Cable Modem keeps power-cycling

[SerialMessiah]

Hey guys,

I have a problem that's been getting on my nerves for months. It seems like my cable modem is possessed.

First, my specs... I'm in L.A., I have the Time Warner Roadrunner Service, I have Windows XP, I have a Netgear RangeMax WPN824v2 wireless router that's in another room, signal being fed to a Netgear WPM311 PCI card to my comp in another room. The other computer that recieves the internet connection has a onboard NIC. The cable modem in question is a RCA/Thomson DCM245.

So here's the story. Everything was going fine until last summer, when one day it looked like my wireless adapter just dropped the signal. However, after rebooting the computer the wireless router was hooked up to, everything was ok. Then I'd be minding my own business when all of a sudden, BOOM, everything just drops again and I get no packets sent or recieved according to the stats. But, after 30 seconds, it starts getting data again. At first, I thought it was the wireless network that was messing up, but I was always getting excellent signal strength. My signal, so it seemed, kept 'dropping' for months and months.

The odd thing is that this would happen only between the hours of like 8-ish in the morning until 11 PM at night. From 11 PM to 8 AM the signal would never just spontaneously drop, although I did catch it doing just that on roughly 3 occasions.

So I'm at the router trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do, when I realized, my cable modem was in the process of rebooting itself. I ran back to my other computer and saw - there was no data being sent at all. That totally ruled out the wireless network, which had had a 'excellent' signal rating at all times anyway. To confirm, I observed this process happen 4 more times. The modem just keeps turning on and off and back on again whenever it feels like, except from 11 PM until about 7 or 8 in the morning.

I checked everything I could, and I've also ruled out any cable or wiring problems. I'm not using any multiple splitters or compromising the signal in anyway. I don't have a problem with my connection from Roadrunner dropping, I'm only getting no data sent because the modem just keeps rebooting at least once every 2 or 3 minutes!

Now, I know you may be thinking 'just get a new modem', but I just don't see how something that used to work decently 24/7 for years would now just work reliably on late nights. If I have to replace it I will, but I was just wondering what you dudes think.

I am gonna call Roadrunner to see what they think, but I know that I'll probably get more relevant and reliable troubleshooting tips from you dudes as well.

Thanks for any help that comes my way, and keep up the awesome work on the site.

[YARDofSTUF]

Those modem had powersupply issues, so its mostly gone bad. Can you wiggle the power cord and make it turn on and off?

[SerialMessiah]

Wiggling the power cord doesn't make the modem reboot on the spot. Strangely enough, leaving it alone by itself does, especially when me or someone else is using that computer it's sitting under. I just did a bunch of Googling and apparently there are alot of similar stories to mine:

"The most common point of failure on many of the RCA models is the power plug. Off-hand I can't recall when they stopped using them, but many of the 200's, including the 245, used a Molex-type plug. The jacks were not braced enough by the case, and a lot of stress was put on the boards they were connected to. It doesn't take much movement to break the connection, and cause the modems to go offline.
I had a DCM245 for about four years. It was in an out of the way spot, but it was getting to the point that a stiff breeze was enough to wiggle the connection, and take it offline."

Certainly applies to me.

I'm just going to buy a new modem myself and see if that takes care of this random rebooting crap, which it should, seeings as all the evidence points to the RCA DCM245 at fault. Besides, the RCA DCM245 also has the most uninformative diagnostics page I've ever seen, and an upgrade wouldn't hurt. This was the second modem I got from Roadrunner that's failed on me, and I'm not taking a third chance with whatever modem they sack me with next time. Thanks for your help, dude!