Virgin Media: EPC2425/3925 Modem/Router and Speed Issues - POST HERE ONLY

ED E

@ Ropedrink:

The 3925 is muck, lets just start with that.


A while back we experienced similar issues, downstream would drop all of a sudden from 32 to 0.5-3Mb, upstream remaining ok. Page loads would stall etc. Rebooting fixed it, and sometimes it would just randomly reboot of its own accord.

ED E wrote: »

Tic toc upc.

Finally went to the "Data Team", fixed 10 days later, no word on cause or solution, reps just blanked me.



Youtube is another issue, UPC cripple it to reduce load on their backhaul by redirecting customers to the low res CDN. F'ckers.
http://mitchribar.com/2013/02/how-to-stop-youtube-sucking-windows-guide/ - This sorted it for a while, but its back acting up now for me.


My thread on dropouts, first few pages arent much use but the rest is worth reading: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056836825



Does one have to get an enterprise connection for it not to suck in this goddamn country....

Aragornius

Hey everyone,

I moved to Ireland 6 weeks ago, got a new apartment last friday.
Northbank, so close to IFSC.

Got UPC, was installed within a day.. seemed the best service I ever got.

However i've been getting these drops too.
Every night after say.. 18:00 ish.. at some point speeds will drop to 1% or less of the 100mbit I subscribed too.

this was last night.

Every morning when I get up at around 7:00 it's fine.

Very annoyed, since this hampers my gaming and my streaming (netflix etc) a lot.

So my question:

Is there any forum or place with UPC were we can collect our complaints and build our case?

Are there any best practices to dealing/solving this problem?



I've read this thread and some others and it seems a lot of people are getting this and personally I think that if UPC advertises with 100 mbps you should atleast get a lot more than 1% of that speed during peak times.

ED E

You can try the talk to forum, but they just take everything to Private Message and refuse to discuss it publicly.

I tried making a list before, collected tweets too(see my thread) complaining about it. Problem is its a minority that get shafted this way.

Aragornius

just realised I have a Technicolor modem...

also I have high pings, which the rest doesn't...

Contacting UPC tonight after I did all the stuff they ask on the website, so I won't be asked to do that crap again.

Aragornius

What is your address?
Cause if it's in the IFSC around CastleForbes Road.. it's because there is a problem with the lines to that neighbourhood and everyone there with UPC has this problem every night.

MarkY91

hey guys. i have a problem. i have the epc3925 modem and i often lose connection to host on call of duty and fifa on ps3. when im the host on call of duty i get kicked out of the game and my friends would still be in that game playing fine. what can i do?

personguy

i don't think the 3925+upc service can even be called bottom of the barrel at this stage. i think it's actually malfunctioning crap that's sold at premium rates. i'm crossing my fingers that the 130e dual band router that i recently purchased, with the 3925 in strictly in bridge mode, will solve some of the issues. but that still leaves the issue of: when will or won't we suddenly have internet?

new housemate finally arrived and moved in today. internet working all day, all afternoon. then, we're all heading to bed and their boyfriend comes over to visit, has a nasty spill at the top of the stairs and clocks his head, hard. he says he's fine, but the new housemate wants to quickly look up some info on what to do with a busted head, should he be raced to hospital, should she just check for lucidity ever couple hours, is it worse on the front or back of the head... no internet. nope. just a blinking little light and nothing doing. router quick reset. nothing. router 30 second reset. nothing. router minute reset, nothing. no phone service, either, and i don't have any more credit on the phone.

thanks upc. i know i can't hold you accountable for any medical emergency, but what a wonderful introduction to your reliable services.
we had the 20Mb (slowly being obligatorily upgraded inch by inch and euro by euro) for over 2 years, with no memorable issue whatsoever. since "upgrading" (hahahhahhahhahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahhhhahhahhahaha) to the tv internet phone bundle with the 100Mb line, it's been a total crap shoot, every single night, whether or not we're going to have internet. and when we do, it's maybe once a week that we see speeds of up around 80Mb, not 100Mb (yes i'm wired in with gigabit NICs). usually it's around the 60Mb mark. and when i need the internet at night it's for uploading and downloading video plus video confrencing with people in the states, so i would make good use of the bandwidth... if we got what we're paying for.

