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

Decky86

Hi guys .. I recently receied the new model modem (the one with no antenna ) .. My problem is that the router is so far away from my room that even on the stairs its weak . Is there a way to boost the signal other than buyin long cable and moving it elsewhere? .. I notice theres a 5ghz option on thr box? What is this?

ED E

Decky86 wrote: »

Hi guys .. I recently receied the new model modem (the one with no antenna ) .. My problem is that the router is so far away from my room that even on the stairs its weak . Is there a way to boost the signal other than buyin long cable and moving it elsewhere? .. I notice theres a 5ghz option on thr box? What is this?

5Ghz is a different band, tends to go faster but a shorter distance(not what you need) and wont necessarily work with all devices.

Buy a proper access point and just plug it in beside the current one.

Piliger

Decky86 wrote: »

Hi guys .. I recently receied the new model modem (the one with no antenna )

Is this the same UPC: EPC 3925 that the rest of us have or is there a new model ??

Calibos

Further to my post about rigging up a PC fan to the EPC3925 USB port to cool the unit....

Haven't had a disconnect since I did it 3 or 4 days ago. Make of that what you will.

Also bought my Asus RT-N66U router today and bridged my EPC3925 and set op the Asus.

I thought my frustrating slow page loads were either due to the ancient 8yo PC I happen to use to browse on or slow DNS server-side at UPC.
No. That was down to the underpowered and overworked EPC3925 too! Soon as I set up the Asus, browsing on this old PC has been transformed. Lightning fast page loads now.

ED E

Calibos wrote: »

Further to my post about rigging up a PC fan to the EPC3925 USB port to cool the unit....

Haven't had a disconnect since I did it 3 or 4 days ago. Make of that what you will.

Also bought my Asus RT-N66U router today and bridged my EPC3925 and set op the Asus.

I thought my frustrating slow page loads were either due to the ancient 8yo PC I happen to use to browse on or slow DNS server-side at UPC.
No. That was down to the underpowered and overworked EPC3925 too! Soon as I set up the Asus, browsing on this old PC has been transformed. Lightning fast page loads now.

Similar experience with my WNDR3800 vs the 3925. And the new boxes are even worse by the looks of things. Oh UPC, when will you learn.

Felim_Doyle

J0nney wrote: »

My 50Mb broadband connection can drop to 2Mb at times during the evening. In my case its clearly a UPC problem and not any problem with my equipment.

It does sound like a problem with the UPC connection but have you definitely ruled out WiFi contention issues? Are you talking about 50Mb dropping to 2Mb on a hard-wired connection rather than over WiFi? Also, how reliable is your testing method? Could there be a bottleneck at peak times that is related to networks outside of UPC?

ED E

RopeDrink wrote: »

At my wits end.

Using an ancient Netgear wgr614v7 and for the last four days still crawling, after merely 2-3 days of decent net since the last time this happened (It's gone from a once off to becoming pretty common, to now becoming pretty much a permanently slow experience - I had better results on my 56k Modem fifteen years ago).

Rang UPC Tech Support and they claimed both my phone and net signals were really bad - Got a Tech coming out on Wednesday to look into it but I'll just assume they won't magically cure whatever's going on.

It's been suggested I look into 'free upgrade' seeing as I can supposedly get 50meg BB for the same price I'm paying for what I can only assume is the 35meg BB Package (I've been on this so long and they've upgraded it before that I can't be sure).

Wondering is this the new Horizon package or something else - I'm pretty sure the router needs an upgrade at least, it's old as the hills now - But it had been working perfectly fine for years and it's only been the last month or two that these problems started happening and only recently they became pretty much dead-set on keeping me perma lagged.

UPCs network team managed to resolve mine before(never said why), assume youve had a read of this: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056836825

Decky86

Piliger wrote: »

Is this the same UPC: EPC 3925 that the rest of us have or is there a new model ??

yeah same as everyone else.. think im gonna take a hammer to it. its as useful as tits to a bull!!
even playin online games is laggy as hell

Piliger

Decky86 wrote: »

yeah same as everyone else.. think im gonna take a hammer to it. its as useful as tits to a bull!!
even playin online games is laggy as hell

My son plays LOL on it and it drives him crazy .... but bridging looks too technical for me.

