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New customer who can't stay connected, random reboots

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faroutliving
New Poster

New customer who can't stay connected, random reboots

I hope someone here can help with a very strange problem and save me from lighting a HughesNet bonfire in my backyard... Sorry for the length of the this post, but I am trying to be as detailed as I can. If I missed something important, or something is still not clear, please just ask!

A little over three weeks ago we had an HN9000 with a wall mounted .98m dish installed. Since installed, the modem regularly reboots itself (say between 7 and 90 minutes) and occasionally locks up such that it requires the power cord pulled. About 5% of the time that it is up, we have troubles accessing web pages (and get the web acceleration problem page "Web Acceleration Client Error (504) - Suspected Satellite Link Outage") but email, ssh etc works fine. I suspect that is simply a symptom of the reboots but can't be sure. The reboots are like a complete power cycle, and we initially even loose access to the modem status pages.

We have already had a repair technician come out twice. The first time, he suspected the wrong power supply and when he arrived it was supposedly the wrong power supply and replaced it with a higher capacity 73w YM-2071A and left. No change. The second time he had to realign the dish (strong winds here had pulled the upwind arm loose) and then replaced the modem, power supply, and parts of the tria/lnb/whatever you call it with this system. No change.

I say parts of the tria, because I saw the repair tech pull the funnel shaped part out from the old and insert it into the new one. When he came back in and powered it up, he mumbled something, powered it down and went back out and was back up on the ladder. I'm not so sure he didn't put the old one back up, but I don't think so. It took longer than reattaching a cable, but less time that it took him initially to swap the tria.

I mention the specifics on the tria, because he told me that "they" (Hughes) wanted the dish and cable replaced but he saw no need to do that, and even told the Hughes guy on the phone that he replaced everything. Maybe "everything" is understood to mean everything with a chip/resistor, I don't know. I find it odd he replaced the power cable and mentioned how that could be the cause, but said that the coax tested fine and no way that could be the problem...

The install was done with no grounding, in fact the original installer clipped the ground leads such that there is no way to attach it without cutting and putting new ends on the coax. He also took pictures of an unrelated pole in the ground and submitted that as "proof" of grounding. The repair tech tried to sell me that having it grounded was actually dangerous and caused serious injury to an old lady who was sitting near her equipment in a lightening storm. I didn't bother to refute any of that nor explain the purpose of the ground. I did run a 10ga ground wire up to the dish and attach it to the tria after he left, but the problem still remains.

Since he left, the dish came loose 3 more times and the final time I drilled and screwed the adjustable arm. Luckily he had realigned it with the arms fully compressed so I was able to find "home" again. It might be a a tad off (188 receive signal strength, 37 normalized power word) but it behaves the same as it always had.

So that leaves the one odd part out of our specific installation. We are on a generator (nearest power line is miles, and $250k away. Nearest neighbor is 9 miles away. Nearest tree is a lone tree 2 miles away 🙂 and that was the repair tech's bosses only suggestion. He suggested that the modem was very power sensitive, and it should be on a UPS.

So... I have a Tripp-Lite UPS which I have plugged the satellite in. No change. I unplugged the UPS from the wall and ran it on battery. No change. I have a much larger generator for welding etc and wired into that. No change. Prior to this, we have been here 7 years on WildBlue (and then almost a year on Exede) and never had a problem like this. I can believe that the UPS would not be ideal as it is not a pure sine wave source (since it doesn't really matter for switching power supplies), but the generators are. I even ran some heavy cycling equipment (toaster, freezer, etc) that cause the smaller generator to have to power up to supply the house electricity and _that_ never caused the satellite to reboot. I would expect that if the modem is that power sensitive that would cause a reboot but it does not.

Any suggestions? I would like to get some fresh ideas. I hate to call and schedule another appointment without something new. You know that definition of repeating the same thing and expecting different results...

Thanks,
Deron

43 REPLIES 43
BirdDog
Assistant Professor

Thanks (Charles), I really wasn't into getting knee deep in the discussion. As an old military tech I know all the good and bad about electronic created AC. Aircraft 400 cycle AC is so clean. I'm just old and tired of fighting some battles, this kind of stuff has so much detail and we can go around and round for hours discussing it. More conducive to one on one over a beer or two.  : )
donsjgm
Junior

My dad retired from TWA as an airline mechanic supervisor so I'm aware of the 400~ (done to keep the radar from flickering).
Would like to sit down w/both of you and discuss over that beer.  🙂
faroutliving
New Poster

I have a good quality meter, but that won't catch a momentary voltage drop. No recording oscilloscope here... I have like 9 computers in the house, plus all the usual tech gadgets common these days. I would have expected to notice a power problem before now, but this is beyond my understanding.