they're getting the final straw call tomorrow, then based on the nature of their response i'm pulling the plug and pinning them down for compensation.
you don't buy a new car and then sit back and say "ah sure it's grand" when the tyres deflate at random and the engine only starts when it feels like it, though usually not when you actually need to be somewhere.
you don't pay your electric bill ever couple months to have electricity available some of the time, maybe, when it feels like turning something on, but usually not at night when you need a light on.
why should it be any different with a communications service.

i'm getting the feeling that upc think there's no other competition for what they provide, so people will whinge and rant but never switch ... well, that might hold water to a certain degree: if they actually provided what they say they're going to provide. which they don't. not since our "upgrade." what comes with their equipment is a price tag and the necessity to buy more equipment that actually works, and what comes with their service is the necessity to cross your fingers and hope that maybe when you need it the service will actually be there. five angry phone calls since february and, when i finally get through to someone, they go on and on about the interference with the neighbouring wi-fi, and when i tell them i'm plugged directly into the router with my ethernet cable, they log into the router, change the WIFI CHANNEL, reboot it, then ask me if it's working better now. i wish i had his name, but one tech support lad i talked to when i was unfortunately out of the house did "confess" that they had a lot of problems with a lot of the 3925s that they shipped out, both with firmware and hardware, and one temporary fix that some techs found was to lay the router up on its side (again to help the wifi signal). he was at least being honest. wish i got his name so i could request his help again (he couldn't really help until i was at home in front of the router, that day), but he's probably been sacked for being useful and honest.

upc was very reliable for us for years, before we upgraded to the tv bundle. now the internet has been a completely frustrating experience, every single day, and, though i don't watch the tv much at all, i walked in on the housemates watching "the wolf man" on tv the other night and was actually full shocked at how poor the quality of the picture was. it would've looked better on youtube at standard quality. nobody else seemed to notice, but ever shot of the eery full moon, i could count the color bars in the gradient of the skyline, on one hand, from across the room. nevermind hd, nevermind standard tv quality, this looked like video compression that involved a box of crayons (and not a box with a very large pallete, mind you).

terrible stuff. if you've had a good experience with the bundle, and/or the 3925, then godspeed. but for those who are wondering, i highly highly highly recommend NOT going with upc. we've had the bundle since the beginning of the year and, though not usually an overly fussy person as long as a thing just works, i feel like i want all our money back. it's beyond taking the piss. it's taking the piss, freezing it, then turning around and being hit over the head with the piss-sicle.

Sparks43

personguy wrote: »

it's beyond taking the piss. it's taking the piss, freezing it, then turning around and being hit over the head with the piss-sicle.

:pac::D

Funniest thing ive read on boards in a long time

shuffles03

I got the UPC broadband, phone and tv package delivered yesterday but I can't setup the broadband. I followed all the instructions, wired it all up but we can't find our wireless network. WHen it first turned on, the network appeared but wouldn't accept the SSID provided. We turned it off, waited a few minutes and turned it back on. All the lights came on (and were constant), the wireless light is on, the connected light is on, when we plug the ethernet cable from the box into a laptop the internet works but for some reason, the wireless network won't appear.

What's wrong with it? One of the steps in setting it all up states that you have to wait until the first 4 lights are constantly on before connecting for the firsts time as if you try before this, you may corrupt the wireless network. Have we done this? I'm not at home so can't ring to sort it out. I've read that people connect via ethernet, type in a specific web address and access the network to change it's settings? Do we need to do this? The box we have is a technicolor. We can pick up other wireless networks in the apt block as well so it's definitely just our own box that's not working (not our comps).

How would the wireless network have appeared initially but now won't?

