Constant internet drops since visit from cable guy (Charter)

[Graphic]

Ever since earlier last week when Charter came out to hook up cable (unfortunately I had to downgrade from DirecTV) the connection has been flickering on and off constantly. Sometimes I get fairly long periods of connectivity to where I can download something or play games, but in the evenings it's really bad. And now for pretty much the last 24 hours it's been constantly switching on and off.

I have a NetGear wireless cg814gcmr modem, though I have wireless disabled and use ethernet.

I've tried unplugging the modem for 30 seconds, rebooting the modem through the control panel, turning "firewall features" back on (with it on the connection will die if I refresh the server list in a multiplayer game), disabling and reenabling the network device within Vista, I've ran malware scans and virus scans, I've looked at HiJackThis. I've plugged the ethernet cable into the other port on my PC. I've probably done a few more things but I'm forgetting. Basically I'm stumped.

Through google I found another thread similar to mine from 2007 and people were telling him his power levels were too low or something, and according to some of the people who replied mine are within normal levels

Downstream Frequency 9.7 dBmV
SNR 39.4 dBmV
Upstream Frequency 38.2 dBmV

Also I clicked the red X in "network and sharing center" to get Vista to detect the problem. Usually it says cannot connect to primary DNS server, but a few times its said other things like I need to enable TCP performance settings or something, as well as telling me it has no idea what the problem is.

So, any ideas? I really really hope there's some way I can resolve this myself (with your help) because I really don't look forward to calling tech support in Indonesia or wherever.

[mccoffee]

Try replacing your network cable they could go bad if it's older. Make sure you have the latest firmware for your router which is found at the manufactures site. Make sure too that you have all the latest service packs and the lastest driver for your network card.

You could also try going to control panel my network places and your local area connection propites and disable the network discory and ipv6 stuff

[cammy96tears]

make the 'cable guy' come back, your paying for the service and it should be working in the manner in which your contract promises. Your might have a bum internet cable modem, or a sloppy cable installation, many things could be hay wire and it's the cable companies' responcibility to make sure that they're service is not frustrating you the consumer. Remember, the customer is always right. Our family use to have Charter Cable and we switched to AT&T Uverse, basically the same package we had with Charter Cable, but At&T is a new service in this town and Charter needed a competitor, they were getting lazy, sloppy, rude and all about the bottom dollar. One thing I did learn while i had Charter, when our home experienced a power surge, the TV, phone and internet would shut down, the only service that didn't return was my computer, the power surge crashed my program. Make sure you have your computer on a power surge adapter.