On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 10:53:06AM -0400, John Doe wrote: > Thanks for your reply! > > I've tried all you suggest but a new NIC or a new cablemodem. The > SB4100 is the SB3100, but with a USB port (unused) and a "standby" > switch on the front. Otherwise the units are identical, so unless mine > is bad (a possibility -- but how to test the unit?), I don't think > switching out would help much. I'd rather not have to shell out for a > new NIC, but I will if I must. (The Linksys is PCI 10/100. The cable is > a standard CAT 5 which came with the modem.) > > The tech had a largish lcd meter. It was very impressive, but I've no > idea just what it was. He wouldn't let me get near it. His final test > was to plug in his own cablemodem: he saw it sync, and that seemed to be > good enough for him. I have a dandy VOM -- is there any way I can test > signal strength, and what would the appropriate threshold be? No, don't try to measure signal strength with a VOM ... it won't work. The tech had a signal strength meter ... generally how it works is the tech measures the strength of the adjacent analog (video) signal rather than the signal strength of the "forward" channel since digital meters are far more expensive than analog meters. > I'm delighted to learn that the cablemodem lights are not indicative, > because I really do suspect it's a matter of signal strength. The > problem seems to come and go, as if some days I get better signal than > others. I've been thinking about getting a cable amp with a > pass-through return path. But those are quite expensive. The lights "should" be lit if the signal strength is withing bounds. However, there may be other issues such as intermittent noise. You should phone the cable company and complain. Please don't get an amp ... you will screw things up royally. The cable plant is supposed to be designed such that the modem is receiving proper signal as installed (you didn't move the modem to another jack, did you?). > Lastly, I can flush iptables and still have the same problem. No change > whatsoever, so I've pretty much ruled out my rules. > > I do have a Win95 box I use for OCR; I had thought to rule out the tulip > driver by installing the card in that machine to see if the network > connection is any more stable. Any thoughts? Give it a try, but it sounds to me like you've got a noise problem. -- Nathan Norman - Staff Engineer | A good plan today is better Micromuse Ltd. | than a perfect plan tomorrow. mailto:nnorman@micromuse.com | -- Patton
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