk (Or the website / IP you are having network timesout with)

We will need to see results from both ping and tracert.

If you don't know how to copy from CMD.

Here is how. Top left hand corner you will see a box, icon, with c:\ click, this and then go down to edit, then click mark. Now, select the results you want to copy. Now, go back to the icon in the top left and click, edit copy and then paste them into the forum thread.


Step 6] Power levels

It will be very helpful, if you are able to post the upstream and downstream power levels.

Simple, open up your browser and type 192.168.100.1

Click downstream and paste the results from that page. Do the same for upstream

Step 7] Speed Test / Downloading

Using a site such as http://www.speedtest.net - get a speed test for your connection. I would strongly, recommend, doing this whilst you have no Wifi and testing this, with both methods. For example, if you have a router and a modem, do the test for both options. With and without router.

I must, stress, that these “speed test” sites are not always accurate, they can made inaccurate by a variety of things, specifications of the server, transit routing of the server, load of the server, etc etc.

Could you please, download some large files, 200MB plus and tell us the download speed.

Step 8] Anti Virus / Spyware / Malware

Have you got any of these installed? If so, does disabling them all, make a difference?


Providing as much information, to the users of Cable forum, will make life easier.

Network timeouts – If you are getting network timeouts on your Virgin Media connection, this is 99.9% a transit routing issue. Very simply, do the tests above and speak to the Virgin Media Technical Support.

I've pasted it here, to make it quicker for you

[jockinafrock]

Thanks webcrawler 2050 here's the results that you requested - hopefully these will reach you!

1. Modem Rebooted - no router or WiFi connected.

2. Connection to cable modem (NTL 250) is by direct ethernet.

3. Timing - The outages can occur at any time.

4. Ping results - To bbc.co.uk:

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=118
Ping statistics for 212.58.224.138:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 15ms, Maximum = 22ms, Average = 17ms

5. Tracert - To bbc.co.uk:

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=118
Ping statistics for 212.58.224.138:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 15ms, Maximum = 22ms, Average = 17ms

6. Power Levels
Cable Modem Downstream
Downstream Lock : LockedDownstream Channel Id : 0Downstream Frequency : 586750000 HzDownstream Modulation : QAM64Downstream Symbol Rate : 6952 Ksym/secDownstream Interleave Depth : taps12Increment17Downstream Receive Power Level : 0.8 dBmVDownstream SNR : 33.2 dB

Cable Modem Upstream
Upstream Lock :
LockedUpstream Channel ID : 2Upstream Frequency : 22200000 HzUpstream Modulation : QPSKUpstream Symbol Rate : 2560 Ksym/secUpstream transmit Power Level : 43.0 dBmVUpstream Mini-Slot Size : 2

7. Speed Test - (Using Speedtest.net > Maidenhead server)
Ping: 10mS
Download: 5.88Mb/s
Upload: 0.48 Mb/s

8. Antivirus - AVG Free running in the background - no change if closed.

Hopefully these results will reveal what the problems are - many thanks in advance.
Jock

[webcrawler2050]

Originally Posted by jockinafrock

Thanks webcrawler 2050 here's the results that you requested - hopefully these will reach you!

1. Modem Rebooted - no router or WiFi connected.

2. Connection to cable modem (NTL 250) is by direct ethernet.

3. Timing - The outages can occur at any time.

4. Ping results - To bbc.co.uk:

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=118
Ping statistics for 212.58.224.138:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 15ms, Maximum = 22ms, Average = 17ms

5. Tracert - To bbc.co.uk:

Pinging bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.138] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=17ms TTL=118
Reply from 212.58.224.138: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=118
Ping statistics for 212.58.224.138:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 15ms, Maximum = 22ms, Average = 17ms

6. Power Levels
Cable Modem Downstream
Downstream Lock : LockedDownstream Channel Id : 0Downstream Frequency : 586750000 HzDownstream Modulation : QAM64Downstream Symbol Rate : 6952 Ksym/secDownstream Interleave Depth : taps12Increment17Downstream Receive Power Level : 0.8 dBmVDownstream SNR : 33.2 dB

Cable Modem Upstream
Upstream Lock :
LockedUpstream Channel ID : 2Upstream Frequency : 22200000 HzUpstream Modulation : QPSKUpstream Symbol Rate : 2560 Ksym/secUpstream transmit Power Level : 43.0 dBmVUpstream Mini-Slot Size : 2

7. Speed Test - (Using Speedtest.net > Maidenhead server)
Ping: 10mS
Download: 5.88Mb/s
Upload: 0.48 Mb/s

8. Antivirus - AVG Free running in the background - no change if closed.

Hopefully these results will reveal what the problems are - many thanks in advance.
Jock

Pings Are fine
Power levels look fine, can a VM guy confirm?

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by jockinafrock

Downstream Receive Power Level : 0.8 dBmVDownstream SNR : 33.2 dB

Upstream transmit Power Level : 43.0 dBmV

They are spot on.

Can you browse via IP address?
212.58.251.197 is the BBC's address.

[jockinafrock]

Yes - the BBC home page opens.

Have you set static DNS?
Have you tried flushing your dns?
ipconfig /flushdns

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by jockinafrock

I'd be obliged if someone from VM would provide an answer for me! I have been having intermittent internet outages for the past 4 - 6 weeks - they generally last only 10-15 minutes but is becoming very frustrating. The only symptoms are when clicking on a web site or URL the normal www.xxxxx.com format at the bottom left of the browser (IE8) is replaced by the numerical URL eg 80.221.431 and nothing happens until IE8 decides that there is a URL or connection problem! It seems that this problem arose when our area (South Coast) started the 2 > 10MB upgrade - if this is the reason then I'd be obliged if someone would let me know and we could live with it until the upgrade is completed. It isn't only me - my friend about 1 mile away is having similar problems. I spoke with the Indian help desk some weeks ago who were as much use a chocolate teapot - he completely misread the problem and wanted to post me a new modem!
Any update or advice would be very welcome.
Thanks

Relevant bit highlighted - this appears to be a DNS / browser issue.

Webcrawler stop spamming that crappy script and actually read the original posts for a change. With your MCSE, MCP, CCNA, Network+, A+, etc you claim to have you should be able to spot a probable DNS issue rather than wasting people's time having them run through irrelevant tests like a robot.

OP - try using OpenDNS and see if it makes any difference - http://www.opendns.com has everything you need.

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

Relevant bit highlighted - this appears to be a DNS / browser issue.

Webcrawler stop spamming that crappy script and actually read the original posts for a change. With your MCSE, MCP, CCNA, Network+, A+, etc you claim to have you should be able to spot a probable DNS issue rather than wasting people's time having them run through irrelevant tests like a robot.

OP - try using OpenDNS and see if it makes any difference - http://www.opendns.com has everything you need.

Do I win a prize BB?
Gimme a cookie

Originally Posted by xocemp

Have you set static DNS?
Have you tried flushing your dns?
ipconfig /flushdns

[jockinafrock]

I have flushed the DNS using ipconfig /flushdns but the problem remained. I have since downloaded and installed Firefox as a secondary browser to see if the problem persisted - to my surprise I have had no further problems using Firefox. I have occasionally switched back to IE8 & the problem is still there intermittently! Firefox will now be used predominantly! Many thanks to all of you who helped me with this problem.