NTL Problem .. Again!

Trotter

I'll try keep this short and sweet to avoid winding myself up.

I had a problem during the famous NTL upgrade of the browsers on my 2 PCs giving me a message .. "Looking up www . whatever... " and then timing out. NTL said it was my wireless router.. so I rang linksys who spent 2 hours figuring out that NTL had changed the DNS addresses and the modem wasnt sending this info out to the PC's via the wireless router.

So.. The linksys support (Fantastic I may add.. and free) got me to manually put the new DNS addresses into the router setup and TCP/IP settings on the first PC. This solved the problem. Until now.

Its starting to come and go again with the same error. It usually sorts itself out with a PC restart.

Im NOT in the humour to go through the whole ordeal again. Does anyone else recognise the problem? Im hoping its a blip on the NTL side that will sort itself out. I wish.

Im based in Waterford by the way if that makes any difference.

fatherdougalmag

What modem do you have? 120? If possible, keep an eye on the modem LEDs when you notice that things stop working. It might be that the modem is resetting and you momentarily loose connection. Restarting the PC might just giving the modem enough time to reboot and re-negotiate so it appears as if the reboot did the trick.

TempestSabre

Since I've have NTL I find resetting the modem, then router and even the PC is something I've got used to doing a few times a week.

sprogman

Hi,

Had the same issue - it turned out to be the modem - Which one do you have ? Silver 120 ? If so Ring support and they should replace it. (New blue one - not sure of the model etc)
Once replaced I haven't had an issue since.

Sprogman

TempestSabre

I've a silver 200 one.

freefall20

Trotter wrote:

I'll try keep this short and sweet to avoid winding myself up.

I had a problem during the famous NTL upgrade of the browsers on my 2 PCs giving me a message .. "Looking up www . whatever... " and then timing out. NTL said it was my wireless router.. so I rang linksys who spent 2 hours figuring out that NTL had changed the DNS addresses and the modem wasnt sending this info out to the PC's via the wireless router.

So.. The linksys support (Fantastic I may add.. and free) got me to manually put the new DNS addresses into the router setup and TCP/IP settings on the first PC. This solved the problem. Until now.

Its starting to come and go again with the same error. It usually sorts itself out with a PC restart.

Im NOT in the humour to go through the whole ordeal again. Does anyone else recognise the problem? Im hoping its a blip on the NTL side that will sort itself out. I wish.

Im based in Waterford by the way if that makes any difference.

Dont think anyone in waterford has the old modems- your better off ringing support - I had same prob and it was to do with over usage on the line. NTL are normally quite in the mornings best to ring them and see.

Trotter

I've got a blue 250 modem.. thats why its so frustrating when I ring NTL and they tell me its nothing to do with them.

The odd thing is, when it does go on me, it works ok if I plug the Laptop directly to the modem.

The modem sometimes dosnt seem to like the linksys wireless router.

bringitdown

Periodically restarting the modem is recommended by NTL ...! This would trip the router into renewing IP and DNS if configured correctly.

Periodically restarting the router is also a good idea.

You should be able to configure your router to obtain DNS addresses automagically from the modem via DHCP. Also you can usually logon to the router and get it to renew it's IP address to manually obtain the new settings if any.

Finally if it works when connected directly to the modem is IS nothing to do with NTL ...

Trotter

bringitdown wrote:

Periodically restarting the modem is recommended by NTL ...! This would trip the router into renewing IP and DNS if configured correctly.

Periodically restarting the router is also a good idea.

You should be able to configure your router to obtain DNS addresses automagically from the modem via DHCP. Also you can usually logon to the router and get it to renew it's IP address to manually obtain the new settings if any.

Finally if it works when connected directly to the modem is IS nothing to do with NTL ...

Last time they had changed their DNS addresses.. so that was why the linksys router wouldnt work right. I asked NTL at that stage if they had changed the DNS and she didnt seem to know what it was.

fatherdougalmag

FWIW I have a Sipura (combined VOIP adapter/router) plugged into my NTL modem. Occasionally it causes the NTL modem to bork and it needs to be rebooted. The Sipura is plugged into a Belkin wireless router. If I take the Sipura out of the equation then everything's fine. Of course, then I plug the Sipura into the LAN side of the Belkin and then it needs to fight with the rest of my network for bandwidth. So I decided to order a Linksys WRT54G because of it's QoS.

What kind of Linksys do you have? It might be worth trying some of the third party firmware (HyperWRT, OpenWRT, Sveasoft, etc.) that's available. Might be a glitch in the wireless stack of the router that's giving you grief.

Trotter

fatherdougalmag wrote:

FWIW I have a Sipura (combined VOIP adapter/router) plugged into my NTL modem. Occasionally it causes the NTL modem to bork and it needs to be rebooted. The Sipura is plugged into a Belkin wireless router. If I take the Sipura out of the equation then everything's fine. Of course, then I plug the Sipura into the LAN side of the Belkin and then it needs to fight with the rest of my network for bandwidth. So I decided to order a Linksys WRT54G because of it's QoS.

What kind of Linksys do you have? It might be worth trying some of the third party firmware (HyperWRT, OpenWRT, Sveasoft, etc.) that's available. Might be a glitch in the wireless stack of the router that's giving you grief.

I have the Linksys WRT54G..
This fella..

jimmycrackcorm

I have the same linksys. Recently I find myself having to manually reset either the modem or the linksys fairly regularly. I have a silver 200.

TempestSabre

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

I have the same linksys. Recently I find myself having to manually reset either the modem or the linksys fairly regularly. I have a silver 200.

I've a Netgear Wifi router, and a Netgear ATA/Router. I'm only guessing but I don't believe this is a equipment problem but a NTL network issue. They seem to reset, or refresh the the DNA address periodically. Perhaps to remove users who aren't using their connection, but leave it active. Resetting the modem must get a new address.

When I think about it, that would explain some of the problems I had with Blueface. :cool: