problem with netgear mcab1001 moca setup

[jeldoner]

I have a triple play package with Cablevision in Long Island, NY (phone, internet, cable). When I hook up the SECOND moca terminal behind my home theater I immediately lose internet and phone throughout the whole house but cable tv remains viable. What am I doing wrong?

 

[thiggins]

Can't answer your question without a diagram of your setup.

 

[jeldoner]

moca setup

adapter #1: coax from wall to coax IN on moca
coax OUT on moca to coax IN in modem
ethernet port on moca to LAN port on airport extreme router
$$At this point the power Led is on, the ethernet LED is on and blinking and the coax traffic led is off.

adapter #2: coax from wall to coax IN on moca
coax OUT in moca to coax IN on cable set-top box
$$At this point the ethernet led is off on adapter #2 and phone and internet no longer work. adapter #1 seems up and running with power, ethernet and coax led's all on

 

[thiggins]

First disconnect the Moca adapters from the wall. Connect them back to back and test that they work.

Diagram
=======
Computer 1--Ethernet---Moca 1 ===coax===Moca 2--Ethernet--Computer 2

How are the coax ports in your house connected? Is there an distribution amplifier, splitters or both?

And any splitter that the MoCA signal passes through must be rated to at least 1.5 GHz, not 900 MHz.

 

[jeldoner]

I dormered the house when I bought it and had to have a cable technician add a junction box for the new addition because the cable was split so many times I wasn't getting any video feed. So the modem and router is in an older part of the house and my home theater is in the new addition. Can they not be communicating because they are somehow running separately?

 

[jeldoner]

cable and 2ghz splitter?

correct me if I'm wrong but will a 2ghz splitter even work with a cable modem? I thought those were for satellite.

 

[thiggins]

If the cable signal is getting to both locations, they are connected. But MoCA uses higher frequencies than many cable systems. That's why the splitters used must be rated to at least 1.5 GHz.

Yes a "2 GHz" splitter will work with a cable modem. Splitter frequency ratings mean "up to" that frequency.

I dormered the house when I bought it and had to have a cable technician add a junction box for the new addition because the cable was split so many times I wasn't getting any video feed.

You need to define what that "junction box" is. You also need to find out how many splitters are between the two outlets that you are using for the two MoCA adapters.

 

[jeldoner]

update

i have the moca working great but now cable doesnt work. when i shut off power to the moca cable comes back on. What gives?

 

[jeldoner]

Let me clarify. Moca is working wonderfully! I have it going to a gigabet switch behind my home theater giving a nice stable ethernet connection to my blu-ray player, a/v receiver, and dlna media player (xtreamer). However for me to watch cable tv i must unplug moca or else I do not get an audio or video feed. If I change the channel I see the info on the bottom stating channel number and what content is supposed to be displayed but nothing else. When I plug second moca back in the cable goes out again.

 

[thiggins]

What did you change to get it working?

 

[jeldoner]

There was a splitter that I didn't see. So I change it to a 2ghz one and voila the adapters began to communicate with each other. The splitter was attached to adapter #1. The tv attached to adapter #2 is the one not working

 

[thiggins]

Try reversing the connections to one or both MoCA adapters. Other than that, I'm out of suggestions.

 

[jeldoner]

what do you mean by reversing connections? won't that disrupt the moca feed? the adapters are communicating fine with each other but the cable feed doesn't come through the second adapter. do you think it needs some sort of amplification?

 

[thiggins]

Swap the coax cable connections on each of the adapter. It's worth a shot.

Also make sure ALL splitters between the two MoCA adapters have been swapped out for higher-bandwidth versions.

 

[jeldoner]

I'll try it, seems easy enough. I'll search for more splitters too. Do you think its worth swapping out the cable box with a different one to see if maybe the box is the problem?

 

[thiggins]

I'll try it, seems easy enough. I'll search for more splitters too. Do you think its worth swapping out the cable box with a different one to see if maybe the box is the problem?

If it's easy, try swapping the cable box. But I don't think that's the problem.

 

[RogerSC]

I'm hesitant to chime in here, but it seems to me that the MOCA adapter that goes to your set top box may not be working correctly. The MOCA adapters are talking, yet the set top box on the coax output of the MOCA adapter isn't getting enough signal. Perhaps that particular MOCA adapter just isn't feeding the TV signal through properly on the coax path.

I don't know offhand what you can do to test this, other than trying the MOCA adapter that's currently at the cable modem at your set top box, just to see if it acts differently relative to feeding the TV signal through to the set top box. Of course, you won't have the ethernet connection at that point, but this might tell you if you have a bad MOCA adapter.

Anyways, good luck with this one, my MOCA installation was basically plug-and-play. Sorry that you're having problems.

 

[thiggins]

That's a good point, Roger, and an obvious one I should have mentioned. It's also possible that the band settings got messed up somehow and is filtering the cable frequencies. Resetting both adapters to defaults should fix that.

 

[jeldoner]

Success!

So I plugged the moca directly into a cpu with hopes of upgrading the firmware when I see the adapter is set to ALL PASS. This disables any TV out option!! I don't understand why they come from the manufacturer in this setting. So after switching it to mocaD it works great- except for some major stuttering and heavy pixelation on one channel that I watch very frequently. I have to try changing the channel on the moca to get a better tv signal. I hope it works, there's alot to choose from. It's going to be a tedious endeaver.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for reporting back. When I reviewed the product the defaults were:
Channel = Scan
Diplexer Mode: MoCA D Band.

Don't know why these would have been changed.