Hi
I have been having intermittent problems with my RR connection dropping my connection for short periods of time. I have gotten up to Level 3 tech support and still no one can help ( of course by the time I get them on the phne the problem is gone). It is especially a pain when using AOL, since it drops off the whole TC/IP connection and I then have to sign on again and reload everything I was doing on aol. All the lights are working on the modem when the problem is there. They have tested the connection and it appears to be fine. We have played around a bit with winipcfg, changing my IP address, but nothing works and it keeps happening. It can not happen for two days and then it happens every 10 minutes. Sometimes I have to just walk away from the computer for 10 min and then come back and sign on. Of course when the aol isn't working, either is my seperate MSIE.
Anyone have any hints what to do??
Thanks,
John
Road Runner intermittent disconnects
-
StealthII
It's kinda wierd that you mentioned this, I live in orlando and I've been having this problem too. It won't happen for like a week but then one day the signal disconnects, and won't turn on for like 20 minutes. I had a tech come out here and replace some splitters that he said were bad, I don't know if that will work. Maybe?
Rich
Rich
-
johnstimmel
Who do you have for your ISP? What Modem are they having you use?
I'm beginning to think that this is very common! I experienced the same ordeal for almost 3 months and 7 truck rolls, until I had a cable line tech sitting here when it happened. It's strange how the darn things work just fine when you've called to complain, and as soon as the tech leaves, the problems return.
The tech caught a fluctuation in the signal strength, that was just enough to knock the modem off sync. The cable company replaced everything, from the tap at the pole right down to the ground connector, before the issue resolved. I still have, on occasion, random disconnects, but nothing in frequency that I was having before.
They still haven't figured out what is causing the variations, but they know it's on their end and not mine. I hope it doesn't turn into the same situation for you, but it sure sounds like it. Keep calling and complaining! Sooner or later, they will catch on to what is happening.
I know it's frustrating as all get out, especially when the thing works fine when they are looking at it, but if it acts up in their presence, they can hook up their line tester and see what is going on.
You don't mention your location. I might suggest that they check for water in the tap at the pole. It seems to be a very regular thing in moisture laden areas. They're making better, more water proof taps, but even they seem to collect some moisture that results in corroded, poor connections.
Just a thought and hope this helps you out some.
I'm beginning to think that this is very common! I experienced the same ordeal for almost 3 months and 7 truck rolls, until I had a cable line tech sitting here when it happened. It's strange how the darn things work just fine when you've called to complain, and as soon as the tech leaves, the problems return.
The tech caught a fluctuation in the signal strength, that was just enough to knock the modem off sync. The cable company replaced everything, from the tap at the pole right down to the ground connector, before the issue resolved. I still have, on occasion, random disconnects, but nothing in frequency that I was having before.
They still haven't figured out what is causing the variations, but they know it's on their end and not mine. I hope it doesn't turn into the same situation for you, but it sure sounds like it. Keep calling and complaining! Sooner or later, they will catch on to what is happening.
I know it's frustrating as all get out, especially when the thing works fine when they are looking at it, but if it acts up in their presence, they can hook up their line tester and see what is going on.
You don't mention your location. I might suggest that they check for water in the tap at the pole. It seems to be a very regular thing in moisture laden areas. They're making better, more water proof taps, but even they seem to collect some moisture that results in corroded, poor connections.
Just a thought and hope this helps you out some.
-
johnstimmel
I'm assuming your speaking of Time Warner Cable/Road Runner.
The part I don't understand is that your cable light on the modem never goes out during these suspends, correct? If it doesn't, then I don't think it is a signal issue like I previously thought.
I'm going to back off of this one and see if rodrod5, wee96, or perhaps Indy doesn't see this and pick up on it. Kip, if your reading this, what is your view on this subject?
I'm sure someone will have a little more insight to what your experiencing from the above people. Try to hang in there.
The part I don't understand is that your cable light on the modem never goes out during these suspends, correct? If it doesn't, then I don't think it is a signal issue like I previously thought.
I'm going to back off of this one and see if rodrod5, wee96, or perhaps Indy doesn't see this and pick up on it. Kip, if your reading this, what is your view on this subject?
I'm sure someone will have a little more insight to what your experiencing from the above people. Try to hang in there.
-
johnstimmel
That is correct. I have been very careful to observe that even when I get disconnected and can't sign back on, the three lights stay lit as usual and the 4th light still flashes on and off as if data is coming through- Yet I get disconnected from AOL if I am signed on, and at the same time I cannot get MSIE to connect to the home page as well. Still perplexed.