Thanks in advance.

white_westie

shuffles03 wrote: »

I got the UPC broadband, phone and tv package delivered yesterday but I can't setup the broadband. I followed all the instructions, wired it all up but we can't find our wireless network. WHen it first turned on, the network appeared but wouldn't accept the SSID provided. We turned it off, waited a few minutes and turned it back on. All the lights came on (and were constant), the wireless light is on, the connected light is on, when we plug the ethernet cable from the box into a laptop the internet works but for some reason, the wireless network won't appear.

What's wrong with it? One of the steps in setting it all up states that you have to wait until the first 4 lights are constantly on before connecting for the firsts time as if you try before this, you may corrupt the wireless network. Have we done this? I'm not at home so can't ring to sort it out. I've read that people connect via ethernet, type in a specific web address and access the network to change it's settings? Do we need to do this? The box we have is a technicolor. We can pick up other wireless networks in the apt block as well so it's definitely just our own box that's not working (not our comps).

How would the wireless network have appeared initially but now won't?

Thanks in advance.

Sine you have internet working via wired connection then connect pc to wire and log in to router.
Its external address is 192.168.100.1
username/password is admin/admin

Then go to wireless menu page and ensure that wireless is enabled.
There are 2 options - one running at 2.4GHz and the other running at 5GHz
As far as I know only one will run so make sure the correct one is running for your wireless card - usually 2.4GHz will work.
Also check that the SSID and passphrase is matching what you are trying to look for/connect to.

Failing that, then its a call to UPC!

shuffles03

Thanks, I'll try this when I get home. Why would the wireless network have appeared initially but then disappeared?

white_westie

shuffles03 wrote: »

Thanks, I'll try this when I get home. Why would the wireless network have appeared initially but then disappeared?

No idea really - wireless is switched off on mine, but I think light still shows on!
Just check that wireless is enabled on the admin page first, and that the SSID and passphrase match what you think they are.

Citroen2cv

Hi,
In the home I share in dublin 9, we have UPC cable TV and broadband. I am not sure what the package (speed) is, as my housemate subscribed to it but doesent know what the package is, lost all the docs. The broadband setup is a cable modem and wireless router. The wireless is absolutely atrocious, its not really the speed but the fact that the signal cuts off all together. Down close to the router, the signal still cuts off. THis occurs at any time during the day, not just the evenings. I dont think its congestion/contention issue, just something wrong with the setup. Ive heard that UPC technicians do free callouts, is this true?

white_westie

Citroen2cv wrote: »

Hi,
In the home I share in dublin 9, we have UPC cable TV and broadband. I am not sure what the package (speed) is, as my housemate subscribed to it but doesent know what the package is, lost all the docs. The broadband setup is a cable modem and wireless router. The wireless is absolutely atrocious, its not really the speed but the fact that the signal cuts off all together. Down close to the router, the signal still cuts off. THis occurs at any time during the day, not just the evenings. I dont think its congestion/contention issue, just something wrong with the setup. Ive heard that UPC technicians do free callouts, is this true?

Sounds like you have one of the older type of setups - a SA2203 Cable Modem connected to a Netgear Router (not sure what model it was).
This will only support speeds up to 30MBs.
If everything is working on cable connections speedwise with no dropouts, then its more than likely the wireless in the Netgear router is failing. You can buy and replace that yourselves - if you search around the threads here, there are some good recommendations for a replacement wireless router.

As far as I know UPC never really supported the Netgear router - I think they passed you onto Netgear themselves for support. If you call out UPc I don't think they will replace just the Netgear, they will probably change the whole lot for a single modem/router (and you will probably pay for it as well).
Read through the posts here and on the UPC thread for ongoing issues with the newer modem/router that UPC are supplying.

