[osborneguy]

Hey everyone. First post here...hopefully some people can shed some light on this and let me know what they think.

I have the lightning max Internet plan and the ultimate TV service. I was having issues playing back recorded shows on the 2 additional boxes I have in my place so MTS sent a tech out and he removed the coaxial cable that ran from the main box to the other 2 and put Ethernet instead. Works a little better - still not great. He also took at look at the Internet because we were having speed issues. He told me nothing is wrong.

Today I called MTS again because the Internet is not working properly. I have to hit reload multiple times to get pages to load. All of my computers have this issue. They tell me nothing is wrong on their end and that they would run additional tests and call me back tonight. Surprise surprise....no phone call. He said a tech will be coming out tomorrow if they can't find anything and I told him I would like a call back tonight before he schedules that.

I'm sick of MTS treating me like crap. I want to keep everything but I need my internet to work. What are the chances of them giving me this lightning bolt plus plan for the same price I'm paying now? Does anyone else have any experience with this? I am tempted to walk down the street to their building on Osborne and find someone to yell at.

Help!

 

[Macman]

I would suggest that they go over the installation with a fine tooth comb. Could be a bad connection. I've seen a handful of times where a cat 5 end has two wires reversed, and it works but very poorly. If you want to check the crimps yourself, unplug the cat 5 cord and with the tab facing away from you, and the metal pins facing up, look from left to right and the colors should be:

Striped green
solid green
striped orange
solid blue
striped blue
solid orange
striped brown
solid brown

The green and orange pairs can be swapped, but should be the same on both ends.

Anyways... I'd have them replace the ends to be safe, unless the installer used pre-made patch cords, which are stranded core and aren't supposed to be re-crimped.

Other than that, maybe reinstalling your network card might help. I've had success a few times with that. That's done through windows device manager. The tech should be able to do that in minutes if they're nice enough to check every possible cause.

Good luck!

 

[SomeRandomGuy]

One other thing to consider. Are you using any P2P clients? I found that if I were to be using a P2P like uTorrent that it can use up all the bandwidth and webpages will not load unless I stop the P2P. It has something to do with the P2P configuration, I just don't know what.

 

[Dr.Dave]

Welcome to Digital Home osborneguy.

I was having issues playing back recorded shows on the 2 additional boxes

You don't say what the issues were. There is a slight delay of about a second when you do things like skip or replay or go through the menus on a remote STB. That is normal. Aside from that does the program play back properly?

Your internet issues may be caused by P2P as SomeRandomGuy posted. Do you have problems when nothing is downloading?

You can limit your upload speed and the number of connections in your torrent program to improve performance. If the torrent program is flooding the upstream path, the normal TCP/IP interaction doesn't work and you will see a slow response when loading web pages. The total upstream speed of the line is about 2 Mbps. If you have 2 PCs running torrents, then you could limit each PC to about 800k bits per second or 100k bytes per second.

 

[osborneguy]

Are you using any P2P clients?

I am using Transmission on both of my computers but we only run it when it's bedtime. The internet is always having problems.

My issues with the TV were that when I was playing back recorded programs they would get very choppy and play for 2 seconds freeze for 5 seconds and over and over again.
Live TV on the secondary boxes would also freeze.

I'm about to make the call to MTS to get them to do something. I'm gonna bring up the installer destroying a ceiling tile - ripped a hole about the size of a golf ball through it for a coax. Also going to bring up my destroyed baseboard - he drilled 3 times in it only to discover he couldn't go through it.
He did all of this without consulting me first.

 

[Dr.Dave]

If you're still having problems with the picture freezing on remote STBs then that is certainly something the technician should be able to see and diagnose while on-site.

Are the PCs wired or wireless? Do you have your own router? If you are using the 2Wire router for wireless, the tech should check the settings to make sure it is set at 10.

 

[mtsguy]

sounds like it could be a bad RG (2wire).

 

[plum]

Anyone having sync issues with sound and picture? A couple of my HD channels, CBS and CTV (occasionally a couple others) will be off just a little bit. Don't know if we should start tinkering with audio settings, or if this is something everyone is experiencing.

 

[bimbamboom]

Has anyone else noticed stuttering/picture break-up on NBC HD channel 429? It seems that whenever I watch Americas Go Talent on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings I get the picture problems.

 

[CoryB]

If you have three set top boxes connected by CAT5 and two computers something needs to either be wireless or running off a non-MTS router.

If I was trying to diagnois this issue I would start by removing the computers from the mix by taking them completely offline (ie power them off). Then I would unplug all the set top boxes and finally power cycle the 2wire by disconnecting and reconnecting the power. When returning power I would bring the PVR box online first and confirm it is working without issue. Next I would bring one of the remote set top and test. Keep adding the set top boxes and testing until they are all online.

If you still have not had any issues start bringing the computers back online and observe when the issue starts occuring.

Once you have a better understanding of which device on the network is contributing significantly to the issues you are having you will be better able to look at specific causes such as poor cables or torrent clients.

Please be sure to keep us informed on your progress as it will likely help other people in the future.

 

[SomeRandomGuy]

bimbam,

I have noticed that 429 is stuttering a lot lately, it doesn't happen on any other channels, just that one. I haven't got around to calling MTS yet, I just change to CTV to watch the same program - wow that sounds so lazy.....

 

[bimbamboom]

I called MTS today about the stuttering on 429. They said they've received complaints about that channel from other people and are working on the problem.

 

[bimbamboom]

Does anyone know how to make the search options display Titles only, and stay that way? The problem with displaying All Results is that it shows the VOD titles as well. And some of the VOD titles are porno in nature. I know I can select Titles only, but the menu always reverts back to All Results when I cycle the power on the STB. Thanks.

 

[Dr.Dave]

@bimbamboom, it sounds like what you want is Adult Program Locking. This will prevent adult program titles from displaying either in the search or the guide whether the are from VOD or the adult channels in the 950 range.

Menu > Settings > Parental Controls > Parental Locking > Adult Programs