Question about my signal levels

[teamfox201]

I was wondering if someone can take a look at my signal levels and give me some advice if they are OK or need to be fixed.

I was running WMC on my main desktop and sharing it with 2 Xbox 360 extenders and would randomly get weak TV signal or subscription required errors even on recordings.

I built a new computer whose only job is to run WMC, no antivirus, etc so we'll see how that goes. But I was wondering how the signal levels were and if they needed something done to fix it.

[teamfox201]

An update, I contacted Time Warner Cable and they tried doing a remote reboot but my equipment is not receiving the signal so they are sending someone out.

[smassey22180]

I have to ask, What are you doing for cooling? 36 degrees is super low Signal levels look good to me but I am not an expert on this. I had odd signal level issues which were were mostly solved by turning off Energy Efficient Ethernet in the network properties.

[Crash2009]

The signals don't look too bad to me. 0 "zero" is the best, + or - 0.6 is much better than I started with. Mine was still working at +/- 12.0 although I was getting pixilation pretty bad.

I think I would start investigating the network.

What kind of NIC does the HTPC have 10/100 or gig? and...if gig does the indicator show gig at the switch?
Switch?
Router?
Show us a connection diagram.

Yeah, 36 C is really cool. What's the secret?

[teamfox201]

I have to ask, What are you doing for cooling? 36 degrees is super low Signal levels look good to me but I am not an expert on this. I had odd signal level issues which were were mostly solved by turning off Energy Efficient Ethernet in the network properties.

All my equipment sits in a closet and I have a Bionaire Mini Oscillating Tower Fan (on low) blowing straight onto the Ceton to cool it. After I figure out this weak signal stuff, I may try something a little more fancy but it works for now.

[teamfox201]

The signals don't look too bad to me. 0 "zero" is the best, + or - 0.6 is much better than I started with. Mine was still working at +/- 12.0 although I was getting pixilation pretty bad.

I think I would start investigating the network.

What kind of NIC does the HTPC have 10/100 or gig? and...if gig does the indicator show gig at the switch?
Switch?
Router?
Show us a connection diagram.

Yeah, 36 C is really cool. What's the secret?

- The motherboard of the HTPC has the Qualcomm Atheros AR8171/8175 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.30) .
- For the switch, I am using the Netgear GS116.
- For the router, I am using the Arris TG1672G provided by Time Warner Cable. I used to have a Cisco E4200 on my network but it started to randomly reboot even when flashed with DD-WRT so I removed it from my network.

I have attached the connection diagram... keep the laughing to a minimum

[JohnW248]

Generally I find you get better more stable results if you take the inbound coax and run it to a two way splitter and then one output to the tuner and one output to the tuner. Cap off the output from the TA with a 75ohm terminator.

The Cisco 1520 does not need to modify the signal going to the tuner (in fact it doesn't and can't) and on communicates upstream on the came and to the tuner via usb.

The levels look ok, the temp looks low. Never seen anything below 40 degress C on any device. If you still get weak signal level then you might be looking at a network issue. Just make sure you tuner, computer, xbox are on a switch and not on router ports and that you only run the Windows Firewall (and do run it since it'll make sure the right ports are open) and do not run any AVS except for MS Security Essentials which understands the packet rates of MOCUR tuners.

If you have other AVS you need to completely remove it, not just turn it off and that means uninstall and then running the various cleaner from that company to get all those weird files out of the system.

[teamfox201]

Generally I find you get better more stable results if you take the inbound coax and run it to a two way splitter and then one output to the tuner and one output to the tuner. Cap off the output from the TA with a 75ohm terminator.

The Cisco 1520 does not need to modify the signal going to the tuner (in fact it doesn't and can't) and on communicates upstream on the came and to the tuner via usb.

The levels look ok, the temp looks low. Never seen anything below 40 degress C on any device. If you still get weak signal level then you might be looking at a network issue. Just make sure you tuner, computer, xbox are on a switch and not on router ports and that you only run the Windows Firewall (and do run it since it'll make sure the right ports are open) and do not run any AVS except for MS Security Essentials which understands the packet rates of MOCUR tuners.

If you have other AVS you need to completely remove it, not just turn it off and that means uninstall and then running the various cleaner from that company to get all those weird files out of the system.

lol... maybe i'm onto something here with this fan, I just checked again and its reporting 33 C right now.