Citroen2cv

Thanks for the swift reply, I will check out the router model this evening and look further through this thread.

personguy

don't want to double-post, but in case anyone else in the D8 area is having the same issues as i (last night and tonight) .. it's covered here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=85164481&postcount=224

dubtom

I've had issues now the last two nights with my connection, never really had issues that couldn't be sorted with a restart of the pc when I had a 60 meg, I have 100 meg now and a restart does nothing, no phone either. It seems to off around 1 am and stays off all night, when herself comes home at 5pm it's back, or at least was yesterday. The page that loads says DNs lookup failed. I have the epc3925 router, in Dublin 10. I'm assuming its something to do with the 100 meg connection?

I checked up's twitter and they said a problem in the 'area' was resolved, replug in the router.didn't say what area or what problem, but unplugging the modem seems to have worked, for now.

Mike Litoris

dubtom wrote: »

I've had issues now the last two nights with my connection, never really had issues that couldn't be sorted with a restart of the pc when I had a 60 meg, I have 100 meg now and a restart does nothing, no phone either. It seems to off around 1 am and stays off all night, when herself comes home at 5pm it's back, or at least was yesterday. The page that loads says DNs lookup failed. I have the epc3925 router, in Dublin 10. I'm assuming its something to do with the 100 meg connection?

I checked up's twitter and they said a problem in the 'area' was resolved, replug in the router.didn't say what area or what problem, but unplugging the modem seems to have worked, for now.

Ballyer here as well Tom. Mine and my friends were also down last 2 nights.

I'm not at home but apparently it should have been back up and running at 12pm today.

Service has been terrible since they started upgrading speeds after the new year. Multiple daily drops, recently Youtube bricked and now this shíte. I'll probably take my business elsewhere.

Piliger

Hi all,

Cisco epc3925 - Constant problems and would love to bridge/bypass it but it all looks way too technical for me. My PC is only one room away on the same floor but despite raising the router off the floor I am only getting signal strength of 55-60% and signal-to-noise of 22db, never mind regular outages and crap signal from time to time.

I believe this router has no external antenna (duh) but I wonder if anyone knows if it is possible to fit a good external antenna on to it ? I mean that should not be a major technical job ?

MiskyBoyy

Piliger wrote: »

Hi all,

Cisco epc3925 - Constant problems and would love to bridge/bypass it but it all looks way too technical for me. My PC is only one room away on the same floor but despite raising the router off the floor I am only getting signal strength of 55-60% and signal-to-noise of 22db, never mind regular outages and crap signal from time to time.

I believe this router has no external antenna (duh) but I wonder if anyone knows if it is possible to fit a good external antenna on to it ? I mean that should not be a major technical job ?

Would you consider investing in a pair of home plugs such as these?

TP Link 200MBPS Twin Pack Wireless Powerline

I'd highly recommend home plugs or powerline adaptors as they're also called, you could plug one in near the modem and then another one in to a spare socket in the room you're using your pc in and have the option to have your laptop connected straight via ethernet cable or if that's not ideal for you, the specific model of home plugs I linked you to, also boost your wifi range significantly! So if you had it plugged in, in your room, it would be like sitting right next to the modem.

Piliger

DaLad wrote: »

Would you consider investing in a pair of home plugs such as these?

TP Link 200MBPS Twin Pack Wireless Powerline

I'd highly recommend home plugs or powerline adaptors as they're also called, you could plug one in near the modem and then another one in to a spare socket in the room you're using your pc in and have the option to have your laptop connected straight via ethernet cable or if that's not ideal for you, the specific model of home plugs I linked you to, also boost your wifi range significantly! So if you had it plugged in, in your room, it would be like sitting right next to the modem.

Thanks for the suggestion, DaLad ... certainly worth considering. What about speeds and Ping times ? as my son (21) does a LOT of serious gaming.... ?

MiskyBoyy

Piliger wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion, DaLad ... certainly worth considering. What about speeds and Ping times ? as my son (21) does a LOT of serious gaming.... ?

