goCoax MoCA 2.5 adapter

[rmann2020]

Good work methodically testing @rmann2020. Does sound like indeed there is something about the Gocoax adapters that do not like the Nextbox. The screenshot seems normal (to me), for that moment while everything was coming up.

In test 7. do the Gocoax adapters work and you can transfer data? You seem to imply that yes, and it's not until perhaps step 8 that they stop transmitting?

I'm out of bullets... time for Gocoax to give some additional input here.

Gocoax adapters continue working until step 9 when i rebooted them. At that point, the whole home pvr became active and the gocoax adapters wouldn't work again until I disconnected the nextboxes.

@gocoax hoping you can jump in to provide insight and direction. Thanks.

 

[Booboo22]

Only other thought is turning off "Preferred NC" on the Gocoax. Let the network negotiate the controller. Sounds like which every network (the Gocoax or Nextbox) becomes active first trumps the other....

 

[Cutlass2033]

Does anyone know what the RX Bad counter means in the Device Status page? What is the difference between RX Bad and RX Dropped? Why aren’t bad ones also dropped? One of my adapters is seeing very small numbers of RX Bad packets. 0.006%. Is that normal or at least OK?

 

[Booboo22]

My understanding is that:

• Rx Errors (bad) are simply malformed, meaning they do not pass as valid Ethernet packets and therefore they are recorded as being in error. It will need a retransmit.
• Rx Dropped are packets that are intact, however they fail the checksum, and therefore the adapter Ethernet stack discards the packet since it's corrupted. There will need a retransmit too.

I suspect there's noise induced into the coax *somewhere* and hence you are getting those. You will also get errors if you connect/disconnect the coax during transmit/receive.

 

[mikejs11]

Anybody know when these adapters will be in stock?

 

[Cutlass2033]

My understanding is that:

• Rx Errors (bad) are simply malformed, meaning they do not pass as valid Ethernet packets and therefore they are recorded as being in error. It will need a retransmit.
• Rx Dropped are packets that are intact, however they fail the checksum, and therefore the adapter Ethernet stack discards the packet since it's corrupted. There will need a retransmit too.

I suspect there's noise induced into the coax *somewhere* and hence you are getting those. You will also get errors if you connect/disconnect the coax during transmit/receive.

That makes sense. As I said I’m not too worried about it since it’s less than one tenth of one percent of total packets. I’ll make sure all my connections are tight and replace an old bullet connector and see if that does the trick.

 

[Booboo22]

I’ll make sure all my connections are tight and replace an old bullet connector and see if that does the trick.

Yes, this would be good. At least finger tight, although I use a 7/16 wrench and gingerly tighten. The official specs call for 15 lb, but I wouldn't go that far
http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/connector-torque.htm

 

[Cutlass2033]

Yes, this would be good. At least finger tight, although I use a 7/16 wrench and gingerly tighten. The official specs call for 15 lb, but I wouldn't go that far
http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/connector-torque.htm

Yikes ya 15 lb sounds like a lot. I always use a 7/16th wrench mainly because it’s just easier. Some of the connectors in this house are old and not grippy. I may even replace some of these old F connectors and see if that helps. My coax also isn’t properly grounded, and some on the outside of the house was a little crushed by the cable company. I’m not thinking the pinched cable is a huge issue considering it’s a short run under 20 feet. I don’t know how sensitive MoCA is to grounding issues. But I’m probably really splitting hairs in order to fix 0.06% of packets in 1 direction only.

 

[Booboo22]

I hear ya.... I get pretty obsessed as well. The smaller the problem (such as this one) the more it bothers me. I went out and purchased a bag of 50 compression Belden connectors and the tools to clean up my RG-6. Lucky my house had quad-shielded cable already. I would ground it though, that's important to code and safety. And should help with noise on the coax.

 

[Cutlass2033]

I hear ya.... I get pretty obsessed as well. The smaller the problem (such as this one) the more it bothers me. I went out and purchased a bag of 50 compression Belden connectors and the tools to clean up my RG-6. Lucky my house had quad-shielded cable already. I would ground it though, that's important to code and safety. And should help with noise on the coax.

For sure. I have been consistently disappointed by the quality of work from Canadian cable companies. They do crap work and charge a ton.

 

[Cutlass2033]

I’m also not too worried about it as my MoCA connection is fast. I’m getting a PHY rate of just over 3600 on both adapters.

 

[Cutlass2033]

One other thing I wanted to add is something I discovered that makes administration of the adapters much easier.

