SB5102 in http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21165685 en Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:23:08 EDT Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:23:08 EDT Re: SB5102 http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21290928 ymtakeda :
said by anonimuz :

Have you ever requested that you get the new Motorola modem? Chances are this will increase your speeds greatly.
Thank you for suggesting I request an upgrade to a new Motorola cable modem.

I sent an email to Shaw Customer Service on 25 September 2008 and received a reply back by email from Shaw Internet Vancouver Help within a couple of hours. I was told my Terayon cable modem would be exchanged free of charge at any Shaw retail store, open 7 days a week 9 am – 5 pm, but if that was inconvenient a technician can be sent to my home to swap the modem. I went to the Shaw retail store in downtown Vancouver a few days later on a Sunday afternoon and my old cable modem was exchanged for a MOTOROLA SURFboard Model SB5102 without any fuss.

I did speed tests at DSL Reports, Shaw Speed Test, and Speedtest.net after I connected the MOTOROLA SURFboard Model SB5102 to my Belkin F5D9230-4 Wireless G+ MIMO Router v5000. The download speeds were indeed much faster but speed tests were frequently not completed because of dropped connections. I also found that I was unable to view more than a couple of minutes of streaming video from PBS, NBC, CNBC, BNN and other news sites before it was no longer possible for my computer/ router/ cable mode to re-establish a connection with the web site. Computers connected to the Belkin wireless router through Netgear powerline Ethernet bridges kept on becoming disconnected as well.

I connected the cable modem directly to my desktop modem and determined that the dropped connection problem lay with the Belkin wireless router. I went back to using a 3Com Office Connect 3CRWE52196 wireless router and dropped connections are no longer an issue. My computer now boots up and loads programs on startup more quickly. Windows Explorer and Outlook 2003 used to sometimes fail to load, stop responding, or crash when I was using the Belkin wireless router but these problems seem to be a thing of the past now. Internet Explorer 7 still sometimes stops responding the first time I try to load it but it loads okay on subsequent tries during the same session on the computer.

I had assumed that routers were a mature technology when it came to physically connecting computers to the router but was surprised to learn that it is not the case. The Belkin wireless router had the latest firmware that is not Beta (Firmware Version 5.01.16).

Downloads with the Motorola cable modem connected directly to my computer are between 4.5mbps and 5mbps. Downloads with the Motorola cable modem connected to the Belkin wireless router are about 2 percent slower but connections are dropped frequently. Downloads with the Motorola cable modem connected to the 3Com Office Connect wireless router are about 8 percent slower than a direct connection to the Motorola cable modem but the connections are much more reliable – download speeds are between 4.1mbps and 4.6 mbps.

There is something else I discovered while I was trying to figure out the problems I was having with my almost four year old desktop computer. My computer needs to warm up for a minute or two before Windows XP Professional booting up Windows XP Professional to run as well as it did when it was new. I pause the computer once there is power running through it and it has completed its diagnostics and do a hard reboot a few minutes later and the computer boots up more quickly than if the computer was cold from having been off all night. If my computer is cold, it takes longer for the computer to load the operating system and startup programs, and the computer may slow down to a crawl and pretty much hang up with a lot of hard disk activity. This problem has been noticeable since I replaced the internal hard drive and the one inside the external hard drive enclosure with Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA2 500GB and 1TB models in July 2008. I have not experienced these hard drive activity “freeze ups” since I began letting the components warm up before allowing the computer to boot up Windows XP Professional.

I have another four year old computer, a Dell Dimension XPS Gen 2, that experienced hard drive “freeze ups” after I installed Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA2 drives internally and externally so I swapped the hard drives with Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA2 drives and that computer is working fine now.

Again, thanks for suggesting that I request that my Terayon cable modem be exchanged for a newer MOTOROLA cable modem. I am getting download speeds that are within 8 percent of the advertised “up to 5mbps” download speed around 90% of the time so I am now a satisfied Shaw Internet customer. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21290928 Sun, 19 Oct 2008 01:11:17 EDT SB5102 http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21165685 anon : Have you ever requested that you get the new Motorola modem? Chances are this will increase your speeds greatly.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,21165685 Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:44:34 EDT