Decky86

Piliger wrote: »

My son plays LOL on it and it drives him crazy .... but bridging looks too technical for me.

yeah im goin bananas at this point.. thinkin of getting a wifi extender. anyone have one to recommend with that epc 3925 ****box?

Calibos

Piliger wrote: »

My son plays LOL on it and it drives him crazy .... but bridging looks too technical for me.

Bridging the EPC3925 looked a bit technical to me too....when one had to run the scripting HTML hack thingie. However the EPC3925 has the option in the official firmware for the last year or two. (Currently the only UPC Modem/Router with the option available)

Because we hammered our connection and EPC3925 in our house with 3 Desktops, 4 Laptops, 9 smart phones, 3 iPads, 6 XBMC media streaming devices and a partridge in a pear tree and Bit-Torrents a'gogo, we needed a powerhouse router which is probably overkill for most. We bought the ASUS RT-N66U router.

Setup was easier than a T-Link wireless access point I added to the network last year and that was easy

Logged into EPC3925 via an ethernet connected device. Turned off Wirelss on the EPC3925. Switched EPC3925 from Router mode to Bridge mode from the dropdown menu. Connected ethernet cable from EPC3925 port to WAN port of ASUS. Turned on ASUS. The ASUS detected all settings itself really and all I really had to do was set the Wireless Security type (WPA2 AES in our case), the SSID and Password to that previously used by our EPC3925. ie. So we didn't have to change the settings on each and every wirelss device we had.

Up and running and the benefits already evident in 5 minutes.

Decky86

And how is it for range?

Calibos

99% of reviews say its fantastic but I am not sure if its fair for me to make a definitive judgement. Its certainly more reliable for us so far with less bounce in the connection speed than the EPC3925 but the signal reaches no further than the EPC3925 did despite being able to adjust the transmit power on the ASUS router. However, in our house I think all Wireless routers are rendered equal. Its a Victorian house with 2ft thick outside walls. The Router is on the ground floor at the back of the house. The back of the house was an extension built in the early 20th century and thus the walls that separate this section of the house with the rest of the house is the old gable wall of the original construction. Thus its over 2ft thick !! Then the next wall between dining-room and living room/ bedroom 1/2 is Redbrick solid wall. ie. No Stud walls in this house even in the interior. The Wireless AP I talked about was purchased to extend the wireless to the front bedroom/living room at the front of the house separated by that 2ft thick old gable and solid redbrick internal walls.

I'd say in a building of more modern construction with internal stud walls is where the ASUS would be able to stretch its wireless legs.

white_westie

Calibos wrote: »

I'd say in a building of more modern construction with internal stud walls is where the ASUS would be able to stretch its wireless legs.

You would think so, but I had an extension built a few years ago and used a small space at the back of the house as a study. The dividing wall is your standard!!! partition wall, but it just kills any wireless signal - I'm talking about 12inch away from a router with just the wall in between.

Ended up running a cable and connecting an access point, and just left it sit on the floor outside the door - working perfect ever since.

squonk

Calibos might be on to something with the temperature thing. My place is small and tends to heat up fairly easilly and retains heat. I've got two NAS devices running regularly and the router is running constantly also and gets quite hot. Over the weekend I was away and noted that the router went down Friday evening. Later that evening, after midnight, the router came back online and died again the following day. Later again that night it came back on line and then died on Sunday completely. When I got back on Monday the router was fairly hot. I'm not sure what I can really do to actively cool the device and I don't really want to get into all of that. My best bet is to maybe take a lot of work off the 3925 and just use it in bridge mode. Anyone had any success bridging the 3925 with an Apple Airport Extreme?