The adapters are set from the factory with a 192.168.254.254 IP address and the website directs you to change the IP of whatever computer you’re using in order to connect to the adapters to change settings because they don’t have a DHCP server. That is true, but what they don’t say is that the adapters DO have a DHCP client! That means that when you’ve connected them to your home network they can pick up an IP from your own router. Just connect to the adapter and go to Device Settings in the left menu bar. From there you can turn on DHCP automatic configuration, save and reboot the adapter and it will pick up an IP from your own router that you may then use to connect in to it. If you want it to stay on a certain IP address I’d then set a static IP reservation in your router for your GoCoax devices. Now you can obsess over every setting without having to change your IP or physically connect to each adapter!

 

[jrmtz85]

Anybody know when these adapters will be in stock?

the Translite one is in stock on Amazon. Ordered another pair yesterday. Don't know about the others.

 

[jazzy01]

the Translite one is in stock on Amazon. Ordered another pair yesterday. Don't know about the others.

They have been AVAILABLE for a few days now @ gocoax.com/ but backordered @ amazon until earlyu May

 

[flyoffacliff]

I still have lots of questions about the different settings, but @gocoax has not really been responsive. Hope they survive the pandemic!

 

[Artex]

Hey everyone-

I am relatively new to MocA but I've had experience with the older Actiontec MoCA 2.0 devices. I've now picked up 3 GoCoax MoCA 2.5 adapters have have them all updated to the latest 1.0.6 firmware and assigned them static IPs on the network. The problem though is that I'm *only* seeing throughput of about 700Mbit from node to node.

• I essentially have the cable coming in from the outside down into the basement where it hits a BAMF MoCA splitter, connecting to a PoE filter on the "IN" terminal of the splitter.
• From there 3 separate coax runs come out of the splitter - 1 to my living room, and the other 2 run along the basement ceiling where they eventually run up a conduit all the way to the attic.

The living room coax comes out of the wall into the GoCoax "MoCA" terminal and then another length of coax goes from the "STB" terminal to the cable modem - a DOCSIS 3.1 modem - and then I ran a short length of CAT6e from the ethernet jack on the GoCoax device to my Asus RT-AX88U (1Gbit LAN port).

The runs that go into the attic each connect to barrels on one side, and the other side of the barrel connects to what looks like cheaper grade (i.e. thinner) coax runs - one goes into the bedroom and the other my office. The bedroom connection contains the 2nd MoCA adapter and connects via ethernet to my Firestick. The office connections contains the 3rd MoCA adapter and connects via ethernet to my Asus RT-AC88U (1gGbit LAN port).

I've been doing all kinds of tests using iPerf3 and can't seem to get over ~700Mbit upstairs anywhere. I know these have gigabit ethernet ports so I would think they should be a little faster.

Thoughts on where to look next? I'm a little worried that the cable in my attic that runs down into the upstairs room says UHF/VHF which makes me think it's the older COAX meant for those old roof antennas.

Speeds:



My home was built in 1984. Excuse my crappy skills here...




Settings (when I had them direct-connected to my laptop):

 

[jrmtz85]

@Artex my first thought would be to plug in your upstairs adapters one by one to the green cables in the attic, before introducing the potentially lower quality yellow cable. Try them individually on the green and then all 3 on the green. If you see the nice 3.5gbit connections established, you can at least have that answered right then and there.

 

[Artex]

@Artex my first thought would be to plug in your upstairs adapters one by one to the green cables in the attic, before introducing the potentially lower quality yellow cable. Try them individually on the green and then all 3 on the green. If you see the nice 3.5gbit connections established, you can at least have that answered right then and there.

Thanks!
So essentially I'd be testing the connection through the filter and splitter all the way up to the attic before each splits off the barrels using the cables of unknown quality. Makes sense! I'll bring a laptop up there - just need to find an AC power source or get an extension cord.

 

[Booboo22]

As @jrmtz85 states, this is a straight forward troubleshooting. Test just 2 adapters. First basement to living room, get rid of the splitter.... Then test basement to master. And so forth. I'm wondering if the thin coax is RJ-59 and old / damaged. ideally you want RJ-6 quad-shield. Also could be a bad coax F-connector. My carefully segmenting your testing you'll find what's wrong.

 

[Artex]

As @jrmtz85 states, this is a straight forward troubleshooting. Test just 2 adapters. First basement to living room, get rid of the splitter.... Then test basement to master. And so forth. I'm wondering if the thin coax is RJ-59 and old / damaged. ideally you want RJ-6 quad-shield. Also could be a bad coax F-connector. My carefully segmenting your testing you'll find what's wrong.

All good thoughts as well. I've been trying to 'boil the ocean' instead of narrowing it down which should be easy enough to accomplish.