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jamesli's avatar
jamesli
Aspirant
Jul 24, 2016

C3000 Wifi Drop-off Issue

TL;DR: The wifi drops off completely and doesn't link back to the Internet at least once a day, no power issues, no connectivity issues.

 

I have the C3000 DOCSIS 3.0 cable gateway on Comcast Xfinity, I'm not using a cable splitter or any other kind of product, my regular wifi download speed exceeds 15Mbps (occassionally goes up to 25Mbps). My wired connectivity hardly drops, but my wifi function has been malfunctioning at least once a day. A powercycle is the only way to fix this issue, and all my settings are under factory default setting, no modifications were done on the modem.

 

Here's what I did to triage the issue:

 

1. Changing channels after reboot - doesn't work, every channel drops off once in a while

2. Checked power issue, please see following chart for power levels:

 

Downstream Bonded Channels
ChannelLock StatusModulationChannel IDFrequencyPowerSNRCorrectablesUncorrectables
1LockedQAM25613609000000 Hz-2.1 dBmV41.9 dB00
2LockedQAM25611597000000 Hz-2 dBmV41.9 dB00
3LockedQAM25612603000000 Hz-2 dBmV41.3 dB00
4LockedQAM25614615000000 Hz-2.3 dBmV41.4 dB00
5LockedQAM25615621000000 Hz-2.2 dBmV41.3 dB00
6LockedQAM25616627000000 Hz-2.4 dBmV41.4 dB00
7LockedQAM25619645000000 Hz-1.8 dBmV41.4 dB00
8LockedQAM25620651000000 Hz-1.8 dBmV41.4 dB00
 
Upstream Bonded Channels
ChannelLock StatusUS Channel TypeChannel IDSymbol RateFrequencyPower
1LockedATDMA735120 Ksym/sec17300000 Hz43.8 dBmV
2LockedATDMA745120 Ksym/sec23700000 Hz44 dBmV
3LockedATDMA755120 Ksym/sec30300000 Hz44.8 dBmV
4LockedATDMA765120 Ksym/sec36700000 Hz44.5 dBmV

 

3. Checked logs:

[Internet connected] IP address: 50.161.98.1131Sun Jul 24 09:27:57 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.12] to MAC address a0:99:9b:1e:3b:7b1Sun Jul 24 09:27:48 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.16] to MAC address 60:5b:b4:0a:43:b51Sun Jul 24 09:27:47 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[Time synchronized with ToD server]1Sun Jul 24 09:27:43 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.12] to MAC address a0:99:9b:1e:3b:7b1Thu Jan 01 00:00:53 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.16] to MAC address 60:5b:b4:0a:43:b51Thu Jan 01 00:00:52 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.12] to MAC address a0:99:9b:1e:3b:7b1Thu Jan 01 00:00:42 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.16] to MAC address 60:5b:b4:0a:43:b51Thu Jan 01 00:00:40 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.10] to MAC address 00:18:4d:ff:ff:071Thu Jan 01 00:00:32 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[Initialized, firmware version: V2.02.08]1Thu Jan 01 00:00:31 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.11] to MAC address c0:ee:fb:33:c9:fc1Sat Jul 23 18:15:06 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.16] to MAC address 60:5b:b4:0a:43:b51Sat Jul 23 18:15:03 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[Internet connected] IP address: 50.161.98.1131Sat Jul 23 18:15:02 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.14] to MAC address 6c:ad:f8:7f:49:bf1Sat Jul 23 18:15:00 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.16] to MAC address 60:5b:b4:0a:43:b51Sat Jul 23 18:14:52 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.14] to MAC address 6c:ad:f8:7f:49:bf1Sat Jul 23 18:14:49 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[Time synchronized with ToD server]1Sat Jul 23 18:14:46 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.16] to MAC address 60:5b:b4:0a:43:b51Thu Jan 01 00:00:53 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.11] to MAC address c0:ee:fb:33:c9:fc1Thu Jan 01 00:00:47 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.16] to MAC address 60:5b:b4:0a:43:b51Thu Jan 01 00:00:41 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.10] to MAC address 00:18:4d:ff:ff:071Thu Jan 01 00:00:32 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[Initialized, firmware version: V2.02.08]1Thu Jan 01 00:00:30 19700.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.12] to MAC address a0:99:9b:1e:3b:7b1Fri Jul 22 21:02:16 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.11] to MAC address c0:ee:fb:33:c9:fc1Fri Jul 22 21:02:03 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.16] to MAC address 60:5b:b4:0a:43:b51Fri Jul 22 21:01:59 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.14] to MAC address 6c:ad:f8:7f:49:bf1Fri Jul 22 21:01:49 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.16] to MAC address 60:5b:b4:0a:43:b51Fri Jul 22 21:01:48 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.20] to MAC address 38:71:de:db:04:651Fri Jul 22 21:01:41 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[Internet connected] IP address: 50.161.98.1131Fri Jul 22 21:01:40 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.14] to MAC address 6c:ad:f8:7f:49:bf1Fri Jul 22 21:01:38 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.16] to MAC address 60:5b:b4:0a:43:b51Fri Jul 22 21:01:37 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.11] to MAC address c0:ee:fb:33:c9:fc1Fri Jul 22 21:01:32 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.20] to MAC address 38:71:de:db:04:651Fri Jul 22 21:01:30 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[DHCP IP: 192.168.0.14] to MAC address 6c:ad:f8:7f:49:bf1Fri Jul 22 21:01:27 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0
[Time synchronized with ToD server]1Fri Jul 22 21:01:26 20160.0.0.0:00.0.0.0:0

