cable modem coax

[chrikey]

Hi folks, newbie here. Forgive me if this is not in the relevant area. But basically, does anyone have any experience with coaxial cable signal degradation?

I had my Toshiba PCX2200 cable modem hooked up to my coaxial cable and working perfectly with Comcast before. I decided to move the modem closer to the cable source bypassing the long cord I had before - shortening the distance by about 25 feet. But then my cable LED just keeps blinking, and after a minute gives up and goes out completely.

Now I've read up on the net that cable amplifiers aren't necessarily a good solution, and that perhaps the modem has dropped off my account - can it do that? In which case I'll call Comcast later when I get home. But I was also planning on cutting the cable a few more inches and replacing the plug, which could be old. I've been at a 20+ year old apartment for only 6 months now. I'll need to make a trip to Lowes then for the crimping tools.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance. Chris

[bla!!]

I've had our cable service do something similar. We moved our cable modem to a different part of our house to make networking all of the computer easier. (Don't as me, when my mom wants to do something, get ou of her way!)

We called up our ISP and described the problem to them. The would up running a new coax cable from the road down to our house cause the signal loss was too great.

It was free of charge too ^_^

Give Comcast a call, it couldn't hurt.

[chrikey]

OK, thanks. I'll see what they say.

Reason why was to see if it would work with the wireless router I had just purchased, the D-Link DI-524. With the cable Internet still working over the long cord I, followed every instruction that was given but it seemed as though the modem wouldn't detect the router or vice-versa, resulting in flashing PC and Data lights.

Could the weak cable signal -- which was enough to establish a direct Internet connection at ~300 kBps -- been too weak to work in conjunction with the new router?

[HoLoCroN]

So to get this straight,

Your long cable works fine, when you use a shorter cable, it stops working?

Your cable works fine but when you connect it to your router, it stops working?

It could be two things.
1-Damages cable
2-rounter needs to be configured correctly.


If you connect your long cable to your router, does it work?

let us know.

[chrikey]

Not quite, HoLoCroN....

I did go back to my initial configuration which used to work(source - 25' cord - cable modem - pc) and it stopped working as well, with or without the long cord. So looks like my unfastening of the coax plug could have worn it out.

Like I said, Comcast might have dropped my MAC address, because I tried adding a router in between the modem and pc. But at one point I could still connect to the Internet, so I doubt that's the problem. I'll have to call and find out.

But the router to modem is a separate issue, and I'm wondering if the cause is also the coax. The router is supposed to auto-detect the modem, but it never succeeds. And I have reset it to no avail.

Originally posted by HoLoCroN
If you connect your long cable to your router, does it work?

The router doesn't connect to the cable.

[HoLoCroN]

That is unusual,

There is no real way comcast can know you disconnected your cable modem and connected a router, the router doesn't send info to the ISP.

Usually when you disconnect your modem, the most that will happen is Comcast will assign you a new IP address (If your using dynamic IP address). They shouldn't block your mac address on your modem because of that.

Was all of this done while your cable modem was powered on?
Look at the Coax connectors, do they look worn out (considerably)?

As far as the router/cable modem goes, if it doesnt connect to the router, I assume it's a USB Cable modem?


Try to disconnecting the power to your cable modem and leaving it off for a few minutes. Then power it on and check the status lights to see if the stabilize.

[chrikey]

Originally posted by HoLoCroN
As far as the router/cable modem goes, if it doesnt connect to the router, I assume it's a USB Cable modem?

Oh you meant cable modem. Yeah that connects to the router.

source - cord - cable modem - Ethernet cable - wireless router - Ethernet cable - Ethernet Card - pc

Hilighted is the additional configuration setup. Eventually I won't need all that.

Anyway, requires more investigation on my part. Thanks for the input.

[hilowe]

Holocron,

The ISP may not even see the MAC of the cable modem. With my work for the CO-OP and the wireless internet access we provide, I see this. Customer want's to go through an ethernet bridge to a router. When the router gets hooked up, we don't see the MAC for the bridge anymore, we just see the MAC of the router behind it.

I don't know if that's how DSL and Cable modems work, but that's what I see at my job.

[HoLoCroN]

So you can see the mac address of the cable modem and the wireless router?

Well, you can always clone the cable modem on the cable modem onto the router. There is always a way

[chrikey]

OK, stopped at Radio Shack on the way home and got crimper, a set of two connectors and stripping tool. About $18. Replaced the connector that was there, and lo and behold as you can see, got the modem working again and I'm back on the Net.

So Comcast didn't cut me out.

But the router still doesn't want to communicate. Even hooked the modem up at the outlet directly, no splitter stuff. Not Comcast's responsibility anymore, so I e-mailed D-Link and was told

Try using a different cable, you might also need to use a reverse polarity cable if the modem is a older model

But come on now, the Toshiba PCX2200? Well, what is a reverse polarity cable? Is it a crossover one?