I just got Comcast (Xfinity?) internet. Half working?

[Vanden]

Let me start this off by saying computers are not my strong point, but I really would love some help with this.

I got Comcast internet yesterday after being pretty unsatisfied with AT&T for years. Yesterday it worked perfectly no issue at all. It was fine this morning, too. Then I turn on my computer tonight, and I start getting weird issues. A bit over half of the websites I type in give me a 404 not found from Comcast, some give me a selfinstall4.comcast.com which says "Forbidden You don't have permission to access /<something different> on this server". I wouldn't mind so much if it was only a few websites I rarely use, but this is stuff like gmail and battlenet that I use all the time. I googled it a bit and it mentioned I should change my DNS server to OpenDNS or google but then I've read that those can be really laggy?

I am on a laptop wirelessly if that matters, but the router/modem is in the room right next door so I don't think that'd be an issue. Thanks for any help you can give me with this, I really appreciate it!

[chaud]

Call Comcast. The modem isn't staying provisioned correctly.

[Hurwyn]

All I can say is welcome to Crapcast. You've got a long hard road ahead of you, my friend.

[icedwarrior]

All I can say is welcome to Crapcast. You've got a long hard road ahead of you, my friend.

This is all I hear about Comcast, but seriously -- I've had them for years and years (7+?), and I can honestly say I cannot recall a time where I had downtime, or any problem. At all. I find them to be a bit pricey, but in regards to service, I've never been inconvenienced.

As Chaud said, call them.

[Hurwyn]

This is all I hear about Comcast, but seriously -- I've had them for years and years (7+?), and I can honestly say I cannot recall a time where I had downtime, or any problem. At all. I find them to be a bit pricey, but in regards to service, I've never been inconvenienced.

As Chaud said, call them.

Wish I could say the same. We have random times where our internet will just completely go down for days at a time, a few times a year. We also lose connection here if the wind blows the wrong way, not even joking.

[medievalman1]

This is all I hear about Comcast, but seriously -- I've had them for years and years (7+?), and I can honestly say I cannot recall a time where I had downtime, or any problem. At all. I find them to be a bit pricey, but in regards to service, I've never been inconvenienced.

As Chaud said, call them.

Ditto. There has been only one time when my cable went down for more than a minute (this happens very rarely, once every number of months), and that was due to a regional system hardware upgrade at 1am-5am. Think I've been a customer of comcast regularly since 2005... I think.

[kidsafe]

I've been a happy customer of Comcast (other than their occasional price hikes) for as long as they've been in the area. In fact Comcast has been much better than AT&T Broadband (ATTBI) before it and TCI@Home before that...they put a lot more work into the infrastructure here than any other cableco.

If you have connection issues due to weather, that sucks. It could be anything from heat/cold expansion/contraction or water seeping through a damaged seal. It could be that a squirrel decided to gnaw a hole through a wire on a pole if your cable isn't buried. Most likely though it's poor wiring at your home/premises or an issue at the drop.

For vanden, his problem is simple...his modem is behind Comcast's "walled garden" and he needs to do what chaud said. Call them, tell them the modem needs to be [b]provisioned[b] then he needs to give them the CPE MAC address.

If anyone has connection issues, they should try opening http://192.168.100.1/ in a web browser and look up their signal levels.

The desired ranges are...
Downstream SNR >35dB (You should be able stay connected as low as 30dB)
Downstream power between -10 and +10 dBmV (-15 and +15 is technically in spec)
Upstream power between 30-45dBmV (under 50dBmV in extreme cases)

[Vanden]

Hey, thanks for the advice guys. I'll give them a call today.