# Pixelation Troubleshooting



## golf4dj (Nov 6, 2005)

Had my bolt for a couple weeks with a comcast cable card. Initial setup I had the bolt and 2 minis running over MoCa. Bolt in media room minis in bedroom and family room. My cable modem [tp link 7610] and router in the office. I have an 8 way splitter in a central location and a 2 way splitter in my office. Initially everything was reasonable with just a little pixelation on ESPN and a few other channels.

Yesterday I introduced another mini into the system placing it in my office [2 way splitter at wall one line to modem one to mini]. Pixelation is unbearable. It was interesting that we had a power outage last night that tripped the breaker for my office so the modem, router and newest mini were down and the signal was back to ok. When I powered everything back up the unbearable pixelation returned.

I need to troubleshoot.

Is it possible that I need a filter placed just before the internet modem to isolate it from the MoCa network?

Would having both a mini and cable modem on the same run with a 2 way splitter cause problems?

Would a better 8 way splitter have any impact?

Any other thoughts?









Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

That is a heck of a slot of splitters, each of which adds signal loss. Sounds like lack of signal strength to me. Anyway you can test this? Sorry, I don't know how, other than checking the signals at my cable modem. What values do you get from yours for...

Downstream
SNR? Should be >=25dB, per spec
Power level? Closer to 0dBmV the better, +/- 15dBmV per spec
Upstream
Power level? Lower the better, under 58dBmV per spec

If you are anywhere near close to the boundaries, adding more splitters will just add to the problem.

When I had signal strength issues, I kept complaining to my cableco, and eventually it got fixed, all outside my house. Now I have a perfect connection.

Everything I mentioned is about the cable modem. I have no idea what happens with MOCA.


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## chicagobrownblue (May 29, 2008)

golf4dj said:


> It was interesting that we had a power outage last night that tripped the breaker for my office so the modem, router and newest mini were down and the signal was back to ok. When I powered everything back up the unbearable pixelation returned.


I had bad pixelation after a lightning storm. The cable company came out and said the coax needed to be replaced. I was skeptical. He replaced the coax and the pixelation was gone. I run my coax through a coax surge suppressor on my UPS now.


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## JoE 15 (Nov 19, 2015)

chicagobrownblue said:


> I had bad pixelation after a lightning storm. The cable company came out and said the coax needed to be replaced. I was skeptical. He replaced the coax and the pixelation was gone. I run my coax through a coax surge suppressor on my UPS now.


Would an UPS add any additional signal loss if running the coax through it.

I'm on a MoCa network via Fios, and I've never had a problem with signal strength, but was interested in getting an UPS for my entertainment center (along with my router).


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## chicagobrownblue (May 29, 2008)

JoE 15 said:


> Would an UPS add any additional signal loss if running the coax through it.
> 
> I'm on a MoCa network via Fios, and I've never had a problem with signal strength, but was interested in getting an UPS for my entertainment center (along with my router).


I don't know. But you can just replace the first coax to see if that solves the problem.

My setup is coax in to UPS out to splitter then in to cable modem / TiVo. My UPS with the coax surge protector is years old, I don't know if they make them.


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## golf4dj (Nov 6, 2005)

Not sure I properly figured my issue out but my problem is generally solved. I took the new mini that I had added in my office off of my MoCa network and reconnected it using a standard ethernet connection.

I guess i may have degraded the signal or introduced something when i added the 2 way splitter in my office to add the mini along with my modem.

All is generally good now.

Sent from my SM-N900T using Tapatalk


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## SomeRandomIdiot (Jan 7, 2016)

chicagobrownblue said:


> I had bad pixelation after a lightning storm. The cable company came out and said the coax needed to be replaced. I was skeptical. He replaced the coax and the pixelation was gone. I run my coax through a coax surge suppressor on my UPS now.


I have drops from 3 MVPDs coming into my house from the street (as well as copper telco). On one MSO, I was getting 2-3 internet drop outs a day. Neighbor was clearing out an area and ripped one of the drops out of the ground.

Obviously called and had it replaced from the tap to the side of the house. That stopped the dropouts, much to my surprise.

So much so, another installation had same dropouts everyday. Told them to try replacing the drop from the street. Major issue doing this at this location. MSO did not want to engineers it. So MSO replaced modem etc. and everything else. Nothing worked. Told MSO to replace drop from street pointing out my experience 45 days ago or I'd move the account.

Sure enough, that worked in that location as well.

Based on my experience, the drop from the street to the dwelling entrance appears to have intermittent issues much more than I would of suspected.

BTW, what was happening was no response from DNS Server several times a day. Was not showing as error in the modem. Clearly packets had to have been dropped during the lookups (and with sites, but I had monitors constantly testing the DNS to make sure connections were working).

It may help, it may not in your situation.

In a separate issue I had a dirty connector on FiOS about 200 feet from my place causing some issues with Video. They only found it by looking down the fiber and they could see an "event" 200 feet before my ONT. But I had to stay on them to get the proper Engineering people with the right equipment to troubleshoot that one. As you do not have FTTH that would not apply to you, but possibly others.


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