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#1
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Modem or Router Issue
I have a Motorola SB6121 cable modem and a Cisco E1000 router. The router needs to be reset (wires unplugged and replugged) one to several times per day (for instance twice in the last half hour). On these occasions, sometime the router is dead and unresponsive, and it seems I need to temporarily unplug the modem too in order to get everything going. It is possible I am not being "patient" enough, as leaving the router unplugged for a few minutes sometimes resolves things. Does it appear that I need a new router (rather than a new cable modem)? If so, do you think the $60 Netgear AC1000 a good match for my 60Mbps internet service? I apologize if these seem like stupid questions. I am at a loss as to how to test the devices separately. The "lights" on the modem appear as they should (but I don't consider that much of a test). I won't tell you that I already bought and immediately returned a new router--thinking the old one was "working again" after having the cable modem reset by Comcast (which for some reason, appeared necessary during the installation). Does it make sense that this would be necessary? Thank you for any possible help. Bill |
#2
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Modem or Router Issue
Bill wrote:
I have a Motorola SB6121 cable modem and a Cisco E1000 router. The router needs to be reset (wires unplugged and replugged) one to several times per day (for instance twice in the last half hour). On these occasions, sometime the router is dead and unresponsive, and it seems I need to temporarily unplug the modem too in order to get everything going. It is possible I am not being "patient" enough, as leaving the router unplugged for a few minutes sometimes resolves things. Does it appear that I need a new router (rather than a new cable modem)? If so, do you think the $60 Netgear AC1000 a good match for my 60Mbps internet service? Consumer-grade routers have no fans to cool their processor. Just convection cooling. You don't want to obstruct the airflow through the router's case, but the airflow will be damn slow. As such, routers burn up. I've had some that lasted 6+ years (Linksys, now owned by Cisco) and others that died in under 3 years (DLink). That it works more reliably after letting it cool off also points to a heat problem: routers get flaky as they burn up until they eventually cease. Since the manual for the Cisco E1000 is dated 2010, plus the following Cisco publication puts the release date back in 2010: https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-rel...icleId=5434268 Likely yours is 9+ years old and has burned out. As a test, you could take one of your intranet Ethernet hosts that is currently connected to the router and instead run its cable directly to the SB6121 cable modem. Did you buy the cable modem or lease it from your ISP? If it is leased, head to their local store and get it swapped out for a newer model and one that has an inbuilt router (it will have RJ-45 LAN jacks and probably also have built-in wi-fi). |
#3
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Modem or Router Issue
On Tue, 3 Sep 2019 14:01:10 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
Bill wrote: I have a Motorola SB6121 cable modem and a Cisco E1000 router. The router needs to be reset (wires unplugged and replugged) one to several times per day (for instance twice in the last half hour). On these occasions, sometime the router is dead and unresponsive, and it seems I need to temporarily unplug the modem too in order to get everything going. It is possible I am not being "patient" enough, as leaving the router unplugged for a few minutes sometimes resolves things. Does it appear that I need a new router (rather than a new cable modem)? If so, do you think the $60 Netgear AC1000 a good match for my 60Mbps internet service? Consumer-grade routers have no fans to cool their processor. Just convection cooling. You don't want to obstruct the airflow through the router's case, but the airflow will be damn slow. As such, routers burn up. I've had some that lasted 6+ years (Linksys, now owned by Cisco) It gets worse. This, according to Wikipedia: Linksys was founded in 1988 by the couple Victor and Janie Tsao, both Taiwanese immigrants to the United States. The company was purchased by Cisco in 2003, and sold to Belkin, the current owners, in 2013.[2][3] Its products were branded as Linksys by Cisco when it was part of Cisco. snip Did you buy the cable modem or lease it from your ISP? If it is leased, head to their local store and get it swapped out for a newer model and one that has an inbuilt router (it will have RJ-45 LAN jacks and probably also have built-in wi-fi). The SB6121 is a pretty solid modem, while the E1000 never had a stellar reputation, so I'd start by replacing the router. As always, my recommendation would be to maintain separate modem and router units so that either can be replaced without the other. |
#4
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Modem or Router Issue
Bill wrote:
I have a Motorola SB6121 cable modem and a Cisco E1000 router. The router needs to be reset (wires unplugged and replugged) one to several times per day (for instance twice in the last half hour). On these occasions, sometime the router is dead and unresponsive, and it seems I need to temporarily unplug the modem too in order to get everything going. It is possible I am not being "patient" enough, as leaving the router unplugged for a few minutes sometimes resolves things. Does it appear that I need a new router (rather than a new cable modem)? If so, do you think the $60 Netgear AC1000 a good match for my 60Mbps internet service? I apologize if these seem like stupid questions. I am at a loss as to how to test the devices separately. The "lights" on the modem appear as they should (but I don't consider that much of a test). I won't tell you that I already bought and immediately returned a new router--thinking the old one was "working again" after having the cable modem reset by Comcast (which for some reason, appeared necessary during the installation). Does it make sense that this would be necessary? Thank you for any possible help. Bill You could take a look for exploits against the E1000. