Shaw Gateway: Installation and setup discussion

[sibble-comp]

Originally Posted by sibble-comp

The 2 shaw folks just left, the tech and the foreman, they intstalled a 4 port drop amp in the internal demarc in the furnace room, 1 port goes to the shaw home phone dpt with a moca filter, there's a moca filter on the line from the outside demarc and the other 2 ports go upstrairs to the gateway (and all the other gear - 2x modems, digital cable box and 4 analog lines) and the living room respectively.

there's also a 2 port slitter on the line that goes to the modem, one leg of each to the new Cisco modem, the other to the old Moto SB5100 modem.

Testing the new modem for BB50 speeds gives me 22mb down and 4mb upload. That was testing to SF via Speakeasy site, but testing to Seattle gives me 33.70 and 4.79mb!

SWEET!

Ahh yes, every visit is another setup change ;-)

So this morning a tech came to install the 2nd business modem in the internal demarc room, he indicated that he was surprised my home phone service was actually working since it was going through the drop amp that got installed on tuesday and said best practice is NOT to run DPT's through the amps since they'll increase both noise and signal beyond acceptable limits resulting in a burned out DPT.

So in the internal demarc/furnace room he took the cable from the external demarc put it into a 3 way splitter, 1 leg goes to the new modem, 1 leg to the dpt and the 3rd leg to the drop amp which feeds the living room (1 portal and 1 dcx3400), upstairs room with the other BB50 modem, gateway, 1 portal, 1 digital cable box and several other analog connections.

All appears to be working so far and deaenforcement will check the signal levels next week. Hopefully all will be okay....

[Susido]

I am sad. After a 12 day wait, 2 female techs showed up to repair my dysfunctional Gateway. It could not communicate with Shaw and I had lost all my scheduled recording ability and eventually the guide too. I did, however, still have all the channels I subscribe to.

The techs, who seemed to know very little about the Gateway system, first decided that my underground cable was faulty and they strung a temporary line across my sidewalk - I'm told that they will replace the underground cable but it will "take at least a year". When that didn't help, they decided that my Gateway needs replacement - that cost me all my existing recordings though I didn't have all that many (thanks in part to the recording function not working for the past 2 weeks).

Only after I showed them they had disconnected one of the cable runs at the house entrance were they able to get all 3 portals running. But they could not get all my channels back, I have none of the HDplus channels and none of the sports channels (including TSN SD and NHL Center Ice) I had very much looked forward to watching during the Xmas break.

The techs were in a hurry to leave, perhaps running late for their Xmas party, and they did so without scheduling any follow-up. They also didn't offer me any advice on what I was supposed to do now to get the channels I'm paying for working again and apparently now is about the worst time of the year to expect Shaw to fix anything. I guess I'll call tech support again and plead with them.

Wishing I still had Shaw Direct...

[sibble-comp]

Originally Posted by sibble-comp

Ahh yes, every visit is another setup change ;-)

So in the internal demarc/furnace room he took the cable from the external demarc put it into a 3 way splitter, 1 leg goes to the new modem, 1 leg to the dpt and the 3rd leg to the drop amp which feeds the living room (1 portal and 1 dcx3400), upstairs room with the other BB50 modem, gateway, 1 portal, 1 digital cable box and several other analog connections.

All appears to be working so far and deaenforcement will check the signal levels next week. Hopefully all will be okay....

Hmm, I guess I spoke too soon...

Just looked over at the gateway and 2 or 3 of the usual lights are off... VoD is not working etc, can watch recorded shows but not live tv.

Before I run the phone tech support gamut, just want to do a quick sanity check.

After the tech left my handyman came over and I had him wallmount the modem and drop amp. The cable installed by the Shaw tech from the dropamp port with the Moca filter was pretty short, maybe 2 feet (18 gauge wire), I replace that with a 4ft piece of 20 gauge wire supplied by the tech that came on tuesday.

Other than me maybe not tightening things up properly, (or a bad cable), I can't see any reason the cable swap would cause the problem..... comments?

The modem upstairs is working great.