John
John
i also have this problem frequently.. has been happenin for last cuple months.. at first thought it was because of the format.. but now im seeing others with same problem i highly doubt format had any affect on the situation... will be cruisin sites.. readin as much info as possible like always.. and conexion will just drop.. but if i have a dcc runnin thru xircon (irc client).. it isnt affected... no more conexion thru IE... no conexion thru Netscape... when i open another session of xircon and try to connect to another server.. doesnt connect.. yet the first dcc that is still runnin is fine.. strange.. every time it happens i have to restart comp. just let current dcc finish and restart..
at first was happening every 15 minutes.. got so tired of it.. didnt even come over here (moms & pops) for a cuple weeks, now isnt so bad.. but still happens sparatically
seems it can keep current transfers.. long as there is no interruption.. otherwise transfers result in time-outs.. and endless retries for conexion.
and im left thinkin wtf!?!
kansas city, mo
time warner road runner w/ motorola C67F6E0
HP 850MHz PIII
512MB 133 SDRAM
at first was happening every 15 minutes.. got so tired of it.. didnt even come over here (moms & pops) for a cuple weeks, now isnt so bad.. but still happens sparatically
seems it can keep current transfers.. long as there is no interruption.. otherwise transfers result in time-outs.. and endless retries for conexion.
and im left thinkin wtf!?!
kansas city, mo
time warner road runner w/ motorola C67F6E0
HP 850MHz PIII
512MB 133 SDRAM
morning yall ive got OOL and i have had this prob too it started (for me at least) when the first code red virius hit the optimum online servers/they sent out a email to all of they customers telling them that they would be doing line and system checks over the next month or two and while these check were going on we woould lose our connection then just when it look like it was all going to stop and get back to normal everybody gets hit with the nimda worm and low & behold OOL sends out another email this one was the same thing as the last but this has nimda where code red was/so if they RR service you have is dealing with the same prob they're just not being straight with yall/but of course it could be something else entirely i dont know but i thought this might be a bit of useful info if it is what is going on with your connection probs
knowledge is the first key to wisdom
-
Revision78
- New Member
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2001 4:49 pm
- Location: Houston Texas
First, to let you know, the first three light will stay on no matter what. Lately with mine when it does that, they end up having had problems with their DHCP servers. If you don't powercycle the toshiba when this happens all three lights WILL stay green. The fourth light that blinks for data simply shows that there is data trying to leave your machine or that it is trying to come in. Most likely it is the modem trying to send previous info out to make sure it is connected still. I would suggest getting some type of keepalive software to keep more activity going through your line and then to keep an eye on the service bulletins on their webpage. Normally found at http://www.thecityyoulivein.rr.com
let me know if any of that helps.
like i said though here it's mostly been problems with the dhcp servers.
let me know if any of that helps.
like i said though here it's mostly been problems with the dhcp servers.
-
Kip Patterson
- Senior Member
- Posts: 4438
- Joined: Wed Jun 07, 2000 12:00 pm
- Location: Columbus, Ohio
-
johnstimmel
Hello Kip,
I don't have to do anything, just wait out the disconnect, which has been anywhere from a split second, in which case I can sign right back on, to 5 or 10 minutes. It is probably most often between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. No reboot is necessary, nor does often rebooting help the situation. And going into winipcfg and releasing and then renewing the address hasn't helped either. At this pt I'm just hoping it goes away, I find it hard to get their tech support even on the line, and impossible to get them on the line while the problem exists. I was hoping that many others experienced the same problem so that I could attribute it to a system error that I could feel would eventually be corrected.
Any help would of course be much appreciated.
John
I don't have to do anything, just wait out the disconnect, which has been anywhere from a split second, in which case I can sign right back on, to 5 or 10 minutes. It is probably most often between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. No reboot is necessary, nor does often rebooting help the situation. And going into winipcfg and releasing and then renewing the address hasn't helped either. At this pt I'm just hoping it goes away, I find it hard to get their tech support even on the line, and impossible to get them on the line while the problem exists. I was hoping that many others experienced the same problem so that I could attribute it to a system error that I could feel would eventually be corrected.
Any help would of course be much appreciated.
John
-
nbrowning
Well, it sounds like you are having the EXACT same type of problem(everything from the cable modem lights to the response from RR) we have had for a several months. We called and called and had I think 8 people out. They replaced the modem, the NIC card, the line from the modem to the wall, and nothing helped. The problem would come and go, and usually it would be gone the moment the tech got here. RR actually stopped calling me back because I kept calling all the time.
Finally, the problem settled out to where it would only occur at night - we could connect during the day, but at night we couldn't.
