hav's profile

Contributor

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Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 5:33 PM

My 2wire modem/wifi keeps resetting

we noticed this a while back. never really cared for it, but now its getting annoying since i just bought a new modem thinking that there was something wrong with the old one. i dont know exactly whats going on.....it works fine for about 30 minutes then it just resets. streaming movies, playing online games and even browsing the internet have become a hassle....pls help!

Teacher

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30 Messages

12 years ago

I too, am having ERR_DMA issues resetting my DSL connection several times per day.  AT&T has been here and claims nothing is wrong.  I have been searching for a solution when I finally stubled on this thread.  David, your replys have been the most understanding and helpful yet.  Thank you.  But I still have the problem.  I am running WEP.  Channel 11, it was channel 1.  I am in a rural area no other wifi networks within reach.  I have two dell laptops, one macbook, ipad, ipod.  I do not have any correlation between devices and the problem. (But I'll work on that, its a little difficult with 4 users)  It seems from your posts, there are many possibilities to a solution.  This basically tells me we do not understand the root cause of the problem.  (I have a case into 2wire, but havent got a response).  So my question is, is there another AT&T router/modem besides a 2wire that does not have these issues (or other damming issues)?  For me, I would just prefer to replace my 2wire with another manufacturer router/modem and be done with it.  BTW, if so, why wouldn't AT&T be suggesting replacing the router/modem?  There is an aweful lot of service going on over this problem by AT&T.

Teacher

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30 Messages

12 years ago


INF 2011-11-05T04:14:10-08:00 sys: dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF2011-11-05T07:18:09-08:00 sys: dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...INF 2011-11-05T07:42:41-08:00 sys: dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...
INF 2011-11-05T07:46:33-08:00 sys: dsl0: connection lost, reconnecting...

NOTE: this occurred last night at 4:14 AM, these all correlate to ERR_DMA in the training statistics & CRC errors.

Is there a way to dump the log to a file and sort on time? This log is grouped up weird.

 

Edit update:  The Macbook was powered off last night, out of battery.  The ipad was powered off.  This leaves the 2 dells (one vista, one win 7), ipod and oh yes hp printer 7200 on my wireless network.

 

BTW: daylight savings kicked on my 2701 today!  One day early....  Its getting time from NTP @ 2wire and adjusting for daylight savings automagically...:-) time zone is correct.  Or maybe I slept through today and its really tomorrow...

 

Tutor

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8 Messages

12 years ago

I'll try the stuff provided but only for the sake of others who may have the issue. I've gone ahead and began the process of getting service elsewhere, and will be canceling my AT&T account this week. After all the things over the years I can't bring myself to understand why I've stuck with this service for so long after having so many ill handled problems, let alone pay far to much for the uncompetative speeds provided to my area, when I keep being forced to use less and less of the service I'm hardly getting. This whole modem ordeal is just the straw that broke the camels back.

 

"Truthfully if it is a power supply problem, it should  be present whether wired or wireless. Not just wireless and not when you turn on a specific device. Otherwise the first device you turned on via wireless should have failed too. "

 

I can see where it's reasonable to believe that, but in thinking about the issue over the last few nights and I've had computers in the past with power supply issues that acted the same way. Computers that would turn on fine and work great until power consumption changed due to trying to play a game or photoshopping things for school, only to have them crash. So its not unreasonable to think that the modem would be just fine with the wired connections if the wi-fi isn't being used, the wired connections aren't drawing nearly as much power. And if the issue is somewhere between the supply and wireless connection itself, then theres a pretty good chance the wired connection wouldn't be effected outside of the complete loss of connection caused by the wireless crashing the modem.

 

Look at it this way: These gateways are like those TV's with a VCR or DVD player built in. The player goes and the TV could still work for years. Sure, the TV could take a nose dive but theres also a pretty good chance nothing will happen. However, for whatever reason you bought that unit, you probably bought it with the express intent to use that built in player -so having a half working device is going to start to feel like a waste of space, and a pretty big inconvience when you can't use it for what you've intended to use it for.

 

You can also look at it like this: The wi-fi is, for whatever reason, suddenly drawing so much power that the modem is making an emergency shut down. If the thing is designed to combat overloads that would lead to potential fires, then any overdraw in power it deems to be too much is going to hit the killswitch, even if its for a second.

 

Also, like I said, its not just 1 specific device, its 3 seperate devices causing the crash whenever they're on, and its usually in conjunction with it being on along side one of the 3 wired computers in our house . I even went as far as to buy a used DSi (which I'm going to be able to return) to test the issue, to make sure that its not an inside job, and it crashed the modem -and a DSi is FAR from being a wi-fi juggernaught.

 

I also want to pose this question: If it isn't something hardware related, then why would this happen with 3 different devices so suddenly?

 

Theres been no updates for the modem's firmware (and there aren't any now), nor has there been any updates with the devices to make their connection to the wi-fi different. Theres been no change on our end PERIOD, before the issue popped up and we have been using the wi-fi consistantly for over a year. I don't see how it could be a settings/software issue, and I'd like to know how it could be, just so I can understand it for later reference.

 

Any way, before I go try any of this, I have to say I probably won't be able to try the thing mentioned to help the console. In looking for thing that might allieviate the problems I went into my 360's settings, which somehow resulted in deleting the profile of my modem. Now, the Xbox doesn't even see that the modem exists in the world.