[Jetranger]

It would seem you are creating your own problems. Why don't you just have the Shaw tech mount things the way you want them when they are there? That way you wouldn't need a service call every other week. I'm actually surprised they haven't started charging you since it does seem like you are causing the problems by moving things around. I'm not trying to be rude but rather realistic.

Sorry, I should have asked; did the problems start before or after your 'handyman' made the changes?

[sibble-comp]

Hold on a sec here, have a reread of my notes, the changes in layout have been done by the Shaw techs, NOT me, I haven't made any changes in months. It's ALL been Shaw. Not sure where you go the idea that I've been making changes, I've just been documenting what's been done by Shaw or recommended by Shaw.

I'm not sure when the problem occured, I did test things when the tech left this morning and all seemed fine, Handyman (actually a contractor) mounted things and I don't remember looking at the gateway after that. I spend the past few hours switching my network over to the BB50 and getting my mailserver (and dns stuff) operating normally again. While I was doing that my wife was watching TV. It wasn't until about 45 minutes ago when I just happened to look at the gateway and saw odd light pattern.

Anyhow a reboot seems to have cured it and a call to gateway support (less than 5 minutes on hold!!!) indicates the signal levels are fine.

I didn't want the Shaw techs to mount anything as there's other factors, mounting power bars, cable runs etc given the tight spacing. Also from experience they would have mounted everything direct to the wood stairs which I didn't want as the drop amp gets quite hot. I had both the modem and drop amp mounted with spacers to allow air to circulate.

[Jetranger]

...my handyman came over and I had him wallmount the modem and drop amp. The cable installed by the Shaw tech from the dropamp port with the Moca filter was pretty short, maybe 2 feet (18 gauge wire), I replace that with a 4ft piece of 20 gauge wire supplied by the tech that came on tuesday.

Did I not understand that correctly? I read that components were moved by someone who is not a Shaw Tech and that you have replaced a cable. Is that not 'making changes' after the fact?

[Jetranger]

Like I said, I'm not trying to be rude but it does seem you are causing more harm than good. If you have replaced an RG6 or RG56 coax with an RG59 one then that could be an issue. The MoCA network runs on a much higher frequency and could easily be affected by a lesser quality and gauge cable.

Also, as you mention, all connections should be 'snug', at the very least. Grab a 7/16" wrench and 'snug' every connector. Snug means tight to the point where they just stop turning with the slightest pressure on the shortest wrench you can find. They don't need to be any tighter or you can start causing more harm. From 'finger tight' you will probably find most connections will go about 1/8th of a turn more. That is 'snug'.

The fact that components have been moved means connections could have come loose so it's a good idea to go over all of them with the wrench. I do like your idea of using spacers on the drop amp for 'cooling airflow' so please don't think I don't appreciate what you are trying to do.

[sibble-comp]

Fair point, the components were hanging loose so yes you are correct and yes I did change the cable.

Sorry but saying that because someone that's not a Shaw tech touched the components is the cause of the problem is silly in my opinion. There are only so many (few) ways it can go wrong, most of which are mechanical in nature and pretty easy to determine visually, ie is moca filter installed in correct place, is cable/connector under strain etc. In hindsite, posting about this was silly on my part.

The contractor did NOT disconnect anything, I checked that all connections were at least hand tight after his work, all were tighter.

He mounted the drop amp and the modem in a way that there was no strain on any of the cables etc. I've trained him on that where data cabling is concerned so he does have some idea on how to properly mount things.

I changed the 1 cable. Maybe that was the cause of the problem, maybe not. <shrug>. It's working fine now. If the problem(s) reoccurs, I'll revisit it then, for now, all seems fine.

Personally overall my biggest concern is the changing layout by each shaw tech, each one says the last guy didn't do it right....

[sibble-comp]

Actually all the connections were more than snug, they were TIGHT.

The tech today explicitly mentioned that he'd forgotten to tighten them and had a second go round with the wrench.

Thanks for the wrench size info, that was something I wanted to ask about specifically.

