I have cable internet through Insight Communications, and after about eight months of good service my internet just started dropping for no reason that I can see. They've sent a tech out, who's read my receive/send signal strengths and my SNR, all of which are in spec. I've replaced my modem twice, reformatted and reinstalled everything. The only thing I can find is in the event log, I'm getting a lot of ranging, a lot of t3 timeouts, a lot of DHCP failures ... all of which correspond to the times I'm experiencing internet issues. I'll post the events. Is this something that's going on because of an issue on my end, or is it a problem with my ISP. I feel like I'm getting the runaround. I'm being constantly told it's my hardware or software, which seems kind of open-ended and ambiguous. Just something they can tell me to take the blame off themselves because they don't really know what's going on. Thnkas for any help you guys can give me, it's been a frustrating couple of months.

Event log:

Wed Apr 05 02:08:17 2006 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Wed Apr 05 01:52:20 2006 Error (4) Improper Configuration File CVC Format
Wed Apr 05 01:52:20 2006 Notice (6) TLV-11 - unrecognized OID
Wed Apr 05 01:52:18 2006 Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Wed Apr 05 01:52:04 2006 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un...
Wed Apr 05 01:51:32 2006 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Wed Apr 05 01:48:24 2006 Error (4) Improper Configuration File CVC Format
Wed Apr 05 01:48:24 2006 Critical (3) REG RSP not received
Wed Apr 05 01:48:18 2006 Notice (6) TLV-11 - unrecognized OID
Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Time Not Established Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Time Not Established Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Tue Apr 04 03:00:11 2006 Critical (3) REG RSP not received
Tue Apr 04 03:00:04 2006 Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Tue Apr 04 02:59:49 2006 Critical (3) Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Un...
Tue Apr 04 02:59:16 2006 Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Time Not Established Critical (3) REG RSP not received
Time Not Established Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP FAILED - Request sent, No response
Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received
Time Not Established Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received
Time Not Established Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received
Time Not Established Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Time Not Established Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
Time Not Established Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received
Time Not Established Critical (3) Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - ...
Time Not Established Critical (3) DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received
Time Not Established Critical (3) No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out

Couple questions...
Do you have a device between their equipment and yours (ie. a linksys or dlink router or something?) If so do a factory reset on it and reconfigure.

Have you done a Tracert on some internet site to see if there is a lag at some hop?

They only thing you can do to prove that you dont have an issues is replace what you can... NIC, cables and try a different slot on the Mobo. Especially since you said that you already did a rebuild.

Good luck!

and ps... its usually the provider...

I do have a Motorola WR850G wireless router, however, I still run into the problem when I connect directly through the modem. My nic's integrated directly into the motherboard, so I can't really move it around a whole lot. I do have wireless and I tried changing pci's slots and connecting with it, but still my connection has issues. I also connected through the USB port with the modem, and no change. I've replaced the cables. Replaced the modem twice like I said, and also run into the issue on other computers when directly connected through the modem or the wireless. The ISP still maintains that it's my problem, and simply isn't helping me.

I have done a tracert, and when my connection works I'm not seeing any substantial lag. When I drop, I'm not connected so I can't really do a trace route without a gateway to the internet. Every once in a while I'll see a time out or two on a hop, but like I said nothing major. My sister and her boyfriend both manage and design largescale networks and they've said I've done about everything I can to prove it's not a problem on my end.

From what I can tell from my modem's error log I'm trying to communicate with my ISP and not receiving a response. This causes my modem to resend the information the preset number of times and eventually time out and terminate the connection. I don't know if this is causing me to ghost and appear to still be connected, which is why I can't establish an IP through DHCP at times. I don't even know if that's possible, though it would explain why all they say they're seeing are resets and not me dropping offline. I just want to make sure I have some idea of what I'm talking about before I say hey look this is what's going on and then end up looking like a jackass when I'm wrong.

July 10, 2008 UPDATE to Original post below.

