Hello Alan,

Welcome to the community and thank you for posting. When you are performing resets on the modem, it is important not to press the reset button without having a technical representative on the phone. Pressing the reset button is a part of sequence only performed for factory resets and can potentially brick your modem when done arbitrarily. It is recommended to unplug the modem directly from the power brick or wall outlet for up to 30 seconds and no less than 10. 

In regards to performing the soft reboot, this can sometimes be done in conjunction with other functions only available to our agents, for certain situations.  Since frequent power outages can be harmful to the modem, power cycling may not always work by itself and will require you to call in for further diagnosis and troubleshooting.  

-Damian