Empirically, one last line in the house was changed - the one from the wall to the outside of the house. Things have worked reasonably well since then. Not perfectly(I still have a little packet loss) but a 1000% improvement. This sounds very similar to blebs99's experience.
I think cable modems are extraordinarily sensitive to noise and all it takes is one bad line or connection to foul everything up.
BTW, we got the same story from RR and TWC - "No one else in your neighborhood is having a problem", so it probably isn't us. Well, it wasn't - it was the line in our house. It's probably a line in your building.
My suggestion would be to insist that a new line (including splitters) be run from the modem to the tap for the building - it appears that a bad line caused a quirky set of problems for us for months (three, to be exact). They don't want to do it because it's difficult - but I bet it will work. It's too similar to bleb99 and our experience to be something else.
Finally, the problem settled out to where it would only occur at night - we could connect during the day, but at night we couldn't.
Empirically, one last line in the house was changed - the one from the wall to the outside of the house. Things have worked reasonably well since then. Not perfectly(I still have a little packet loss) but a 1000% improvement. This sounds very similar to blebs99's experience.
I think cable modems are extraordinarily sensitive to noise and all it takes is one bad line or connection to foul everything up.
BTW, we got the same story from RR and TWC - "No one else in your neighborhood is having a problem", so it probably isn't us. Well, it wasn't - it was the line in our house. It's probably a line in your building.
My suggestion would be to insist that a new line (including splitters) be run from the modem to the tap for the building - it appears that a bad line caused a quirky set of problems for us for months (three, to be exact). They don't want to do it because it's difficult - but I bet it will work. It's too similar to bleb99 and our experience to be something else.
-
nodata
I have same problem...
But let me tell you that I installed a new NIC and my RR connection was trying to access the internet through the new NIC (which wasn't connected to the cable modem) and I couldn't get online. So I uninstalled the new NIC (leaving my old one...which was better anyway) and THEN I started having the random disconnects. Like it was mentioned before, the lights on the modem NEVER go out, the "Activity" light flashes still like normal. If I reboot the Pc, Usually it starts fine again....wierd.
-
nbrowning
Yeah, interestingly enough all my problems seemed to stem from the time around when I changed my motherboard and processor.
Still, it took line changes to make it work properly. I think (but don't know) that if you have an intermittent problem (meaning you can connect normally some of the time) then the cause is not in the computer/NIC/modem arena. Cables are actually pretty fragile and the setup is somewhat finicky.
Still, it took line changes to make it work properly. I think (but don't know) that if you have an intermittent problem (meaning you can connect normally some of the time) then the cause is not in the computer/NIC/modem arena. Cables are actually pretty fragile and the setup is somewhat finicky.
-
Revision78
- New Member
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2001 4:49 pm
- Location: Houston Texas
nodata:
What os are you running? if it's 98 or me i noticed i would have problems until i booted into safe mode to remove what i call ghost drivers of the previous nic or hardware that was removed. It's worth a shot none the less.
If it's a toshiba modem, you will have an activity light no matter what if it is connected to your computer because your computers sends out broadcasts all the time. Just like if you have a nic in your computer and you plug in a patch cable to the nic but not to anything else such as a router or hub, the activity light on your nic will blink randomly too because it senses some sort of connection to the cable and starts sending out broadcasts.
The ghost drivers are worth a shot though.
What os are you running? if it's 98 or me i noticed i would have problems until i booted into safe mode to remove what i call ghost drivers of the previous nic or hardware that was removed. It's worth a shot none the less.
If it's a toshiba modem, you will have an activity light no matter what if it is connected to your computer because your computers sends out broadcasts all the time. Just like if you have a nic in your computer and you plug in a patch cable to the nic but not to anything else such as a router or hub, the activity light on your nic will blink randomly too because it senses some sort of connection to the cable and starts sending out broadcasts.
The ghost drivers are worth a shot though.
---Resurrecting this old thread because it's not too old and it is the first in the Google results for search string site:speedguide.net roadrunner disconnects, so it has the most hits for the site.johnstimmel wrote:Hi
I have been having intermittent problems with my RR connection dropping my connection for short periods of time. I have gotten up to Level 3 tech support and still no one can help of course by the time I get them on the phne the problem is gone). It is especially a pain when using AOL, since it drops off the whole TC/IP connection and I then have to sign on again and reload everything I was doing on aol. All the lights are working on the modem when the problem is there. They have tested the connection and it appears to be fine. We have played around a bit with winipcfg, changing my IP address, but nothing works and it keeps happening. It can not happen for two days and then it happens every 10 minutes. Sometimes I have to just walk away from the computer for 10 min and then come back and sign on. Of course when the aol isn't working, either is my seperate MSIE.
