Electricians - Some Help Please

#1
volinbham

volinbham

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#1
My Internet (cable modem) has been out for a week. Charter spent about 6 hours trying to fix it and has concluded there is something in my electrical system interfering with the modem. They used my cable line and an inverter to show it works fine but when we use my power it can barely hit 1 meg. They replaced the line to the house, the modem and the router and it's still the same issue.

This started after a very brief power blip last week.

Any idea what I should be looking for as the problem? It worked fine for years. Tried outlets in a different room and it had the same issue. I flipped the power off in the room and back on but no help.

Thanks in advance.
 
#2
#2
volinbham said:
My Internet (cable modem) has been out for a week. Charter spent about 6 hours trying to fix it and has concluded there is something in my electrical system interfering with the modem. They used my cable line and an inverter to show it works fine but when we use my power it can barely hit 1 meg. They replaced the line to the house, the modem and the router and it's still the same issue.

This started after a very brief power blip last week.

Any idea what I should be looking for as the problem? It worked fine for years. Tried outlets in a different room and it had the same issue. I flipped the power off in the room and back on but no help.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Call a licensed electrician before you get hurt
 
#3
#3
Need to get the local power provider out there and verify you have 120 volts on each of your incoming service wires (coming from the pole or underground) and check the main connections, hot and neutral, in your electrical panel for tightness as well as the connections to the circuit breakers.
 
#4
#4
Biopsyman said:
Call a licensed electrician before you get hurt
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hmanvolfan said:
Need to get the local power provider out there and verify you have 120 volts on each of your incoming service wires (coming from the pole or underground) and check the main connections, hot and neutral, in your electrical panel for tightness as well as the connections to the circuit breakers.
Click to expand...

Have an electrician coming Friday. Just trying to get a handle on what the issue might be before they get here.
 
#5
#5
volinbham said:
Have an electrician coming Friday. Just trying to get a handle on what the issue might be before they get here.
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Do you know how to use a Fluke meter? If yes, do you have one or access to one?

Edit - Not sure how old your service lines to your house are but at my moms house I could see insulatiin missing off her lines. Called the power company and a supervisor seen it and had linemen there in 30 minutes changing it out. Said there was no way she was getting full electrical power at her panel and asked if her oven, dryer and heat pump was working ok.
 
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#6
#6
Orange_Vol1321 said:
Do you know how to use a Fluke meter? If yes, do you have one or access to one?

Edit - Not sure how old your service lines to your house are but at my moms house I could see insulatiin missing off her lines. Called the power company and a supervisor seen it and had linemen there in 30 minutes changing it out. Said there was no way she was getting full electrical power at her panel and asked if her oven, dryer and heat pump was working ok.
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Negative on the fluke meter.

Had service redone to house when I bought it in 2011 - new box on the outside and I presume a new line to it.

That said I live in an old neighborhood with lots of trees so something may have impacted the service in.

Assuming I have some deficiency in voltage coming in would that possible cause a modem to have communication difficulties?
 
#7
#7
volinbham said:
Negative on the fluke meter.

Had service redone to house when I bought it in 2011 - new box on the outside and I presume a new line to it.

That said I live in an old neighborhood with lots of trees so something may have impacted the service in.

Assuming I have some deficiency in voltage coming in would that possible cause a modem to have communication difficulties?
Click to expand...
Low line voltage will cause a lot of electrical devices to lose normal functionality.
 
#8
#8
Your utility company may check your service and panel connections at no charge to you.
 
#9
#9
volinbham said:
Negative on the fluke meter.

Had service redone to house when I bought it in 2011 - new box on the outside and I presume a new line to it.

That said I live in an old neighborhood with lots of trees so something may have impacted the service in.

Assuming I have some deficiency in voltage coming in would that possible cause a modem to have communication difficulties?
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Doubt it's a low voltage power issue. Your modem and router operate on 12v most likely. The block you plug in the wall converts the 120V AC to 12V DC. You may have some kind of interference on the lines.

One thing you could try is turning all the breakers off in your house except the one that powers the outlet your device is plugged into. Then test it. If it's good at that point, turn each breaker on one at a time ND test to see if it is working. This might help you narrow down which circuit is causing the problem.

If it still does it, it's probably on the mains coming into the house or it could be something on the neutrals. Don't think it's on the grounds because most transformers don't use the grounds.

I hope your electrician is pretty good because it's not easy to locate noise on the line unless they have sophisticated equipment.
 
#11
#11
volinbham said:
Negative on the fluke meter.

Had service redone to house when I bought it in 2011 - new box on the outside and I presume a new line to it.

That said I live in an old neighborhood with lots of trees so something may have impacted the service in.

Assuming I have some deficiency in voltage coming in would that possible cause a modem to have communication difficulties?
Click to expand...

Did the techs or you try different ethernet cords? Have you tried hooking the PC directly to your cable modem and testing it. Have you called the automated help line to have the system reset the modem for you?
 
#12
#12
Well turns out I do have a fluke meter - didn't know it was called that.