Since I've tried both our generators, plus running off battery on the UPS, I just don't see that as a problem but I certainly can be wrong...
faroutliving
New Poster

Hmm. When I ran it off the UPS I pulled the UPS plug from the wall. Other than ground strap connected to the trea/LNB, that would be a floating ground? Hmm. Maybe Ethernet ground, but I'm pretty sure that is two 2 wire differentials. Easy enough to check. Just run straight to laptop and pull power there as well.

Heading out in a few minutes to run some errands, but will try this afternoon (one hour drive to town, so nothing is quick about errands...)
faroutliving
New Poster

Just the UPS. I am certainly willing to purchase an isolation transformer as a test. Any suggestions on what I should be looking for? Medical grade, or everyday commercial?
faroutliving
New Poster

As long as someone has suggestions, I'm willing to try them. Can this be done as some kind of mail exchange or does the tech need to make the 6 hour one-way drive?
Chris11
Alum

Hi faroutliving,

It will be done all through mail. You will receive the replacement modem which will also have a return slip that you can use when sending back your current device. 

- Chris
faroutliving
New Poster

Please do send it then. Tonight is the first month's "reset", and the hours wasted, and that monthly bill (and the data not used) is a tough pill to swallow.

Do you have my HughesNet account info that I presume is linked to this account or do you need my info?

Thanks,
Deron
faroutliving
New Poster

Hello Chris,
Still having problems here, and no replacement modem has arrived. Do you have a tracking number?
faroutliving
New Poster

(Having problems is an understatement. Both my wife and I have given up on it and now back to using our mobile hot spot. Might be expensive, but it works.)
Chris11
Alum

Hi faroutliving,

I apologize. I created the order but for some reason it did not go through. Just reprocessed it. Look out for it, should be there hopefully by tomorrow, latest Thursday. Please let me know if you do not receive it by this time. 

Thanks,
Chris
faroutliving
New Poster

I got it, and I'm switched over, but no change at all in behavior.

One thing I did observe last week before plugging in the new modem. I had a 3+ hour streak without a reset. It was early morning and foggy. The status page showed a Receive Signal Strength of around 165. Normally, the signal is around 190 with a low of 182 and a high of 202. As the sun came up, it burned off the fog the signal strength went up and the mean time between reboots went down. Maybe just coincidence.
faroutliving
New Poster

I give up. I've been billed again, and I still can't use this internet without pulling out my hair. What now???
Chris11
Alum

Hi faroutliving,

I'm still trying to investigate what could be going on. Currently your site is offline with no communication. If you can please reboot your system and make sure it is online so that we can continue to assist you.

Thanks,
Chris
faroutliving
New Poster

Sorry, we were gone yesterday. It is on now.
faroutliving
New Poster

Has something been changed on your end? We have been up for over 7 hours now! The wind is blowing like crazy (nothing new really) and the receive strength is around 188 (not that low compared to normal, but the low end?).

Both my wife and I were afraid to say anything for fear of jinxing us...
faroutliving
New Poster

Now up for 13 hours and 36 minutes. Roughly 10x longer than our previous record. Please tell me you changed something on your end...
BirdDog
Assistant Professor

It will be Monday morning before Chris is back here. Hopefully they were able to do something on their end to fix your problem. Fingers crossed you'll go through the entire weekend.  🙂

Could also be that engineering did some routine tweaks to your beam and/or gateway that also corrected your issue.
Chris11
Alum

Hi faroutliving,

I think it is the latter to what BirdDog said. We were monitoring your site and did not see anything that stuck out. However that was right before the weekend. Did your service continue like this with no disconnection over the past few days?

- Chris
faroutliving
New Poster

Hello Chris,

For two months now, we have never been able to stay connected for longer than 90 minutes. The average time between resets was much lower than that. We have been through two allowance resets, and both times had more than 19gb unused bonus bytes.

Starting Friday (might have been Thursday?), that seems to have changed. We have not noticed a reset, and modem system status seems to confirm that.

What I'd like to know is that something was actually fixed, and this is not some accident waiting to be undone.

Thanks,
Deron
faroutliving
New Poster

Just had our first reset since Friday that we know of. It is raining lightly outside, so that might be a factor. Signal strength of 173. Just reporting it in case it later proves to be useful info...