I keep losing the internet connection

[Melody Lubart]

I hope I am posting this on the correct forum.

This has been happening for almost two months now. Verizon has sent two men out (different times). They check my household connections, etc, everything is fine. They went up the pole, everything is fine. They then said "move the computer to where the wall jack is". I moved it, Nothing changed.

Oh, for the record, for 7 years, my computer was in the bedroom, and my wall jack (I have Verizon DSL), was in another bedroom, so I had a 60 foot phone line connecting the phone jack to the modem. That's right, a 60 foot phone line. I didn't have anything shorter and I have had NO problem for 7 years.

Now, all of a sudden, my modem starts blinking. Where the dsl light should be a steady green, I would get periods of blinking. I would re-boot, all would be fine for a day or two, then BAM, green blinking dsl light.

Well, they replaced my modem, ....didn't help. Then we had the blizzard in Brooklyn, NY, THEN I GOT A RED INTERNET LIGHT, I phoned Verizon and was told, We are having outages.

Then sent me yet another modem, which arrived two days ago. Nothing changed. My connection will be fine for a few hours, then I'll either get a red internet light (yeah, I know, we are still recovering from the Blizzard and melting water into cables or whatever), but for 7 years I had no problem.

Before the blizzard, I started to get the green blinking internet lights. Verizon doesn't seem to know what to do.

They have told me they have changed my ports and the problem should now be solved.

Not true. Today, two times already, I lost connections.

they come back in a few minutes, but what is going on?

It will work all night, and then at 2:15 a.m., it goes out.

My phone works perfectly fine, so it's not the phone, and when the guys came to my house, the phone lines were fine.

they were however not able to find the NID because it might be in the basement but I've lived here for 20 years WITH NO PHONE PROBLEM.

I told them "if you think it's the NID, and you can't access the NID, then build me a new NID".

They said "yeah we could do that, but let's see if we can correct it from the other side"

And that is when I got the email saying "we have changed your port and we have tested your line, and all is correct"

If this is so, why do I keep losing the connection?

Very hard to understand.

I have moved the modem closer to the jack, then it became annoying to keep getting up and re-booting the modem, so now it's back next to my computer and for 3 hours it's been working fine.

Any comments would be welcome, believe me.

And please don't ask me to ping or check things because, while I am computer literate, I'm NOT THAT computer literate.

thanks much lol

Melody

[Paul Komski]

If the telecom is absolutely sure everything is OK outside the house the most common problem is some other piece of telecom equipment attached somewhere in the house that is interfering or microfilters that are not functional. Intermittent faults outside the house include damaged or contaminated connections and wires - particularly if at the limits of distance from the exchange.

The best thing you can do inside the house is to temporarily disconnect every other piece of telephone equipment and extension on the same line and attach directly to a wall jack with no microfilter and see if your blinking or red light corrects itself. If you cannot then get a solid signal it is almost certainly a telecom problem outside the house.

[FTT]

Make sure your modem is not on a power circuit which is shared with other high powered devices such as air conditioners, refrigerators and boilers in the basement. The occasional voltage drop when a motor starts up can cause a loss of connection.

Try running an extension cord from another source/location to your modem, router if you have one, and your tower.

[Sylvander]

1. A little story of something that happened to me, that may be interesting...

(a) All of a sudden my PC couldn't connect to the internet.

(b) I tried a few things, then phoned the Virgin tech assistance.

(c) They said they'd send out an engineer.

(d) The engineer came and fitted a new modem.
Apparently the CABLE BROADBAND SIGNAL STRENGTH was too great, and the old modem couldn't compensate.

(e) So he fitted a FREE fancy/bigger new modem [looks nice, lots of lights blinking].
But that also couldn't handle the stronger signal, so he FITTED AN ATTENUATOR. [All parts & labour at no cost]
That did the trick, it now works just fine.

(f) CONCLUSION:
It's not necessarily/always a WEAKNESS that causes a problem. ;)
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2. "Verizon doesn't seem to know what to do"
(a) They aught to be the experts, and should have their side of the system in perfect working order.
They appear to be saying they have done that.
i.e. "we have changed your port and we have tested your line, and all is correct"
Did they do enough I wonder.
Are they saying all of their side of things are good?

(b) So could it be a problem with the PC side of things?
e.g. "why do I keep losing the connection?"
(a) Try different software [OS] on the existing PC hardware.
I'd try The new Lucid Puppy 5.2 issued 2011 Jan 5th (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showpost.php?p=460928&postcount=310).
[Looks like the Puppy forums are overloaded, but the ISO file can be got using that link]
You download the ISO file...
Check the downloaded ISO is OK, against the supplied md5sum...
Burn the ISO image to a CD [RW is good]...
And boot the CD.
Puppy normally connects easy-peasy.
I believe this latest Puppy connects automatically.
In my case using a wired connection to my wireless broadband router, then to the modem.
But I HAVE seen a Puppy that was still in the development stage, periodically lose/drop the internet connection.
A finished and officially released Puppy doesn't do that! :)
Just as well it's easy in Puppy to manually re-make the connection.