Getting the moca filter off to replace the patch cable involved bruised knuckles since I only had a couple of (large) self adjusting wrenches and like I mentioned above, it was pretty tightly screwed on.

As to the cabling itself, I've no way to tell one from the other (RG6 or RG56 coax with an RG59) other than the original was thicker and 18 gauge while the one I swapped in was 20 gauge. If this was cat5 cabling, no problem.

[Jetranger]

I have been through that same problem with different techs before too. A series of them each say the previous one did something incorrectly and then goes into a diatribe as to why it is wrong. At some point you have to wonder if any of them know what they are talking about despite all of them sounding confident in their convictions.

The bottom line is, these Gateway systems are 'finicky' at best so the less messing around after the install the better.

[Jetranger]

When you say '18 and 20 gauge', if you are referring to the center copper conductor in the coax, that is one way of determining the cable type. Typically the smaller gauge is RG58 or RG59 and the larger gauge is RG6 or RG56. Another thing you might notice is the white insulating material around the center conductor is thicker or wider on the cables with the larger center wire. All of this is important to the frequency carrying ability of the cable.

As previously mentioned, the Gateway system cabling is more critical due to the MoCA network and should be using the larger cabling. Replacing the larger cable with smaller cabling is not recommended. This is why I suggested you have the Shaw Tech place components where you want them or at least tell him where you want to put them after he leaves and that way you can get him to at least provide you with cabling of suitable length when he is making the connections. Most of the Techs I have had here have been more than happy to accommodate my requests for this kind of thing.

[sibble-comp]

Originally Posted by Jetranger

When you say '18 and 20 gauge', if you are referring to the center copper conductor in the coax, that is one way of determining the cable type. Typically the smaller gauge is RG58 or RG59 and the larger gauge is RG6 or RG56. Another thing you might notice is the white insulating material around the center conductor is thicker or wider on the cables with the larger center wire. All of this is important to the frequency carrying ability of the cable.

As previously mentioned, the Gateway system cabling is more critical due to the MoCA network and should be using the larger cabling. Replacing the larger cable with smaller cabling is not recommended. This is why I suggested you have the Shaw Tech place components where you want them or at least tell him where you want to put them after he leaves and that way you can get him to at least provide you with cabling of suitable length when he is making the connections. Most of the Techs I have had here have been more than happy to accommodate my requests for this kind of thing.

I am refering to the labeling on the cable itself, the cable I pulled out was the exception, everything else was 20gauge Flex 59 cabling, (RG59 I assume). The short piece I removed says

JN2912071 SHAW > 9900963 CM, CMG, FT4, CATV c(ETL)us 18 AWG COMMSCOPE 2011 BrightWire XP (TM) XpressPrep (TM) 518FT

As per data cabling, most of that makes sense, but I don't see any mention of what kind of RG cabling it is.

It wasn't until long after the tech was gone and I'd removed the cable that I realized it was different than all the other cables. And the only reason I really noticed it was I had a look at the cable again after the gateway went down yesterday.

Looking at the 18 gauge and the 20 gauge cabling, yes the internal insulation layer is larger but so is the internal conductor.

Also I'm pretty sure that prior to the last tech's work, it was ALL 20 gauge. As I didn't notice any difference in cabling size when I was documenting the changes made on tuesday prior to the friday visit. However I wasn't explicitly looking so hard to be 100% sure.

[sibble-comp]

Actually I didn't quite know where I wanted them and I'm also used to the Shaw tech's leaving extra cabling just in case you want to move stuff around, it was after he left and things had been mounted that I realized the interconnect from the drop amp to the 3 way splitter was too short.

You can see here

http://pdscc.com/troubleshooting2/PC240001.JPG

that it's a tad cramped in the area where all the gear is installed and due to that placement of each item is somewhat resticted to allow the cables to be unimpeded.

[Jetranger]

I hope that is an old picture and isn't how it is now as I can see 4 problems right off the bat.

[DigitalPixel]

Is it necessary for a tech to install this Gateway & Portal? I read in some post it takes 3 hours?? What are they doing exactly? I thought you just plug in your coax and then to your HDTV via HDMI and off you go.