 

The only way I know of to make it see the modem so I can go throught he process of setting up the profile again is to have a device on that keeps the wi-fi connections open -and I think you can see the obvious problem with that: If I try to have more then 1 wi-fi device on at any time, the modem's going to crash and I'll need to turn off the xbox and the other device in order to allow the modem to cycle and restart properly, losing every chance I had at getting anywhere in the process.. And since I can't seem to find a way within the modem to turn the wi-fi to a setting where its always on, I'm not sure how i'm going to get around that.

Teacher

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30 Messages

12 years ago

For those following this thread... check out http://forums.att.com/t5/Routers-and-Home-Networks/AT-amp-T-2Wire-2701HG-B-Disconnects-Drops/td-p/2794071/page/9. It provides more information and some solutions, including a better modem by Motorola. Could be worth a read.

Tutor

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8 Messages

12 years ago

@desmolift

Either that link is wrong or that threads been closed

 

@David

 

Tried changing the channel (theres only 11 on this modem by the way) but it didn't help, none of the devices would connect to the wi-fi at all after the change and reboots. It was as if the devices didn't know the modem existed (this goes for the 3DS' and the test DSi I bought, I still can't connect long enough to see and set up the modem over the 360 -see my last post for those details), tried to see if something in their settings could be changed to see a different channel but I couldn't find anything that looked like it.

 

As for those links to the programs that I could use to see how many devices are on the connection, I either couldn't figure out how to use them properly, or they just couldn't find my wi-fi connection period -probably because the connection is closed without a device starting it up, which just crashes the modem any way and completely defeats the point.  All either of them really said were "no wireless adapter found", which I assume is because the connection isn't on all the time, and since I don't have a clue how to properly use these programs, because I'm obviously not an expert in these sort of things, I don't know really what good it is telling me to use them at all.

 

All in all though, if MAC addresess are any indication, and I'm assuming they might not be, the only devices that ever connect to my modem are the ones in my house. I'm guessing however that I'd be told that it doesn't matter and other devices could piggyback onto the signal/channel without connecting to my modem, so I don't know if I've already answered my own question with that or not.

 

As for changing IP addresses, I had a difficult time following your steps to change the base IP, since I can't connect to the wi-fi without the modem crashing.. Since the issue is getting worse and the modem won't accept ANYTHING at all connected to the wi-fi connection without a crash (a developement that arose AFTER my post the other night, when I started to try these things), let alone while a wired computer is on with a wi-fi device (like I think I've mentioned), I really couldn't do step 1 exactly like you wanted.

 

I did try changing the base IP just through one of the wired computers with no wi-fi connection on (because I can't figure out how to turn it on without a device doing it for me) but again the devices acted like they had no clue the modem was even there. Actually, in this case the modem stopped the wired computers from connecting to the internet completely (didn't crash, just wouldn't find anything).

 

All in all, all we can do now is only use the wired connections. Its gotten to the point where we can't connect anything to the wi-fi even for a short time without the modem resetting, and its greatly limiting the use we usually get from the internet. In fact, the wired connection seems to be much faster now that the wi-fi really can't seem to be used at all... So, not really sure what you want to make of that.

 

Teacher

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30 Messages

12 years ago

I think the link is busted, cut and paste doesnt seem to work.  Go to support/communities and search for ERR_DMA in the search box, that will get you to three threads of interest. http://forums.att.com/

 

Teacher

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30 Messages

12 years ago

@BoomingEchoes

Have you checked your modems Statistics? If not got to, http://gateway.2wire.net/management, enter your system password and click on DSL Diagnostics. There is a table of data there, check the column Exit Code for ERR_DMA. If you can screen shot it and post it.

Employee

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442 Messages

12 years ago

Supposedly from what little I know of the error/exit code of "ERR_DMA" is suppoedly it had something to do with the 2wire potentially being in the "wpa-psk and wpa2-psk" However I had another chat with another peer of mine tonight, Someone mentioned also going in and turning off the packet flood inside the 2wire. Now one thing I had a notion of trying with a spare 2wire I have is unchecking all the packet detections the 2wire does on the firewall and see if that makes a difference.  Most (not neccsarily all) don't normally check for these things (least my linky/dd-wrt never did). That might be a key as well. 

 

Another thing is also try changing it to WEP and just 802.11b- from some people I have heard from that seems to clear up some wireless issues as well. 

Employee

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442 Messages

12 years ago

Edit to add:

 

I have another 2wire at the house here, I have done some things to it that may either fix or potentially help with the wireless drop problems. If it does I should know more within the next day or so.

Teacher

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30 Messages

12 years ago

@David

Thanks for your efforts, I appreciate it. I believe the things you should try to address the problem are anything to do with reducing the frequency of access to memory by the internal subsystems. This is what I believe will help reduce or stop the DMA Errors. So going from "G" to "B", or reducing hits on memory by the CPU, reducing your DSL connect speed, etc. The only item that worked for me was reducing my wireless bandwidth from 54Mbs to 11Mbs.  I tried WEP and firewall modifications, it did not help in my case.

 

BTW.  If you are getting ERR_DMA, there is no sense in chasing any other problems other than this.  Once you have this problem stopped, then chase any other problems you may still have.  I simply say this because the ERR_DMA is masked by several problems, like, wifi drops, dsl disconnects and CRC errors.  These "side effects" are causing AT&T line guys to get involved in this problem!  Clean up your DMA errors then move on.

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