OOB not locked

[WindowsHTPC]

My first problem with my HTPC. It started Sunday. I am using TWC in Cincinnati, OH... I have a SA/Cisco CC. a cisco sta 1250 tuning aparter... and I am running windows 8, with new win8 beta drivers and FW (however newest FW will not install from the diag update panel, I am running FW 1.2.1.1 new beta is 1.2.2.6) - which had been fine so far. it was a new clean install... I never had a win7 HTPC.

I sent a support ticket sunday night and monday Ceton got back to me pointing out I didn't have OOB Locked. They said I should swap the CC... so off to TW I went. So I get home slap in the new card, give the system a reboot... (I never even check to see if the OOB is locked) and I call to get it activated (on hold for 50 minutes, a new record for me) The lady (same one that activated my first card which worked fine for over a month) said she activated it... but I could tell she wasn't getting a signal back or something was wrong... but she didn't really say that. She was just like... ok it's paired do you need anything else? Hmmm... So I hungup and tried to tune a channel... same no signal message... ceton diagnostics say CC is not activated. So I check OOB lock... nope... not locked. I guess that's the problem. I am betting it's a signal problem... since it worked fine for 4-6 weeks. And it's not the card. I live in a big apt building... 160 units... in fact yesterday I heard a lady in the elevator mention her cable not working. But the lady seemed crazy so I figured it could be user error on her part. heh.

Right now my OOB is reading

freq: 112.0 Mhz
OOB: Not locked
MER: 10/10bd (this varies from 5-12)

if I click force OOB lock it will change to Locked... and the freq will drop to ~75... but each time I refresh the freq climbs... and if I reboot the OOB goes back to not locked and 112 Mhz.

actually now it still says locked but the freq is up to 117Mhz and climbing. two more refreshes back to back... 112 then 124.

I guess I probably need to bite the bullet and call TWC to come check the line... it just seems like so many people have horror stories of clueless techs saying... the signal looks great your equipment must be causing the problem.

any suggestions? I have a updated support ticket into ceton to see what they think. Was going to wait for their response before calling TWC.

[IrishFBall32]

What kind of signal/SNR numbers are you seeing? That's the best way to check for line issues yourself.

[WindowsHTPC]

Right now it says
-47.6 for the signal... which seems impossible. and 10db for SNR ???

is it because it's not tuned to a channel??

At one point when it was working I was getting
-8db and 34.3 SNR

Which I thought was borderline low.

The TWC tech will be here thursday... ugh another day of no TV. But I need to keep telling myself... I knew there would be issues. When it was working it was awesome. I am not giving up.

[WindowsHTPC]

Well the TW tech got it working. First off I had the card hooked up wrong. I was using the RF pass through on the tuning adapter. Not sure how it was working initially. He installed a 3-way splitter - so now one goes to my cable modem one to the TA and one to the tuner card. Before I had one going to the TA and then out to the card from the TA.

The tech who said he had 13 years experience had never heard of Ceton or silicondust. Wow. He had quite a bit of venom for cable cards. I tried to convince him that he should enjoy a challenge and change of pace. Dang I'd hate to do the same thing everyday for 13 years. I'd be happy for any challenge if I was him.

He also said TW (at least here in cincinnati) is phasing out cable cards and they are not ordering any more. He said his office only had one... and the techs have been ordered to bring in any from the trucks. Interesting.

He had to have another tech walk him through everything over the phone. He had also never used windows 8 and was LOST. heh.

It took him at least an hour to get it working... when it initially got OOB lock it kept losing it.... He spend most of his time looking at the CP auth screen for the CC. And relaying the messages to the tech on the phone... I was pretty excited when I saw "CP Auth Received" huzzah!

I am kinda afraid to reboot my machine. Hopefully it stays fixed... FW still won't install... but that seems to be a separate issue.

[erkotz]

He also said TW (at least here in cincinnati) is phasing out cable cards and they are not ordering any more. He said his office only had one... and the techs have been ordered to bring in any from the trucks. Interesting.

