Help with MoCa network (Actiontec Adapter and Wireless Extender)

[saminmontreal]

Hi wondering if anyone can help me. I have setup a wireless extender using the actiontec adapter. The MoCa Coax light on the adapter goes green for a while but then starts to go on and off dropping the network and internet connection also. When it works its not bad, but it stops ever 20 minutes or so for around 5 minutes. It's strange. Before connecting the Actiontec extender, the Internet never ever cut out and was very reliable with consistent speed of 65mb/s down and 10mb/s up. Its just that the signal gets weak in the bedroom so figured I would try to extend it using MoCa

Setup and Stats below. The Set top boxes always work, its the internet that goes in and out. Not sure if something was done wrong. Also if you are wondering why the adapter has the coax in cable going to the STB and the TO TV going to the splitter, well it's because when I try the opposite the MoCa signal never turns solid green or get a connection, it's only when I inverted them did it work.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Setup

Actiontec Extender GUI

Network Monitor and Scan

 

[thiggins]

Very nice diagram, thank you.

I don't think you need the second PoE filter. When you say the internet goes in and out, please be more specific. ALL internet, or just connections to the wireless extender?

 

[saminmontreal]

Very nice diagram, thank you.

I don't think you need the second PoE filter. When you say the internet goes in and out, please be more specific. ALL internet, or just connections to the wireless extender?

Hi

No just the extender and anything connected to it's wireless network - and also the MoCa adapter green light for "CoAx" goes off. Basically when that happens, the extender starts assigning internal ip's instead and I guess it loses the connection with the adapter. The cable modem and router don't get affected and don't drop their connections.

Thanks for the 2nd PoE filter, it was actually the cable company that put that there in-front of the cable modem (maybe to prevent interference? They installed that when they installed the 2nd STB but that was before I added the adapter and extender.) I have tried with and without it, and it does not really seem to make a difference.

Ideally I would put the adapter in front of the wall right after the PoE filter there, but then it's very far from the router so it doesn't work. I was sure this setup would also work, and if it works sometimes, it is confusing why it would keep dropping the connection to the Extender. Unless one of the parts is defective or something...

Thanks!!

 

[sfx2000]

Have you considered putting the MOCA injector after the POE filter and before the first splitter?

Once MOCA is on the wire, it's fine. Runs on different frequencies than DOCSIS, so it should not impact the STB's in the slightest. You can leave the AP behind the Arris modem, and push ethernet back into injector...

The cable Run... this assumes that the DVR and STB has In/Out (most do)

Wall - Injector - splitter - to SamsungDVR - CiscoSTB - ActionTec Extender - LAN-Wifi
|
Arris CM -- Airport - LAN/WiFi

Then from the Arris CM - connect the Airport to it, and run ethernet back to the Injector. You're protected from WAN trying to enter in by both the OSI stack, and that the LAN is non-routable to the public internet, and you still get benefits from the SPI firewall in the Airport Extreme. And the IP pipe, protected by the Airport, piped back into the cable run, will be picked up by the ActionTec Extender.

Also consider that each 2 way split is a 3dB loss in signal, so if location allows, maybe consolidate them into a 3 way perhaps. The STB and DVR, if they and in/out jacks are passive taps, so little if any signal loss on the RF side. Keep the POE filters to a minimum, as they have a fair amount of loss, which can impact both TV and Broadband quality.

Just my thoughts...

 

[sfx2000]

Wall - Injector - splitter - to SamsungDVR - CiscoSTB - ActionTec Extender - LAN-Wifi
|
Arris CM -- Airport - LAN/WiFi

Heck - the HTML editor kinda mixed it up - the first split is the samsung DVR and the Arris CM in the diagram above...

 

[saminmontreal]

Hi SFX2000 - Thank you for the suggestion, and yes I had a feeling that would be the better setup:

Ideally I would put the adapter in front of the wall right after the PoE filter there, but then it's very far from the router so it doesn't work. I was sure this setup would also work, and if it works sometimes, it is confusing why it would keep dropping the connection to the Extender. Unless one of the parts is defective or something...

The problem is of course running ethernet down to the adapter from the router...kind of defeats the whole purpose of wanting to setup MoCa but I may have to do a little re-configuration of rooms. It's just strange that it won't work this way (or that it cuts out because when it does work it works great)

 

[wis]

What device is your MoCA network coordinator? The status screen capture is confusing: the "*" is shown in the column header row.

You show the wireless adapter and Cisco STB being fed (via the splitter) from the "pass-through port" on the Actiontec 6200 MoCA adapter. Do you have a 1:3 splitter you could use instead of the pass-through? I think I saw somewhere that a person had issues with that port. Is it defined to pass MoCA frequencies? What's the loss through it?

For testing, you could use another 1:2 splitter to get around the adapter pass-through. MoCA allows a pretty large attenuation between nodes.