 

I've marked the time synchronize event to red because these are the exact time that my wifi function stopped working. I think this somehow indicates that either the initialization (causing the system time to revert back to 1970) or the synchronizing event are the root cause of drop offs. 

 

4. Last, you can see from the event log that it indicates a time sychronization failure, timestamp is always at 1970 since the modem was initialized back to 1970:

1970-1-1, 00:00:31Critical (3)SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/QPSK symbol timing;;CM-MAC=2c:30:33:ba:b2:a8;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.0;CM-VER=3.0;
1970-1-1, 00:00:38Critical (3)No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=2c:30:33:ba:b2:a8;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:62:1c:58;CM-QOS=1.0;CM-VER=3.0;
1970-1-1, 00:00:32Critical (3)SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/QPSK symbol timing;;CM-MAC=2c:30:33:ba:b2:a8;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.0;CM-VER=3.0;
1970-1-1, 00:00:39Critical (3)No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=2c:30:33:ba:b2:a8;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:62:1c:58;CM-QOS=1.0;CM-VER=3.0;
1970-1-1, 00:00:31Critical (3)SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/QPSK symbol timing;;CM-MAC=2c:30:33:ba:b2:a8;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.0;CM-VER=3.0;
1970-1-1, 00:00:38Critical (3)No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=2c:30:33:ba:b2:a8;CMTS-MAC=00:01:5c:62:1c:58;CM-QOS=1.0;CM-VER=3.0;
1970-1-1, 00:00:31Critical (3)SYNC Timing Synchronization failure - Failed to acquire QAM/QPSK symbol timing;;CM-MAC=2c:30:33:ba:b2:a8;CMTS-MAC=00:00:00:00:00:00;CM-QOS=1.0;CM-VER=3.0;

 

 

 

In all, I think this is a quality issue. I purchased this modem through Amazon in March, and this issue has been very persistent throughout my usage. I have ruled out Xfinity issues and my connected device issues. I hope Netgear can come up with some kind of a fix to this as this is proven to be a problem for many consumers.

3 Replies

      • dolittle63's avatar
        dolittle63
        Aspirant

        I am having the same problem. I cant keep my iphones in the house or my nest thermostats to stay connected. the hard wired connection is perfect.