I do a lot of gaming myself. I have the homeplugs similar to this that don't have the wifi extender built in and when I do a speed test/ping test through mine, I get 55Mb/s and no extra ping really, usually like 14ms using the UPC speed test. I have 150Mb with UPC btw. I can't figure out why I can't get the full speed through the home plugs as mine are certified up to 500Mb but you're not going to need that amount of bandwidth for gaming anyway so I'd say it's ideal for gaming!

Piliger

Thanks for that, DaLad - I'll check'em out

MiskyBoyy

Piliger wrote: »

Thanks for that, DaLad - I'll check'em out

No problem, best of luck

ED E

DaLad wrote: »

I do a lot of gaming myself. I have the homeplugs similar to this that don't have the wifi extender built in and when I do a speed test/ping test through mine, I get 55Mb/s and no extra ping really, usually like 14ms using the UPC speed test. I have 150Mb with UPC btw. I can't figure out why I can't get the full speed through the home plugs as mine are certified up to 500Mb but you're not going to need that amount of bandwidth for gaming anyway so I'd say it's ideal for gaming!

They never operate at full speed but that is quite low. Probably a lot of noise on your mains for some reason(one device could be screwing with things). Try set them up in the same room and see how fast you can get.

MiskyBoyy

ED E wrote: »

They never operate at full speed but that is quite low. Probably a lot of noise on your mains for some reason(one device could be screwing with things). Try set them up in the same room and see how fast you can get.

Yeah I reckoned that. Funny thing is, when I send a large test file of 20gb or so across my network through the homeplug, it seems to go through at full speed but my internet bandwidth doesn't.

It doesn't bother me too much any more as I just use the home plugs for my Xbox and ran a 20 metre Cat 6 cable from my modem to my PC so get full speeds now, of course.

ED E

DaLad wrote: »

Yeah I reckoned that. Funny thing is, when I send a large test file of 20gb or so across my network through the homeplug, it seems to go through at full speed but my internet bandwidth doesn't.

It doesn't bother me too much any more as I just use the home plugs for my Xbox and ran a 20 metre Cat 6 cable from my modem to my PC so get full speeds now, of course.

Could be the chips in them. There's more routing in an external packet, thus more work for the modems to process. No big deal either way.

Alun

Piliger wrote: »

I believe this router has no external antenna (duh) but I wonder if anyone knows if it is possible to fit a good external antenna on to it ? I mean that should not be a major technical job ?

Yes, you can. I tried it and it did improve things a bit.

Basically, if you open up the modem (screws on bottom) you can see that there are two internal antennae in the form of small PCB's, one on the front of the case, and one in the corner, at an angle of approx. 45 degrees to the front. Coincidentally this is possibly the reason why in a previous post someone was advised to put the modem on it's side, as presumably this would radiate upwards to upper floors in a house more than if it was laid flat.

Anyway, I digress ... inside the case you'll see that the WiFi functionality is provided by a mini-PCIe card, and the two antennae are connected to it by so-called U.fl connector. You can buy antennae with a base that have a cable with a U.fl connector already attached on eBay, or you can do what I did and bought a couple of U.fl to RP SMA pigtail cables (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/U-fl-IPX-to-RP-SMA-male-pigtail-cable-for-wifi-network-/170440739762?ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:IE:3160) and connected some old antennae I already had from an old router to these. I didn't make a permanent fixture of it, but it looks like you could drill a couple of suitable sized holes in the rear panel of the case to put the SMA connectors through.

Piliger

Alun - MANY thanks for that ... I will suss those parts out and see if I get any improvement :-) Tks again !

personguy

honestly, as unfair as it seems/is, just get another router and put the epc3925 in bridge mode.
ever since i did, not only do we have constant connection for all devices in the house and much better throughput, but also that sound that normally radiates in our front hallway (where the modem is) has been silenced. dunno about other folks, but when the wifi is activated on our epc3925 it makes an awful screeching sound like gargling sparks.
(yay upc. thanks for charging us for a modem that comes crippled out-of-the-box then making us buy another router just to obtain the expected functionality. yay.)