(a) If that also displays the problem, try a different set of PC hardware.

[PrntRhd]

Problems like this are hard to pin down.
You might try troubleshooting by asking someone to try a laptop on your line, if the symptoms disappear the problem is either hardware or software on your end.
If the symptoms reoccur it means the problem is from either the "inside wiring" or Verizon's wiring.

[Paul Komski]

I suppose that anything is worth trying like a different OS or a different PC but if the modem is not getting a solid signal I don't see how one could expect to get properly connected. If the modem is actually a router then one should be able to still use the LAN and access other PCs but not get net access.

One should also be able to access the modem's control panel by entering its URL into a browser and then Login to the admin section by entering the Username and the Password found in the user manual. If you can do this successfully then the problem is most likely to be within or distal to the modem. Running ipconfig /all and posting the output might help confirm this.

[Sylvander]

Further thoughts:
1. "if the modem is not getting a solid signal I don't see how one could expect to get properly connected"
(a) In my case the problem [failure of the modem to connect] wasn't caused by a LACK of a solid signal, but by a signal that was TOO STRONG.
Just a well the engineer knew his stuff, and was able to fit various different modems.
The 1st modem he swapped in couldn't be fiddled to make it work; it didn't have the capability.

(b) So he fitted a bigger/better/more_expensive modem that DID have the abilty to be fiddled so it COULD handle the too_powerful signal.
And worked his magic...
I think by testing and configuring the modem using its internal software [or is it firmware?]...
And adding the ATTENUATOR...
And re-testing.

(c) The lights on the modem were one of his indicators that all was [or was not] well.
"Now, all of a sudden, my modem starts blinking. Where the dsl light should be a steady green"
The other main test was using the internal software [I think to measure signal strength being seen by the modem].

[Paul Komski]

In my case the problem [failure of the modem to connect] wasn't caused by a LACK of a solid signal, but by a signal that was TOO STRONG.That's of interest of course but it doesn't seem to be applicable here. In other words I personally have never seen a DSL modem connect to the net when the connection light continued to flash. Non-connection with a solid signal can obviously also occur for all sorts of reasons.

[Sylvander]

1. OK, read and understood. :)
I know nothing about DSL modems, never had one, but I'm learning.

2. I'm reading some interesting stuff at this Wikipedia DSL modem (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/DSL_modem) page.
e.g.
(a) "Microsoft Windows and other operating systems do not recognize external DSL modems connected by Ethernet, and hence have no Property Sheet or other internal method to configure them."
And....
"DSL modems rarely need to be configured, because they are part of the physical layer of computer networks, simply forwarding data from one medium (CAT5) to another one (telephone line)."
Is this one of those rare occasions or not?
Can it be done?
How would it be done?

(b) "DSL modems exchange data with only the DSLAM (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/DSLAM) to which they are wired, which in turn connects them to the Internet"
Surely this has been tested by the ISP, and is OK, yes?

(c) "DSL modems are intended for particular protocols and sometimes won't work on another line even from the same company"
Surely the ISP has provided a suitable modem, yes?

(d) "Because a single phone line commonly carries DSL and voice, DSL filters are used to separate the two uses"
Tested and OK?

[Paul Komski]

DSL BB shares the telephony wires with the normal telephone and both signals can be used simultaneously. When the modem is attached it first of all searches for (the blinking stage) a good signal and if OK locks onto it (the solid signal stage). A weak signal or interference (most commonly because a piece of telephone equipment in the house has not been connected via a micro filter) will prevent the modem from locking on or knock it off thus causing web access to fail.

Although of interest, what happens with Wifi or Cable BB is of little relevance to this thread. The main points about what the user can do have already been covered if this thread is re-read - notably: (The best thing you can do inside the house is to temporarily disconnect every other piece of telephone equipment and extension on the same line and attach directly to a wall jack with no microfilter and see if your blinking or red light corrects itself. If you cannot then get a solid signal it is almost certainly a telecom problem outside the house). FTT also mentioned power problems and we know that a new replacement modem has also been tried.

The most perplexing failure I have come across was when an old hidden telephone extension line ran out of the building (a children's creche) to a no-longer used security camera that could trip and make an alarm telephone call. Once this was remembered and disconnected the modem connected just fine. It was only "remembered" when the telecom came and tested the circuitry "inside" the house because they then detected the interference from the camera's telephone. This call out had to be paid for since the problem was in effect within the owner's own telphone circuitry.