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...s-routers.html My first Linksys, I kept updating the firmware on it, until the unit bricked. Which was a blessed relief, that it finally "said goodbye" and I could buy something that worked. On that older design (box cost $300), the root cause of the instabilities isn't the firmware instructions. It's the oscillator design. Many of these chips can drive a quartz crystal directly. If you mis-specify the crystal, it could be overdriven or underdriven, and not be a reliable source of clock. The designs I used to do, I selected four pin external oscillators, and used the single ended drive method (that's the alternative method listed in the datasheet). This makes it the four pin tin can oscillator manufacturers only job, to make a reliable clock source. I used to find that puts a stop to that sort of "can't run a day without crashing" problem I was seeing on my $300 less-than-stellar box. I would not expect that to be the problem on the E1000, because the engineers have had lots of time to pass "lore" from one to another, about what not to do. Sometimes the SOC design itself is defective, and that's why all the best effort in the world picking external components, won't help. Pushing the device with single-ended drive is better than sitting at your desk with a "dollar cheaper design that you don't know it works". It would help if there was a clock monitor pin on the chip, so you could connect up some instrumentation. At least one product we did at work, the responsible engineer left a unit running on a bench, as a proof of stability. And it had an uptime of months (until someone wanted the bench for a useful purpose). The test was pure showboating of course, as there isn't "much science" in such a test, but at least the dude was trying :-) I would have been more impressed if the box searched for Mersenne Primes for eight months. ******* When it comes to home networking boxes, nobody can really afford to be smug. The number of devices with issues is huge, and for customers, a purchase can turn into a game of whack-a-mole. Sometimes you get a good one and sometimes you don't. They also do stuff to the cable modems. This doesn't directly lead to the box next to it crashing, but it doesn't help. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/do...ems,30620.html So as part of your "crash Olympics", you should be noting any weird LED blink patterns. One of the reasons I like to run IPV4 if I can arrange it, is the protocol is "less chatty" than IPV6. I disabled half of one box in the room, to try to make that happen. If I'm not sending or receiving, the LEDs on my networking tree are quiet. If the Windows 10 box is running, and I'm not near it, I can expect all the usual "update shenanigans", so it's harder to tell if anything untoward is happening on that side of the room. ******* So how do you select these things ? I haven't a clue. I tried a Newegg search "home router", sort on rating, and the results look like rat ****. Some boxes, the analysis is easy, when multiple customers note "box died in 8 months". But how far could you trust a customer analysis of a problem with the firmware ? Even if you went to the Smallnetbuilder site and looked at their reviews, they're mostly interested in Wifi performance. As for the Wifi part, you really should not expect miracles. If all your client boxes have 802.11N, then chances are a newer box isn't going to make much difference on rates. And if you buy a router with 8 Wifi antennas on the top, there's a good chance it will overheat. As well as broadcast on a band you're not using (until you switch that part off or something). So I guess I'm the wrong person to be shopping for one of these, because there's nothing of substance I can find in print about them. You see, even a "brand name", means nothing... Like you, I could pick one with the shiniest black plastic casing, but that's not much of a selection criterion. https://www.engadget.com/2016/02/23/...lement-router/ "ASUS' default log-in credentials: username "admin" and password "admin" ." [Which might be OK if it wasn't on the WAN side of the box, but you just know you're not going to be that lucky.] Paul |
#5
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Modem or Router Issue
VanguardLH wrote:
That it works more reliably after letting it cool off also points to a heat problem: routers get flaky as they burn up until they eventually cease. Thank you for your reply! it was informative! I bought a new router and have been spending a few hours get it running, and "breaking it", and back to running again. Still some "tinkering" to do. Comment: You might think they (Netgear) could include an owner's manual in the box (even a cursory one) rather than just a link... Bill |
#6
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Modem or Router Issue
Char Jackson wrote:
As always, my recommendation would be to maintain separate modem and router units so that either can be replaced without the other. Thank you for that advice! I will keep it in mind going forward. Bill |
#7
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Modem or Router Issue
Paul wrote:
You could take a look for exploits against the E1000. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...s-routers.html My first Linksys, I kept updating the firmware on it, until the unit bricked. Which was a blessed relief, that it finally "said goodbye" and I could buy something that worked. On that older design (box cost $300), the root cause of the instabilities isn't the firmware instructions. It's the oscillator design. So we got about 9 years out of the E-1000; fortunately no one targeted us in the way described by the article. When your network is down, you want it up Today--you're not in the mood to study oscillator design. : ) I will say that my wife was pleased with the way that our new 5G wireless improved the speed of her Apple devices (beyond was 2.4G was doing for her). I did happen to notice from looking at the routers at BestBuy that many people are streaming ALOT more bits than we are. Learning to program in the 80's, I'm still "byte conscious". Waste not, want not... (WNWN). Young whipper-snappers don't know the value of a byte...LOL. Cheers (and thanks for your support!), Bill |
#8
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Modem or Router Issue
Bill wrote:
