Forum Discussion

jkurlan's avatar
jkurlan
New Contributor II
5 years ago

Connection drops multiple times a day, reboot, repeat.

Central Connecticut area

since Tuesday around 4 pm, our connection has dropped out failed to reconnect until I physically unplug the power and coaxial cable and wait 30 seconds to plug it all back in. This happens multiple times a day. My spouse works from home and has been for 4 years with absolutely no errors other than the occasional power outages.

i called cox and did some phone troubleshooting. I was told my modem was the likely cause, I purchased a new modem on Wednesday and installed it Wednesday night. Everything came back up looked good, but about 2 hours later dropped out again.

i have since tried unplugging all devices from the network and tried just the wireless router which is a TP-Link OnHub by itself and I plugged my spouse’s work router directly into the Ethernet port in the modem by itself. Both of these trials produced the same problem. Connected for a while then a complete drop and a physical unplug and reboot of the modem. 

a service tech came out plugged his troubleshooting modem into the line and ran tests and said everything looked fine with no errors. He went outside and looked at the drops into the condo and also the main connection box for the building. He said everything looked good. 

the new modem is an arris surfboard sb6183 (the only arris device available in a 20 mile radius from bestbuy) we had an arris sb6141 which until I replaced it was working great and I was getting around 200 down and 11 up. Now I get, when working, 94 down and 11 up with the new modem. 

a tech is coming out Monday to check the lines but I’m concerned they will just look and say it all looks fine and then leave again. All my reading and understanding points to a problem outside the house between me and the street. I’ve been researching all the issues I can and trying all possible solutions on my end but I can’t help but feel that I have to prove that inside devices are not the problem. 

im more frustrated that my spouse cannot work and they are currently the breadwinner and their boss is getting super frustrated with the connection issues. I can deal with loss of personal internet but when it comes to a paycheck and a job, I’m a bit less understanding and a bit less happy That the service provider can’t solve this quickly without me calling 8-9 times.

  • Allan's avatar
    Allan
    Moderator
    5 years ago
    @Jkurlan, The modem is reporting good signals at this time. What router are you currently using? -Allan
    • jkurlan's avatar
      jkurlan
      New Contributor II
      5 years ago

      Hi Allan,

      it is a google WiFi OnHub made by TP-Link. 

      thank you for your reply!

    • jkurlan's avatar
      jkurlan
      New Contributor II
      5 years ago

      Allan,

      I tested out connection with the router plugged into the LAN Ethernet port, with nothing attached to the router except the wireless devices. That connection dropped off. I also tested with my spouse’s work system plugged directly into the LAN Ethernet port. That is a CiSCO 800 series. Both tests caused the same connection issue. When I was testing both setups, no other devices were powered or connected to the network. 

    • jkurlan's avatar
      jkurlan
      New Contributor II
      5 years ago

      I also tried to post the event log from the modem but it keeps getting flagged as spam. 

  • jkurlan's avatar
    jkurlan
    New Contributor II
    5 years ago

    Latest drop event log:

    Sat Aug 22 13:17:01 2020Warning (5)MDD message timeout;CM-MAC=50:95:51:57:34:13;CMTS-MAC=00:d6:fe:e7:7d:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;Sat Aug 22 14:44:53 2020Critical (3)Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=50:95:51:57:34:13;CMTS-MAC=00:d6:fe:e7:7d:cf;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

    • MarkM1's avatar
      MarkM1
      Former Moderator
      5 years ago
      jkurlan,

      We want to discuss your issue to see what needs to be done to resolve this issue. Would you send us an email to cox.help@cox.com with your name & full address so we can do this for you? Please include a link to this forum as well.

      Mark M.
      Cox Support Forums Moderator
      • jkurlan's avatar
        jkurlan
        New Contributor II
        5 years ago

        Hi Mark,

        I sent an email to the address you provided. I included the event logs I have from the modem as well as the status page from the modem just before service dropped out. 

        I am seeing multiple T2, T3 and some T4 errors on the event log from the modem. I replaced the coaxial cable from the modem to the wall and I am still having issues. The service tech that came out checked my original cable, which was provided by a tech a few years back, and said it looked good. The coaxial cables I have are about 3-4’ in length total and there are no splitters inside the house. 

        thank you!

  • ChrisL's avatar
    ChrisL
    Former Moderator
    5 years ago
    I checked the modem as well and it's reporting that the device connected to the Ethernet is not fast enough to support your subscribed speeds. Can you try connecting a PC with a gigabit Ethernet port directly to the modem and testing the connection that way? Be sure you reboot the modem after connecting the PC to get the connection working again.

    -Chris
    • jkurlan's avatar
      jkurlan
      New Contributor II
      5 years ago

      Hi Chris,

      i have been running this setup for at least two years with no issues. The first instance of  this problem occurred on Tuesday of this past week. I was running a SB6141 which had been working perfectly. The telephone tech told me I needed to replace the modem. I did that with the SB6183 and it still has the same issues. No other devices were replaced. I was getting 200+ down and 11 up on the sb6141 and the tp-link OnHub with no issues for 2 years.

      i also plugged my spouse’s Cisco 800 work vpn router which has not had any issues for 2 years into the modem LAN port. It had the exact same issues. 

      now with the new sb6183 I’m getting 94 down and 11 up. It was working fine for about 2-3 hours then all of a sudden it dropped. 


      I guess I’m confused as to why for 2 years it’s worked perfectly and all of a sudden it fails completely with 2 separate modems one being new out of the box?

      • ChrisL's avatar
        ChrisL
        Former Moderator
        5 years ago
        If you had previously been able to get +200Mbps speeds with the current equipment I suspect you may have a failing Ethernet connection between the modem and the TP-Link router as how I checked again and the phy link is still reporting 100Mbps. If your router's WAN port supports Gigabit Ethernet I suspect the connection may be failing back to 100 mode.

        -Chris