Anyways... As for the HTPC setup, I have Windows 8.1 with WMC and Windows firewall turned on. I did not bother installing AV or anything else on it since its dedicated for HTPC only. For that matter the only thing installed aside from the OS is: WMC, Ceton software , Google Chrome for remote desktop sessions from my phone and updated drivers.

[teamfox201]

Adding an update after the TWC tech visit. He said the no response on a remote reboot is normal from this setup ( go figure ) . He checked signal inside the house and outside at the pole and said everything looked fine. He replaced a connector at the pole because it was weathered but nothing going on from their end.

[Crash2009]

I couldn't have received a better diagram, Its nice to see a normal network for a change. Try hooking the TA and ETH 6 like John suggested, and cap the RF out on the TA. This picture shows a Tivo (the lower device) hooked up that way. Recently others have reduced problems with a splitter upgrade.
A couple other idea's to test the network is unplug the Xboxes for a while, everything OK between HTPC and ETH 6, good, add one xbox and see it it messes things up. No mess, add another.

Failing the shotgun approach, give yourself another Wireshark Lesson. Install Wireshark on a laptop, get a hub, plug the ETH and the HTPC in the hub and see whats going on between those two. Are they playing nice or smacking each other in the head, Then put the hub between the 16 port and the xbox. Eventually you will find the problem. https://www.wireshark.org/

[Crash2009]

One other thing re NIC drivers. Everybody always says.....go get the latest and greatest from the manufacturer. That seems to be true for Realtek, however, In my experience with an Asus MB with Atheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114, running Win 7, this was not true for me. 1.0.0.49 is the latest but it causes combing on the Weather Channel and some other HD channels. I had to downgrade and test for results until deciding 1.0.0.15 from windows update was the best for me.

http://www.qca.qualcomm.com/resources/driverdownloads/

[teamfox201]

Awesome! you guys have given me a bunch of things to try. I ordered the 75 ohm cap so I will update everyone in a few days.

[Crash2009]

- For the router, I am using the Arris TG1672G provided by Time Warner Cable.

Looks like that one is it's own little can of worms. That one does everything modem/telephony/router/wifi/moca. Now I see the real reason for the Fan.

http://www.arrisi.com/support/documenta ... ard1-0.pdf see pg 25 for login info. Now you can boot it yourself.

http://forums.timewarnercable.com/t5/fo ... &q=TG1672G some common complaints, yours might be included.

[teamfox201]

I couldn't have received a better diagram, Its nice to see a normal network for a change. Try hooking the TA and ETH 6 like John suggested, and cap the RF out on the TA. This picture shows a Tivo (the lower device) hooked up that way. Recently others have reduced problems with a splitter upgrade.
A couple other idea's to test the network is unplug the Xboxes for a while, everything OK between HTPC and ETH 6, good, add one xbox and see it it messes things up. No mess, add another.

Failing the shotgun approach, give yourself another Wireshark Lesson. Install Wireshark on a laptop, get a hub, plug the ETH and the HTPC in the hub and see whats going on between those two. Are they playing nice or smacking each other in the head, Then put the hub between the 16 port and the xbox. Eventually you will find the problem. https://www.wireshark.org/

I found a Time Warner 3-way (5-1002MHz 1GHz) splitter in my collection of misc things so I tried this splitter. My son was watching Disney Jr this morning and SNR was reporting 22.x dB, after installing this splitter its reporting a constant -2.x dBmV and 37.x db. Still waiting on the cap so the TA is just open right now.

I attached a picture of what goes to each splitter output.

[teamfox201]

An update to my issues.

After going back and forth with Ceton support and providing diagnostics, they are going to issue an RMA for my device. When manually tuning at 6 tuners to the same channel, at least one tuner shows lower signal levels than the rest.

[tzr916]

I was wondering if someone can take a look at my signal levels and give me some advice if they are OK or need to be fixed.

I was running WMC on my main desktop and sharing it with 2 Xbox 360 extenders and would randomly get weak TV signal or subscription required errors even on recordings.

I built a new computer whose only job is to run WMC, no antivirus, etc so we'll see how that goes. But I was wondering how the signal levels were and if they needed something done to fix it.

What is the html code to get/display the UP TIME please?

[Crash2009]

What is the html code to get/display the UP TIME please?

http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 377#p80377

[erkotz]

I would say the SNR for Tuner 1 is low enough that is may be a cause for concern - SNR is a snapshot in time, so it could work fine, or could have issues.