Anyone have any hints what to do??
Thanks,
John
---I have been a client of AOL/Time Warner/Brighthouse since 1999 and ever since they made the move to broadband (AKA Roadrunner) there have been issues with communication, or better yet, noise/interference in the lines that cause disconnects. Not long ago, my wife called in and complained while I was at work and they said there was a high pitched squeal detected when testing from the station. All early instances of testing had the technicians (all level 3) claimed it was an issue in the area and they haven't been able to detect where it was, just "in the area".
---All too many times I was getting kicked off the phone when someone connected to the internet or I was disconnected from the internet when someone tried using the phone. That really pissed me off because not only does my router go out once a week if not more, for 2-4 hours between the hours of 1am and 8am, but the phone has been down during times of hurricanes (I watch Vipir and NOAA radar and warn family as well), during news of my Grandfather's death, pretty much at any* inconvenient time ~insert Murphy's Law here~
---Customer Service always has said "it's your router, can you please disconnect it?" and I, after telling them it's not my router, not my system and not my phones, tell them without doing it that I did it... lol. All too many times they have said "sometimes it's the antivirus, can you please disable it and any malware programs, plus any firewalls?" That gets me screaming "in this age, a person can be attacked within seconds and you want me to invite them?". I have gotten so fed up that I told them ahead of time, to send their technician with a new modem because if they aren't going to narrow it down, I am going to... after verifying everything inside the home was top-notch (even Draka Comteq's shielded, plenum Cat6, AMP gold RJ45 terminals crimped correctly... with AMP crimpers even), they were forced to GTFO of my house and find the problem. Now they're trying to take me through the motions on the phone again, "... it's your router...". Get this: Recently we have had issues that are so annoying, I just wanted to start a bandwagon on this site, being my favorite site since I had dialup... been over two decades so I can't say when, but my profile says I finally joined in `08. Anyway, this one beats all.
---Router disconnects every five minutes if not less. I reboot my router to get the new connection and it does it again in 5min or less. Imagine working on vehicles out in the yard and your wife has to call you in every 5 minutes to reset the connection. Don't get me wrong, she's not a moron. Though she has no technical skills beyond farmville and knowing her way around the Paint Shop Pro control panel, including add-on panels, she knows if she bothers me, I will get on the phone with the :censored: employees and one day... be reimbursed for 20 years of hassle.
---One day my wife is on her laptop and she loses connection. I'm in the room so I said, "lemme try this" and accessed the router's settings page. Even rebooted the router from a wireless connection. No problems there at all. Then again, 5 minutes later, it drops the connection again. This time I am at my computer, so I restart the router and then the modem and all is good. However, while watching, I see the damned modem flash off for a millisecond (I'm exaggerating, more like 1/100 of a second). The lights on the router stay on... but the internet is gone.
---Called them Friday up and they sent someone out... ahead of schedule... go figure. Shut me up for the weekend I guess cause all he did was say "it is at the pole" like all the rest of the technicians do once they realize they can't BS me by telling me it is something inside. The techie this time realized that as soon as he walked into my office. Only thing he said is "might be a power issue", then I told him my PC is on a dedicated 220V line from the old window mount AC unit, so no... that Harrier Jump Jet (what my military bud nicknamed my workstation) you hear is not robbing anything and I used my wife's laptop accessed the router when my computer was off. Other than that, the wiring is 12 years old, all*screws for switches & receptacles as well as the lugs in the breaker box have been tightened down... he just stopped and said, "... I'll go check outside... " and narrowed it down to "... the pole... ".
---I was even kicked off their digital phone this morning, while I was on hold listening to Cindy Lauper's Living In a Material World (O...M...G...! I can just see 50+ foreign tech support gurus bouncing around signing "MATERIAL!" between misheard/misspoken lyrics... enjoy that 80s california teen movie visual, my compliment) and the phone just went dead. I was there, but the music was gone. I was thinking the langoliers were coming for me cause I haven't applied at Brighthouse and gone out myself to repair this mythological, disappearing, defective "pole". They supposedly came out yesterday, the workers said the problem was resolved after repairing the connection at the pole and readings were within specs. Even though I was outside 80% of the day, I didn't see them on the corner of my property, where the pole is... and the problem is still here. Wow, they sure can put that extension ladder up quick... especially working around power lines.
~edit~
---Amazing! When only one device is connected to the internet, we have no* issues. I was doing things around the house while typing this reply and over an hour later, I go to send/submit and there's no lagging, nothing. Now I am wondering if it is a way to force us to use their router or purchase additional IPs.