Problems with BlueCurve gateway

[ijhallas]

I recently upgraded to the BlueCurve Gateway modem with Internet 150 service.

I use a Switch and connect it to one of the two available ports.  (We do not use WIFI)

I used the same setup with the old modem for years without problems

Since we got the modem I loose connection at least once or twice a day.  It is very frustrating.

I see others with similar posts and wondering if Shaw has done anything to solve it.

Does anyone know if another modem would work better if we only have 150?

Thanks

[mdk]

@ijhallas -- Since we got the modem I loose connection at least once or twice a day.  It is very frustrating.

Yes, a loose connection of any of your coaxial or Ethernet cables can cause your symptoms, namely a loss of connection.

> I see others with similar posts and wondering if Shaw has done anything to solve it.

When you lose connectivity, is it between your computers and the BlueCurve, or between the BlueCurve and the Internet?

Contact Shaw (online-chat is given priority over telephone) and get them to remotely logon to your BlueCurve, to view its statistics, including "signal strength".

Then, ask Shaw to send a technician, to check their "demarcation-box" (on the outside of your house), the coaxial-cable running to the telephone pole, and the Shaw infrastructure on the pole, and up-and-down your street.

> Does anyone know if another modem would work better if we only have 150?

My Hitron cable-modem/router works fine at 300 Mbps -- same price as their 150 Mbps service, but the BlueCurve gives WiFi access to remote TV portals, while I don't have any such portals.

[ijhallas]

My typo was ironic.

Yes, I had already called Shaw and they said the modem looked fine and the signal was strong.  I also make sure all the connections are tight.
It appears that the modem drops connections at least once day.  The laptop that is connected directly to one port on the modem seems to recover fine but all the other devices that are connected through the switch on the other port don't recover and everything has to be re-started.
Even-restarting it doesn't fix it right away there seems to be at least 10-20 minutes before everything is re-set.

When this happens the other devices (My desktop) shows that it thinks there is "No Internet"
When I do a ipconfig /renew or ipconfig /release it does not help and it thinks that the Ethernet port is not connected.
I thought maybe it was failing because the DHCP lease was expiring and it failed when it tried to re-new but the lease is set for a week so I don't think that is the issue.

I am really at a loss with this one.

[mdk]

@ijhallas -- When this happens the other devices (my desktop) shows that it thinks there is "No Internet"

That message means that your desktop DOES have a valid connection to the BlueCurve. To show this, open a command-line prompt, and enter:  PING 10.0.0.1 to confirm, by the responses, that your desktop's IP-address can communicate with the "gateway" IP-address of the BlueCurve.  Further, when Windows attempts to send packets through the BlueCurve to some "public" IP-address on the Internet, there is no response, and thus you get the "No Internet" message.

> When I do a ipconfig /renew or ipconfig /release it does not help, and it thinks that the Ethernet port is not connected.

The "renew" just sends packets to the BlueCurve. It does not send packets through the BlueCurve to the Internet.

The "release" causes the "not connected" message.

> I thought maybe it was failing because the DHCP lease was expiring, and it failed when it tried to renew, but the lease is set for a week so I don't think that is the issue.

I agree. There seems to be nothing wrong between your desktop and the BlueCurve. For this reason, changing to a different cable-modem/router is not likely to resolve your problem.

So, you have to consider the connections and the infrastructure between the BlueCurve and the Internet:

• coaxial-cable between your BlueCurve and the wall-port,
• coaxial-cables inside your walls,
• look at the coaxial-cables going into the Shaw "demarcation box" on the outside of your house. If there is one cable coming from the telephone-pole into the box, and more than one cable going out of the box to your devices (Shaw PVR, BlueCurve, additional wall-ports in other rooms), then there is a coaxial-splitter inside the box.  It is possible, though rare, for that splitter to fail, or to be "intermittent".
• also, if you have other active coaxial wall-ports inside, move the BlueCurve, and a computer, to connect to that wall-port, to see if using a different run of cable inside your walls will make any differences.
• other people in this discussion forum have reported "intermittent" problems that were fixed by Shaw physically replacing the coaxial-cable between their demarcation-box and their infrastructure on the telephone pole. You'll need a Shaw technician to go "up" the telephone pole, to do a close inspection of the connections, and to unlock that demarcation box, to check the tightness of the connections, and/or to replace that splitter.

So, I recommend that you contact Shaw (currently, online-chat is preferred over telephone), and ask for a technician to make a site-visit to the demarcation-box and go up the telephone-pole.

[ijhallas]

Update

Shaw set me new cables and splitters but nothing has helped.

New information:

1. When it happens all devices connected to the switch loose their connection

2. When it disconnects I can't ping 10.0.0.1   from any of the devices

3. Interesting fix is the following:  ( I have never heard of this happening before)
When it happens if I take the laptop that has lost it's connection and plug it in to a different port that is connected to the switch it re-establishes the connection and all the other devices that have lost their connection are suddenly re-connected and I didn't do anything on the other devices.

It is very strange.  I can't see it being the switch because it all worked before.  I am not sure what the modem could be doing. Perhaps the DHCP is the problem.

I am ready to ask for a new modem

[mdk]

@ijhallas --  I can't see it being the switch because it all worked before.

What is the manufacturer and model-number of the switch? Is it really a "switch", or is it a "router" ?

Experiment: bypass the switch, by connecting up to two "wired" devices and all your WiFi devices directly to the BlueCurve, and see if you still notice the same symptoms.  If you do not, then asking for a new modem will not help.