VanguardLH wrote: That it works more reliably after letting it cool off also points to a heat problem: routers get flaky as they burn up until they eventually cease. I bought a new router and have been spending a few hours get it running, and "breaking it", and back to running again. Still some "tinkering" to do. Comment: You might think they (Netgear) could include an owner's manual in the box (even a cursory one) rather than just a link... If they did spend the money for their own docs dept and paid a printer for the hardcopy, it would likely just be a "Getting Started" guide telling you how to hookup the device to what types of cables and never mention the myriad of settings. I went to their web site to check on documentation. Their installation guide doesn't give as much as I described above. Instead it refers to their Nighthawk app (provided you have an Android or Apple phone to install it) to tell you how to configure/use the router, and the app looks to be bloatware to just say how to do the "installation". Their User Guide is far more extensive, and 139 pages long (and all English, not duplication due to multiple languages). Well, a 139-page manual would be pricey for a printer's cost, and manufacturers are getting pretty tight on their margins, so they'll cut costs when they can to remain competitive. Imagine your own cost if you had to use your own paper and ink to print that manual, and likely why you will never print the manual but just keep the doc file. Volume printing would reduce the per-document cost, but it would raise their price. Netgear doesn't build (manufacturer) anything. They outsource to other electronics companies and slap their sticker on the products. This is the same as Corsair. That's not bad as long as they specify better specs by which the real manufacturers must adhere to retain the contract. All Netgear stuff is made in China and Vietnam. |
#9
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Modem or Router Issue
Bill wrote:
Paul wrote: You could take a look for exploits against the E1000. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...s-routers.html My first Linksys, I kept updating the firmware on it, until the unit bricked. Which was a blessed relief, that it finally "said goodbye" and I could buy something that worked. On that older design (box cost $300), the root cause of the instabilities isn't the firmware instructions. It's the oscillator design. So we got about 9 years out of the E-1000; fortunately no one targeted us in the way described by the article. When your network is down, you want it up Today--you're not in the mood to study oscillator design. : ) I will say that my wife was pleased with the way that our new 5G wireless improved the speed of her Apple devices (beyond was 2.4G was doing for her). I did happen to notice from looking at the routers at BestBuy that many people are streaming ALOT more bits than we are. Learning to program in the 80's, I'm still "byte conscious". Waste not, want not... (WNWN). Young whipper-snappers don't know the value of a byte...LOL. Cheers (and thanks for your support!), Bill When I started in the business, we had a lot of trouble making computers stable. But we "learned while we earned", and eventually figured it out. At the time, we tried to "test" stability into it, which was a hopeless task. Any "bug" which took more than a day to capture on a logic analyzer, was basically impossible to solve. The longest time I ever spent chasing a bug was two weeks, and the boss was pretty upset. Multilayer boards was one of the steps to more stable systems. Some of the remaining optimizations are the standards used for interfaces, which have much better electrical characteristics. (These cause fewer memory errors for example.) That's why today, we can be more confident the firmware is at fault :-) Because with the tools we have, even a piker can have first pass success with good tools. Even my first computer, the one I breadboarded, was more stable than my first purchased router. Every time I bring that up, I curse myself for not having a picture of it. That used a 48MHz overtone crystal (the Q isn't as high), and the clock generator was a separate chip. It really should not have been stable, but it was. Some of the reason for that, is the logic chips with "slow edges" it used. (The LSIs were NMOS rather than CMOS.) Modern routers use things like MIPS processors and in the past have run at 500MHz. When you shop for your new router, there's a chance an ARM processor will be in there. And those can run with higher clocks. The MIPS was used in the past, because it was "good enough". Today, with people and their DOCSIS3 kit coming in the door, you need faster routing so the router doesn't become the rate limiting factor. ******* So if I go here, and select "WAN to LAN", the chart currently isn't working. At least, I couldn't get it to work. If selecting another site category (with less data in it), then the chart works. https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tool...ts/router/view If we instead use the ranker, you can look at a review for the top rated unit. https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...outer-reviewed The top rating doesn't mean anything, unless it happens to map to what you want to do most. The plots on page 2 show 600-800Mbit/sec WAN/LAN routing capability, which gives you some headroom on your 60Mbit/sec cable service. This might be most predictable on the wired ports (because your legacy wifi devices might not be using a standard capable of running that fast). That router is about 30x faster than what I'm using right now :-) That product uses a heat spreader plate and thermal pads. But I don't know how the plate dumps the heat to ambient. If the plate was on the bottom of the unit, then simply elevating the thing a bit might provide some cooling. Or perhaps, tipping it on edge. So your next job would be finding that on Newegg, and checking whether it has "issues". Paul |
#10
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Modem or Router Issue
VanguardLH wrote:
Their User Guide is far more extensive, and 139 pages long Yes, I downloaded it before I swapped out the router. The User Guide made me think, but it didn't help me as much as my common sense. Somehow as a result of disabling "Homegroup" which I didn't think I needed at the time, the local area connection got disabled, and that kept me from "seeing or using" the router. I eventually noticed that the local area connection was disabled, immediately enabled it, and all was better. Still need to learn more about Homegroup (and why I need it). I'll consult the manual! : ) |
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