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NTL Pace Box - Electronic Interference?

  • 02-06-2009 1:02pm
    #1
    Royale with Cheese
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,230 ✭✭✭


    We have multiroom NTL in the house. Works absolutely fine in one room, not so great in the other. In the bad room some channels just don't work, others work fine, and most work but with some breaking up of picture/sound.

    It has been like this for years (some channels just not working), but they were never channels I actually watched so I never did anything about it. Recently though it's become a really bad problem and I was about to call NTL to come round until I made an odd discovery last night.

    I was transferring files onto a hard drive I keep stored on top of the NTL box, along with my Xbox 360 and speaker system. When I placed the laptop down to plug it into the hard drive, it was positioned right in front of the NTL box. This completely broke the picture, it just froze up. After I'd finished transferring the files I moved the laptop away, and the picture came back straight away. I tried this a few times, and every time without fail the laptop being right next to the NTL box was breaking the picture.

    I tried turning the wifi off, but this made no difference so wifi is not the problem. When I shut the laptop down right in front of the NTL box, the picture came back, so I guessed it was something to do with the power. I then realised that the furniture had been moved around in this room a few weeks back, and now the massive power supply for the Xbox 360 was sitting right behind the NTL box. I unplugged this and the picture was now almost perfect, barely any breaking up. There is also a power supply for the hard drive, NTL box itself, and the speaker system sitting in there too; so while the picture wasn't 100% perfect, I'm guessing turning all the other power supplies off would fix this.

    Haven't fixed this 100% as there's a lot of wires and moving around to do but I'm guessing moving the power supplies as far away from the NTL box as possible will improve things. Has anybody else ever had this problem? Is it a known issue? I was always rubbish at physics, does anybody know what exactly is causing this?


Comments

  • #2
    PauloMN
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional North East Moderators Posts: 10,881 Mod ✭✭✭✭PauloMN


    First thing would be to check the coax feed to the 2nd box. Make sure all connections are good, replace old/damaged/worn coax. Bad connections can make interference problems 10 times worse. Maybe the braid (outer) part of the coax isn't disconnected at either the decoder end or the socket end. Also make sure that the coax running from the socket feeding the 2nd box is good.

    Use a multi-meter/continuity tester to ensure good connections.

    You are right that any of those items could cause interference to the UPC box, especially if the coax connections to the box are not good. Wireless devices in particular should be kept away from the box. I'm not familiar with the XBox, have they wireless built in? If so move it away from the UPC box. Also the laptop is one thing, but have you a wireless router anywhere near the box? Again move it away. Don't forget video senders and DECT phones are all wireless devices, but none of these should really cause problems if the coax is good.

    Finally if you have one of those "booster" boxes anywhere in line in your UPC cable, get rid of it. More often than not they create problems rather than solving them, especially in houses with lots of wireless devices.

    Power supplies radiate electromagnetic waves, and can cause such problems, but again they really shouldn't affect a UPC box if the connections are good.


  • #3
    zilog_jones
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,638 ✭✭✭zilog_jones


    Yes, check all the coax is in good condition and connected properly. If it's cheap thin stuff it's probably not helping. If the signal is being split somewhere make sure it's a decent splitter with metal shielding - you shouldn't need a booster or distribution amp as PauloMN said, unless you have it split between maybe 4 or more TVs. If you have two separate coax lines coming from the tap it should be good, but I don't know if NTL usually do this.

    If the problem still persists the box probably has really crap shielding. Try wrapping it in tin foil :)

    I don't think Wi-Fi interferes with cable TV. In fact there seem to be products available to transmit Wi-Fi over cable TV coax in conjunction with your normal cable TV signals, so it wouldn't want to interfere. The source of EMI is more likely to be from power supplies or computers, though at least the Xbox 360 should have decent shielding.


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