Gadgetman496

squonk wrote: »

Calibos might be on to something with the temperature thing. My place is small and tends to heat up fairly easilly and retains heat. I've got two NAS devices running regularly and the router is running constantly also and gets quite hot. Over the weekend I was away and noted that the router went down Friday evening. Later that evening, after midnight, the router came back online and died again the following day. Later again that night it came back on line and then died on Sunday completely. When I got back on Monday the router was fairly hot. I'm not sure what I can really do to actively cool the device and I don't really want to get into all of that. My best bet is to maybe take a lot of work off the 3925 and just use it in bridge mode. Anyone had any success bridging the 3925 with an Apple Airport Extreme?

He could well be.

I remember way back when I got my 3925 I noticed it was getting very hot with the second wireless router sitting on top of it, so I placed to small bits of timber between the two to allow more airflow and I have never had drop outs or any of the other issues being reported here.

srsly78

white_westie wrote: »

You would think so, but I had an extension built a few years ago and used a small space at the back of the house as a study. The dividing wall is your standard!!! partition wall, but it just kills any wireless signal - I'm talking about 12inch away from a router with just the wall in between.

Ended up running a cable and connecting an access point, and just left it sit on the floor outside the door - working perfect ever since.

The opacity of your wall changes as a function of frequency. I have found that wifi N penetrates a lot better than the old wifi, probably because it works at a higher frequency.

Similarly for mobile internet, 2g signal penetrates walls a lot better than 3g. That's why you will often find yourself bumped down to 2g even when in central dublin.

Bruno Batista

Anyone noticing much worse speeds on Youtube lately or just me?
(Parnell Street, Dublin)

personguy

Bruno Batista wrote: »

Anyone noticing much worse speeds on Youtube lately or just me?
(Parnell Street, Dublin)

yep.
i read up about upc throttling youtube across europe (germany, sweden i think?, other places too), and found some help on blocking the ip addresses that were used to indicate some kind of throttling arrangement. it helped for a while (though i was mostly using ip numbers i found that didn't necessarily relate to ireland) .. but lately, yes, it's gone back to being not-so-good again.

Bruno Batista

personguy wrote: »

yep.
i read up about upc throttling youtube across europe (germany, sweden i think?, other places too), and found some help on blocking the ip addresses that were used to indicate some kind of throttling arrangement. it helped for a while (though i was mostly using ip numbers i found that didn't necessarily relate to ireland) .. but lately, yes, it's gone back to being not-so-good again.

That happened what, a year ago and they went back on it, but now it's getting to the point where a youtube video stutters every couple of seconds.
And it's not the connection as I have no such problems with Vimeo...

Piliger

Bruno Batista wrote: »

That happened what, a year ago and they went back on it, but now it's getting to the point where a youtube video stutters every couple of seconds.
And it's not the connection as I have no such problems with Vimeo...

I find a big variation between browsers when it comes to youtube. I have had problems with both FF and Safari and now use Chrome/Torch.

Snake Plisken

Calibos wrote: »

99% of reviews say its fantastic but I am not sure if its fair for me to make a definitive judgement. Its certainly more reliable for us so far with less bounce in the connection speed than the EPC3925 but the signal reaches no further than the EPC3925 did despite being able to adjust the transmit power on the ASUS router. However, in our house I think all Wireless routers are rendered equal. Its a Victorian house with 2ft thick outside walls. The Router is on the ground floor at the back of the house. The back of the house was an extension built in the early 20th century and thus the walls that separate this section of the house with the rest of the house is the old gable wall of the original construction. Thus its over 2ft thick !! Then the next wall between dining-room and living room/ bedroom 1/2 is Redbrick solid wall. ie. No Stud walls in this house even in the interior. The Wireless AP I talked about was purchased to extend the wireless to the front bedroom/living room at the front of the house separated by that 2ft thick old gable and solid redbrick internal walls.

I'd say in a building of more modern construction with internal stud walls is where the ASUS would be able to stretch its wireless legs.

Quick question are you getting full speed through bridge mode through the wan port to from the EPC3925? Any drop in speed on the wired devices through the Asus? I have a Linksys 4200 wired into it but not getting full throughput think it might be the Linksys causing the issue but i'd like to know before spending the money on the Asus.