After 3 days of perfect performance the problem came right back. Thus a new splitter is not the answer. So I reluctantly called the cable company (Optimum online - Cablevision) and spoke with a tech. She actually seemed pretty competent and she noted (as I knew she would) that there was "no problem on their end." UGH!!! What a shock! However, she did provide some good insight (believe it or not ), assuming she was telling the truth. First she noted that the cable modem on my end had been up for 5 days without interruption (even though I had been getting knocked off). In addition, she noted that when you are using a Linksys wireless router (like I am, WRT54G) that when you are looking at 192.168.100.1 you are looking into the router, not the modem. Based on this information I concluded with her on the phone that if I have more of the same problems then I should hardwire via ethernet cable from my PC to the modem and if it is the router that is bad, bypassing it via ethernet cable should resolve the problem. She agreed and said that if it didn't then call back and she would be able to provide additional insight as then she would be looking into me being connected directly to the modem instead of via the router.

In the meantime I have also updated the firmware on my WRT54G to the latest version which I did not have on the router (available at the Linksys website). I don't know that it's helping though as the errors are starting again this AM.

The OTHER factor that I am contending with is that it seems that everytime I trun on a TV in the house the errors start. I have my TV's attached via a amplified splitter and I am begining to suspect that the amp splitter is causing signal noise back though the cable line and that the router is picking it up as it is only a few feet away.

Well just looked at my log and the errors are begining to start again.....the last comment is that I think there may be a time of day network congestion issue as the problems I have are usually 8:30 AM to 6:00PM.

More to report later....I am going to go direct via ethernet now and see of the problems go away.






I have a solution to this problem.

I had exactly the same problem. Just popped up out of the blue a few weeks back -- my internet connection would go down about every 20 minutes, some times more frequently, somethimes less. A sample of my error log is below:

2008-07-02 12:22:45 3-Critical 0x040D9A2C DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
2008-07-02 12:22:42 3-Critical 0x040D9964 DHCP FAILED - Discover sent, no offer received
2008-07-02 12:22:31 3-Critical 0x04E33948 No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out
2008-07-02 12:22:13 3-Critical 0x04E33A10 Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 timeout
2008-07-02 12:21:41 3-Critical 0x04E33A74 Started Unicast Maintenance Ranging - No Response received - T3 time-out
2008-07-02 12:18:21 3-Critical 0x040D9A2C DHCP WARNING - Non-critical field invalid in response.
After much thought I did three things:

[1] I loosened and retightened all my F connectors. At the drop outside and at the two way splitter that takes one leg to the cable modem and the other leg to my 4-way amplified splitter for my TV's.

Result = NG

[2] Next I made up a new RU6 cable to run from the modem to the splitter thinking the old cable might be shot.

Result = NG

[3] I REPLACED THE TWO WAY SPLITTER

Result = NO MORE PROBLEMS

Apparently these little puupies can and do go bad. In addition, I have seen where cable techs recommend not using gold plated splitters -- my old one was gold plated made by GE.

Problem solved and no a single friggin' error in the past 48 hours. Incidentally my modem is a 2002 SB5100 and my service is Optimum Online in Morris County NJ. Also running through an AT&T VOIP ATA and a Linksys wireless router.

Hi all

I have exactly the same problem!

I am a UK VM BB Customer and have been having exactly the same issues.

This situation was almost unbearable at one stage. I've managed to make some improvements however, by:

Replacing my modem to Ambit 256 model
Replacing my Router (new NETGEAR Router), continue to use wired connection
Use Powepoints from the wall for modem and router (rather than extension cable)
Replace the short coaxle cable formally used for my tv with the longer cable used for my modem

This has reduced the packet loss / drops by about 40%, but the problem remains.

I've noticed from my modems log that everytime i have a problem, it coincides to the exact minute in which I have an attempted UNICAST MAINTENACE which fails everytime

educashun_viktum, have you had any resolution of this annoying (to say the least) problem?!?!?

btw! I have also tried running the connection completely bypassing the two-way splitter. Same Problem!

I was having similar problems with my Charter cable internet connection. I eventually replaced my Linksys modem with an Motorola Surf Modem, replaced the splitters, had the useless cable tech rep come out and check the line (s). It got a little better.

Then one day during stormy weather, I went out side and visually checked the cable from the pole to the house, etc.

One thing I did was get out my pruning saw on a pole and cut away all the tree limbs that were near or rubbing on the cable. I think that helped a lot.

Charter Cable tech support is useless to worse. So bad they are written up in computer magazines as being at the bottom of the list for tech support. You get somebody in the Phillipines reading from a script or book from which they are incapable of varying from. You're lucky if you can understand their English also.