How Can You Tell When Your Cable Modem Starts To Go?

It seems prevalent in the morning were I would get disconnected for awhile. Sometimes quite awhile. Sometimes in the evening. But it seems to mostly be in mid to late morning. I've called my internet provider and was told there is no problems in the neighborhood and said my cable modem must be bad. It's a Netgear cable modem I purchase so I woudn't have to pay them rent, and it's much better then what they gave me.
It's not that old (less then a year). Would a cable modem start to go bad slowly like this, or would it simply stop working altogether?
I'm wondering if there isn't a problem with their line that comes to my house.

 

In all probability, yes.
Modems usually don't work fine and then not.
And if you are confident your ISP is truthfull, then you should have a look at the cables.

 

What do you mean by "I"? Do you mean your computer (as in just one computer), or (and this is important!) do you mean every connected device in the house?

If, when you are disconnected, you can log into the admin menu of your Netgear, your network is probably fine.

I agree with all of the above. If your modem was failing, the time of day would not matter except, maybe, if the ambient (room) temperature varied greatly throughout the day, and the modem failures correlated with those temperature swings.

Do you have cable TV too? If you do and it remains stable throughout the day, the physical cable line into your home is likely good.

Have you reset/power cycled your modem? If you unplug the power from the modem and leave it off about 10 minutes (or even overnight) this will (or should) force your ISP's system to re-authenicate the modem, and it will force the router and modem to re-handshake.

Then I would look at the cables on your side of the modem. If you have a separate router, consider replacing the Ethernet cable between the modem and router. Those cables are extremely critical network devices that are cheap and easily damaged. You can change the Ethernet cable from your computer to the router too. If connected to one of the 4 Ethernet ports on your router/modem, change ports. They can go bad too.

Last, do not go too far with this before contacting Netgear for possible warranty support. And for the record, I have used Netgear devices for years. While it is always possible to get a lemon, I have found them to be very reliable.

 

I have a separate cable modem and router, and the connection to the router is fine. But on the cable modem all the green lines which show an internet connection go to red.

 

Looking at Netgear's site explaining lights, only DSL modems show red.
https://netgear-us.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/24244/~/understanding-netgear-led-symbols
Cable modem lights are green, amber or white.

What is the exact model of Netgear modem you are using?

That was not true in our home. The tvs remained on but the internet kept dropping. Comcast told me the modem was going out and needed to be replaced. I bought a new one swapped it out and the dropped connections, on internet only, still happened. I called and complained and finally got a tech to come to the house.

 

And what did the tech do? Note I was referring to the "the physical cable" coming into the home itself and I said "likely good". Did he have to replace the entire cable "drop" (from the pole to the house, for example)? Or just cable segments to the modem? Or did he replace a splitter?

For cable where there is cable TV and cable Internet service, there will be at least one splitter in the RG-6 coaxial cable coming into the house. One side runs to the modem, the other side feeds the TVs (and there may be more splitters on the TV side). There can be a problem with the cable anywhere along the run, starting at the pole. Splitters can be on the exterior of the house or inside. Exterior located splitters are subject to weathering and moisture intrusion that may affect one side or the other, or both.

Also, F-type connectors can become corroded or loose. And if the cable is not properly terminated (poor connector assembly/attachment) performance can degrade (attenuate) over time.

Older cable installations often used splitters that did not have the proper frequency range or too much internal attenuation (dB loss) to deal with TV and the ever increasing bandwidth Internet providers offered.

So it is wise to make sure splitters are kept to a minimum and of good quality. Use a two-way with one side directly to the modem, the other to all the TVs. Ensure quality connectors are used, properly terminated, and tight.

And older cable installations often used RG-59 instead of the better insulated and "shielded" RG-6 which also has a larger conductor. Note this was also back when most homes had just 1 or 2 TVs too. RG-59 worked then, but not so well as more splitters were used to feed more TVs, and especially if Internet service was added later on. So if RG-59 was originally used when the cable TV service was installed, replacing it with RG-6 is commonly done today just out of routine.

There are always exceptions but as a general rule, if the cable TV reception is good, "the physical cable line into your home is likely good".

 

Neither. He put some sort of amplifier on the line. (I don't know what it looked like because you have to use a creeper to get into the section of the basement where the cable comes into the house. Something was plugged into an electrical outlet though that we were told not to remove.

The next tech that came into the house, said the amplifier wasn't needed and removed it! That tech decided to put new wire from the one cable outlet to the modem. No other wires were replaced.

The tv wires don't attach to an outlet. All the tv wires come up through the floor from the basement. Our home was wired years before we moved in without putting in the cable outlets. I hired an electrician to put the one outlet in when I decided I was going to get internet access. I knew I needed that to be on it's on line and not on a splitter with 4 tv wires.

All I know is that we no longer get dropped internet access.

 

Yeah, you house sounds like mine. It was built in 1960. I bought it in 1989 and it had TV cable already, but as you said, just cables coming out of walls and floors (no wall outlets or jacks). Then when I got Internet, they put a splitter in where it entered the house.

You do from somewhere. There has to be a cable coming into the house, either as a real "drop" off a pole outside, or via underground.

 

Our home was built in 1955 and we moved in as the 2nd owners in 1989. We have no cable jacks and the phone jack are those 4 hole things that I fit a unit in that has an RJ11 connector on.


You misunderstood. I meant the access to the internet no longer drops.
Of course we have a cable drop. We have a line coming into the house from a larger line running through the back yards and connected to some hardware on a pole at the corner of our property.

When 4 trees fell on our roof in 2011, the drop to the house was touched but the cable didn't go out because the line had enough slack to still connect. It laid on the ground but was still attached to the house but no longer covered by the plastic housing unit. The housing attached to our home broke and eventually after the trees were removed, Comcast had to come out and put up a new housing on our home for the wire.

 

Ah, thanks for clarifying. That makes sense now.

I am surprised they didn't replace the drop with a new cable since it was down anyway. I guess he didn't want to (or was not certified to) climb the pole. While your cable did not break, it might have been stretched and that can change the electrical characteristics of cables that carry high frequency signals.

In newer neighborhoods, they often have buried cables. While you then have to worry about moisture breaching the insulation barriers, or critters (moles, insects, etc.) chomping on the cables, or an X son-in-law being careless with a roto-tiller , buried cables tend to be much more robust, and certainly much more immune to falling tree or falling branch damage.

 

Except we haven't had problems since 2011.

The problems I mentioned were much earlier, 2004 and 2005.

We have called to have the drop replaced. <sigh> I guess if everything works, they drag their feet because nothing has happened in the replacement department.

 

Yeah, it is hard to complain about that then. And yeah, they will not replace a drop just because it is old. They would need some other reason to come out. So, next time you have some strong winds come through, if the cable should some how be yanked down... ...!

The problem then will be the days you go without cable until they come by. And even then, there's no guarantee they won't just reconnect it unless there is some break in the middle.

 

So what happened to the OP and his modem lights going red?
Please tell us what model Netgear modem you are using.