Does\can a modem slowly die?

[Sweed]

Been having connection problems for about 2 weeks. First thought it might be weather related outages but the trouble just kept continuing. Got home from visiting my son Sunday evening and went to get online. No go so I finally called mediacom to see what the issue might be. No known outages in my area. So, after about 10 days of this mediacom is sending a tech out tomorrow.

Motorola SB4200 (supplied by cable company)
Had since we first got high speed net, Nov. 2002.
Normally has 4 green lights (power, receive, send, online) and a yellow (activity).

What happens is I can be surfing and all of sudden page doesn't load look over and I am down to either one or two green lights. Modem is trying to come back up as third light is usually flashing. May go on for less than a minute or could last 10+ minutes. Kind of fucks up watching netflix.



FWIW we also have basic cable and that does not go out when my net connection quits.

So I'm wondering is it just the modem is old and slowly dying?

Other possibilities?

I'd kind of like to have some ideas of what might be a cause before the tech gets here if for no other reason that I won't feel so "in the dark" and at least be able to reasonably discuss or understand what the tech is doing.

Sorry, I know a bit late to be posting but between work, family, and procrastination:redface: its how it ended up.

Thanks for any input.

[HeavyReign]

I've had similar issues in the past that have been resolved by obtaining a new modem. No matter what the tech finds I'd still ask for a new one. You're leasing one from them so there's no reason they can't give you a newer one if only for peace of mind. When I had data issues there was no trouble at all with my TV service as well. The modem would just drop and then reconnect after x amount of time.

[Alan T]

Yes, that hardware can die, but that is not the most common occurrence to cause what you are seeing.

What you describe seeing with the light could be happening if the cable modem had reset or rebooted itself due to some kind of hardware or firmware failure, but the fact that it sometimes takes 10+ minutes for it to sync up in my mind makes it less likely that it is indeed a hardware issue.

This same problem can happen if there is a signaling issue on the actual connection itself. If the cable modem is not receiving a strong enough signal, it can have times that it actually drops the connection and has to re-search for it. Since you say that it sometimes takes 10+ minutes to come back, I think there is some kind of strength of signal to your box.

Now the strength of signal could be caused by something on your side, if you recently put in a cable splitter to add an additional tv or something, that could have caused your problem... or the issue could be on the cable company's side if they have over subscribed their service in your area, sometimes it can effect the strength of signal to other users in the area.

Another way this could happen is if you recently changed your tv service with them, and say reduced your plan, sometimes they can add filters to your cable connection to reduce what channels you can get, but that sometimes can also affect internet service if not careful.

Anyways I am giving a bunch of hypotheticals here. Generally most cable modems have some hidden admin page that you can connect to which will give you both a message log (in case the router had crashes or failures, where you can see the router uptime as well).. and you usually can see the signal strength as well to the modem. Either way having a tech out there will also be able to provide the same information and hopefully help you out.

[Sweed]

thanks guys really appreciate the help.

[PackerFanatic]

Another way this could happen is if you recently changed your tv service with them, and say reduced your plan, sometimes they can add filters to your cable connection to reduce what channels you can get, but that sometimes can also affect internet service if not careful.


This is exactly what happened to us once. Same type of internet issues, couldn't figure out why, so we called up Charter (ugh) and they came and removed one of the filters on our line. Fixed it right up.

Best part about it: we only had basic cable (the local channels) and them removing that filter gave us about a half dozen extra channels that we weren't paying for - including ESPN. It was fantastic :)