This is absolutely 100% incorrect. It's possible that they are changing their internal process for techs to get CableCARDs for installs, however cable operators are legally required to offer CableCARDs. If anyone with an InfiniTV has trouble, please open a support ticket with Ceton, and I will get out my Clue Stick(tm)

[TeddyR]

Well the TW tech got it working. First off I had the card hooked up wrong. I was using the RF pass through on the tuning adapter. Not sure how it was working initially. He installed a 3-way splitter - so now one goes to my cable modem one to the TA and one to the tuner card. Before I had one going to the TA and then out to the card from the TA.

The tech who said he had 13 years experience had never heard of Ceton or silicondust. Wow. He had quite a bit of venom for cable cards. I tried to convince him that he should enjoy a challenge and change of pace. Dang I'd hate to do the same thing everyday for 13 years. I'd be happy for any challenge if I was him.

He also said TW (at least here in cincinnati) is phasing out cable cards and they are not ordering any more. He said his office only had one... and the techs have been ordered to bring in any from the trucks. Interesting.

as eric mentioned, they still MUST provide cablecards. Trying to dissuade you from getting a cablecard may be reportable to the FCC as a breach. What I have noticed (at least here in SoCal), is that they are streamlining how cablecards are issued. Charter now gives out cable card "kits" with the TA and CC bundled together (and from what I understand, verified to be in the system already, just leaving the last part, the binding/authorizing to an account). You can pickup a self install kit from an office. A truck roll has to have a request before they come in specifically for the CC install. One Charter tech told me that they also recalled ALL the TAs and CCs they had in the trucks for "validation" and have replaced those with a few "emergency" kits instead.

As for how you have the units hooked up, I am also using the passthrough and do not have any issues... but then, the signal is fed from a motorola BDA-S4 amp to the TA and then from the TA to the cards. The amp has ~ +7db gain so that may be what is compensating for any signal loss from the passthrough and the built in splitter on the cards.

The "tech" with 13 years of exp probably got jaded from the initial CC rollouts 3-4 years ago that were alot more painful (though by now he should have been very familiar with Ceton, SD, and Tivo. All that shows is that TWC needs to train their "techs" better... 30mins to 1.5hrs is typical for a current install. A while back, a CC install was a 3 hr install.

[barnabas1969]

My first problem ... I am running windows 8

I think that says it all.

[soccerdad]

Interesting post. I have also had some spuradic issues with my cable card setup (as barabas knows). I have the same Cisco TA and am using the pass through. I thought the TA was modifying the signal and and sending it on to the cable card tuner. If you can split them like the OP's cable guy did, then this must not be the case. Is the TA just reading the data from the coax and sending the information down the USB to then tell the tuner what to do? I might try moving my TA in my cable connection scheme and see if it improves my problems.

I would love one of our smart cable guys to give a basic tutorial on what is really going on with the TA, OOB, etc, just so we know what the terms mean and what should be happening. At the moment, I am just kind of guessing and hoping.

[barnabas1969]

From what I've read, some TA's amplify the signal (and others attenuate it a little) before passing it on through the pass-through connector. In some cases, it works better to use the pass-through connector, and in others it works better to use a splitter before the TA. Ceton used to recommend using a splitter, but has since removed that recommendation from their website.

You should use whichever method gives you the best results.

I used to have a 4-way bidirectional amplifier connected outside my house with a 7dB gain. There was a single cable run to my wiring closet. I had a tap (basically a 2-way splitter with different attenuation on each port) installed before my cable modem in the wiring closet. The other side of the tap (the side with only 1dB attenuation) fed a 4-way splitter. The 4-way splitter fed two HD HomeRun Prime tuners, and two Tuning Adapters. In this configuration, the amplifier was adding 7dB, and the tap+splitter were subtracting 8dB, for a net of -1dB. It worked fine.

A couple of months ago, my modem died. The new modem was having problems. To make a long story short, they replaced the 4-way amplifier with a 9-way amplifier that has a 0dB gain ("unity gain") on all nine ports. They ran a 2nd cable to my wiring closet, and connected the modem directly to one of the cables. I tried connecting the other cable to the 4-way splitter, and feed my HDHRP's and TA's off of that. However, because the new amplifier has a 0dB gain, and the 4-way splitter was attenuating the signal by -7dB, this resulted in a net of -7dB. This caused problems with my tuners and TA's. So, I replaced the 4-way splitter with a 2-way splitter, and fed the tuners off of the pass-thru outlets on the TA's. It works fine.

I hope my examples clear it up for some for you.