Jason Fitzpatrick is the Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. By rechecking the signal at the point of entry, you'll be able to rule out any problems with the wiring in your home as the source of your Internet woes. If you, for example, have your cable modem plugged into a coax jack in your home office and you're having connection problems, you could unplug the modem and plug it directly into the coax line coming into your home from the street. You'll also be able to use the modem itself as a handy signal checker. You'll quickly see if your modem is to blame, or the problem lies somewhere else (like your router). That said, checking your modem's diagnostic system allows you to quickly save yourself a lot of hair-pulling by ruling out other sources of Internet connectivity issues. Most of the time you need to contact your provider and ask them to either remotely make adjustments or dispatch a tech to your home. Ranges from 32 to 55 dB are typical, and our rather-average 39 dB signal-to-noise ratio is more than acceptable.Īs we noted earlier in this guide, there aren't a lot of things within the modem that you, the user, can change. The higher the value, the less noisy the signal. The lower the value, the more problems there are with your signal. Lower than 25 dB causes signal and packet loss on most systems. You want this value to be greater than 30 dB. In our screenshot here, the upstream signal squeaks by with a 39 reading (and we're receiving the full speed we pay for without connectivity issues), but we'll definitely be keeping an eye on it.įinally you want to pay attention to your signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The "Upstream Power" reading should be between +37 dBmV to +55 dBmV and, ideally, should be closer to the middle of that potential range. In the screenshot above you can see that the individual channels in our modem are all at 8 and 9 dBmV which is acceptable. The "Downstream Power" reading should be between -15 dBmV to +15 dBmV and, ideally, should be closer to +8dBmV and -8dBmV. But as a general rule, consider the following values when debating whether or not your physical lines and the connection to the provider are a problem. It's important that you consult with your individual service provider to see what the acceptable range of signal strengths are for your particular service and device. For demonstration purposes, we will be using the using the diagnostic interface of the incredibly common Motorola/Arris Surfboard 6141 broadband cable modem, but the general layout will be similar across modems. With that in mind, let's take a look at how you can access the diagnostic page and what to do with the information you find therein. This is intended to help you find the problem, not necessarily fix it. While it's unlikely you'll actually break anything if you do wipe your modem in a fit of frustration, you might end up spending the next hour getting it reprovisioned. Even if the diagnostic control panel in your modem does have user-editable settings (which is very rare), you shouldn't mess around with that stuff unless expressly instructed to do so by your internet service provider. In those cases, you need to peek into the modem to see what's going on. By accessing the tiny little web server hidden inside your modem and reading the diagnostic pages, you can learn a ton of things about your modem and connection like general status, signal strength, and event history via the system log.Īrmed with that information you can then say something like "Okay, it's not the modem or a signal strength issue, so I'll focus on the router and other elements of my network" or "Something is clearly going on with the modem so I'll call the cable company." While we all tend to over-focus on the router as the source of potential problems, oftentimes the modem (or the line it's connected to) can be at fault. Or maybe your internet connectivity drops out intermittently and no amount of tinkering with your router has solved your problems. So why look at the diagnostic page and logs of your cable modem in the first place? Think of this familiar scene: something weird is going on with your internet access, so you dutifully unplug your modem and router, start them back up, and things work well again.for a spell. Related: How to Troubleshoot Your Internet Connection, Layer-By-Layer While some people do occasionally peek at the control panel of their router, very few people ever look at their modems-or even realize they can do so. Unbeknownst to most people, cable modems (and other broadband modems) have diagnostic and logging functions built in, just like routers.
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