Checked some outlets (including one we tried) and I get a 122 volts.
 
#13
#13
Orange_Vol1321 said:
Did the techs or you try different ethernet cords? Have you tried hooking the PC directly to your cable modem and testing it. Have you called the automated help line to have the system reset the modem for you?
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yes they did all this - they brought their own PC and connected directly to the modem. Same problem if using my power.

Swapped ethernet cables, tried 3 different modems. Did all the resets prior to the first service call. The reset over the phone and determined a tech needed to come out. First guy tried 3 different modems, swapped cables, etc.
 
#15
#15
volinbham said:
yes they did all this - they brought their own PC and connected directly to the modem. Same problem if using my power.

Swapped ethernet cables, tried 3 different modems. Did all the resets prior to the first service call. The reset over the phone and determined a tech needed to come out. First guy tried 3 different modems, swapped cables, etc.
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The power isn't your problem reading 122V at the receptacle.

Is your wifi running that slow also or just the hardwired connection?
 
#16
#16
Orange_Vol1321 said:
The power isn't your problem reading 122V at the receptacle.

Is your wifi running that slow also or just the hardwired connection?
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1. the modem (not the router) is the problem. The signal coming in is fine (reading up to 130 mb). When it gets in the modem there appears to be a communication problem with the headend? and as a result I'm getting a dribble - less than 50kb. Upstream speeds are as normal.

2. this happens whether we tried a hardwire connection or via wifi.

3. Can't really evaluate if there is also a wifi problem since I can't get a good signal to evaluate.

Part of the trouble shooting was hooking the modem that was connected to my line in to a power inverter in the repair van. Under those conditions the modem worked fine and was receiving the 60mb service I'm signed up for.
 
#17
#17
Green is ground

White is neutral

Black is hawt!


Find the 200 Amp breaker(s) in your main box. Trip it off for a minute or so. Then, reset firmly.

Probably won't work, but doesn't hurt anything. Have to reset the clocks.
 
#18
#18
Jax_Vol said:
Green is ground

White is neutral

Black is hawt!


Find the 200 Amp breaker(s) in your main box. Trip it off for a minute or so. Then, reset firmly.

Probably won't work, but doesn't hurt anything. Have to reset the clocks.
Click to expand...

Looks like I have to take the grey panel surround off to get to the main. Not up for it tonight.
 
#20
#20
volinbham said:
Looks like I have to take the grey panel surround off to get to the main. Not up for it tonight.
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I would be surprised if that would fix it anyways. You start taking the outer cover off the main panel and I would be very careful.

Sorry can't be more help ham. Definitely keep us updated. Very intrigued to what the problem is.
 
#21
#21
volinbham said:
I'm hoping the electrician can at least verify that the cable company is correct.
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I did find this on reddit trying to find a solution.
Internet very slow and flaky after power outage
u/doomslice

I had a power outage today that lasted around an hour. When the power came back on I couldn't connect to the internet. I called up my ISP (Charter) and they had me run through the usual steps of sending reset codes to my modem, turning it off and on, resetting my computer. Eventually they told me they'd send someone out tomorrow to look at it, but it would cost $35 if it turned out to be the fault of the cable modem since I bought my own. I decided to try some more things out and eventually got it to connect (not exactly sure which thing fixed it, but after I restarted my computer again it worked).

However, things are incredibly slow now -- I use a VPN to connect to resources at work and it disconnects me every 2 minutes. When I try to run a speed test it errors out on the upload portion of it. I basically can't do anything but slowly browse webpages (which is a problem since I work from home as a web developer).

Here are the things I've tried:

Power cycle the modem
Restart my computer
Try it on a different computer.
Plug it directly from the modem into my computer instead of a router.
Factory reset on the modem.
Contact modem tech support (they said all the #s looked good).
Reset my network adapter.
Check for drivers for my network adapter.
Use a different ethernet cord.
Any other ideas?

The modem is a Motorola Surfboard SB6120 and I'm using Windows 7 - 64 bit. Everything was working before the power outage (and had been for months).



Dark_Shroud • 5y
Change your DNS servers, your ISP's DNS servers might be down.

Open DNS is a good place to start with, they have IP4 & IP6.

OpenDNS

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

2620:0:ccc::2
2620:0:ccd::2


doomslice •
That did the trick!
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#23
#23
Orange_Vol1321 said:
I did find this on reddit trying to find a solution.
Click to expand...

I sincerely appreciate the help.

One difference I've noticed between this example and mine is the guy says phone techs say numbers all look good.

For me, the phone techs saw that my modem was flaky and throwing all kinds of errors. That's why the sent the tech out to see what the problem was.

Between the 2 visits (3 total techs; the original, his manager and some specialist guy who made the call on the power issue) it was about 6 hours of trouble shooting.
 
#24
#24
InVOLuntary said:
You might try a noise filtering surge protector.
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Just weird that after a flicker of the power it would start to the point he would need one without the homeowner installing something in their house that would cause the interference.
 
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