Thanks

Calibos

My area of Bray was cabled about 18 months ago and we've had 100mbit with UPC for about 6 months now. My area of Bray doesn't seem to suffer the massive speed drops (1mbit) that have have affect the likes of Thargor in another part of Bray. I was averaging about 60-85 mbit depending on time of day/night through the EPC3925. Ever since I got the Asus about 3 weeks ago, I've been speedtesting (UPC's speedtest btw) morning noon, and night and have been getting 100-105mbit ever time bar twice when it was 85mbit. In other words we went from averaging 60-80mbit with a 100mbit result once or twice a fortnight to averaging 100mbit+ with an 80mbit result once or twice a fortnight.

Now of course, it might be a coincidence and UPC just happened to tweak something on their network around the time I got the Asus but I am inclined to believe I have the Asus to thank. It also speed up DNS resolving massively too. Even if I do have the Asus to thank for the higher averages, I am not sure the exact reason. Could be better managed QOS. Could be handling all the internet activity in this house of 8 Net savvy adult users along with all the torrenting where the EPC3925 couldn't handle the load.

I guess it depends what the reasons for your lower than hoped for speeds are, as to whether the Asus will help> Pretty sure it did help in our case though.

El Inho

can this modem hack the 50 mb? its my backup, which i needed on the first day with the new technicolor.

but maxing out at 30?

Rewired

Moved to P2P thread.

dubtom

Hey all, I'm using a 3925 router with a 100 mg connection (apparently) I've been having lots of DNs lookup issues lately, tonight it's not working at all despite two unplugs, which usually gets it going, I've also been getting around 42 MB on speedtest, not the UPC one, that says 80 odd MBA, don't believe it frankly. At the minute the router has one green light and lots of flashing ambers, what to do? Getting sick of UPC at this stage, over priced for the service I'm getting, I'm really don't have time to research all this bridging stuff that's talked about here, and rightly or wrongly, I feel a call to UPC will just have a techy talk babble to me, I'd dump this crowd in a heartbeat if I found a service where a phone line wasn't needed and I could get decent coverage.anyone know of one?

white_westie

dubtom wrote: »

Hey all, I'm using a 3925 router with a 100 mg connection (apparently) I've been having lots of DNs lookup issues lately, tonight it's not working at all despite two unplugs, which usually gets it going, I've also been getting around 42 MB on speedtest, not the UPC one, that says 80 odd MBA, don't believe it frankly. At the minute the router has one green light and lots of flashing ambers, what to do? Getting sick of UPC at this stage, over priced for the service I'm getting, I'm really don't have time to research all this bridging stuff that's talked about here, and rightly or wrongly, I feel a call to UPC will just have a techy talk babble to me, I'd dump this crowd in a heartbeat if I found a service where a phone line wasn't needed and I could get decent coverage.anyone know of one?

You have a fault either on your line or your modem - you need to report it to upc. If you don't want to talk to them, try their 'Talk To' forum here on boards - send your acc info in a PM to UPC Reps. They at least get should get some to remotely check your line and modem.

Parkowen

I have been having the problem of the broadband dropping for a second or so a couple of times a day. Its annoying when I am in a chat room or playing WoW and it kicks you off the server so you have to reconnect again. The problem has been ongoing for over a year. UPC changed the modem to a cisco one then switched back to the original one again. During the week, I upgraded to Horizon TV with them so the Horizon box is now the modem. We have two extenders in the house which work perfectly if it wasn't for the dropping in the signal.

We had hoped that getting the Horizon box and having it wired into a different room might help but no - one day later and we are still being disconnected. So its not the modem, its not the UPC box in the wall, and its nothing to do with the fact that wire use wireless around the house. Therefore it has to be something outside the house under the direct control of UPC. Its no use sending technicians out here to check my settings - the problem is solely an issue with UPC which they must find and fix.

Am I correct?

Piliger

Yes and no :-) It is their system. But they won't fix it. I tried for months and months and they never fixed it and in the end they blame the customer.

ED E

You have to berate the boards reps for a month straight to get it sorted.