modem should be replaced every 5yrs?

thehillsgirl on 07/02/2015 - 15:09

I am using "Netgear 54MBPS Wireless ADSL Modem Router DG834GSP v3 " which I got through Optus in 2008. Now using it with TPG ADSL 2+.

When troubleshooting slow internet speed the tpg engineer simply said my modem is too old and should try getting new one. He suggested to change it every 5yrs or so.

Wondering if his rule of thumb is just limited to himself or its something we should really do?

On side note. .. is there any way to find out if the above modern is indeed not working properly… by running any tests or so on modem itself?

Computing

Comments

  • acek47 on 07/02/2015 - 15:18

    Well, my advice would be to heed the TPG engineer as he would of performed tests on his end to determine what could be the issue.

    If he believes that there are no line issues, then most likely the problem would stem from within your home.

    You could be having issues with the WiFi connectivity on your router, or perhaps the modem itself has begun to degrade.

    Maybe its time to upgrade :)

  • thehillsgirl on 07/02/2015 - 15:25

    We noticed that the home phone line is not clear. If we attach the home phone the Internet speed drops further. So now we have not connected the home phone to the socket just connected the modem directly to the wall socket. No filter in picture.

    Do you think the bad phone line might be causing slowness in Internet?

    • Settero on 07/02/2015 - 18:30

      chances are you have not changed the line filters either, these things go faulty as well and do cause your line to get noisy / slow down/ drop outs.

    • oscall on 07/02/2015 - 18:32

      Get your phone line check by your service provider(TPG). When their are noise on the line the internet will not work properly. Do a speed test and see what you are getting. Not sure why TPG hasn't done a line test for you.Modems are fairly cheap. Wireless 4 port router only over $40 3 years warranty.

    • alxr0101 on 08/02/2015 - 10:07
      +1

      "…We noticed that the home phone line is not clear…"

      static? crackling? This is a line fault..no point messing with anything until this is resolved. Everything else is just a band-aid to the underlying issue.

      Things to check:-

      isolation test..unplug EVERYTHING, including any extension cords/plugs.

      identify the "first socket"..where the line comes into the house. You'll work out the methodology but you're trying to eliminate whether poor line quality is your side of that socket or the phone provider's side.

      Plug a handset in to that first socket and check for noise. Then plug modem in (no filter of course) and check sync speeds.

      Sometimes merely reinserting the connector will self-clean the terminals if there's a buildup of crud/corrosion on the connectors.

      • mattyman on 08/02/2015 - 22:04

        If there is line noise testing each socket to see which one is causing it, isn't going to work. All the sockets are joined … the noise will be present.

  • thehillsgirl on 07/02/2015 - 15:27

    Re : " perhaps the modem itself has begun to degrade."
    —- that's exactly im also interested in knowing. Are there any tests or something on modem to find it out?

  • RockyRaccoon on 07/02/2015 - 15:39

    What type of phone are you using. Is it cordless? If its 2.4GHZ or 5.8GHz both cause issues with wireless.

    Maybe a better way of getting help is to fully explain your setup at home.

    Are you using wireless? Have you tested the internet using ethernet connect directly to one of your computers?

    Guessing it is wireless, but need to be sure.

  • c64 on 07/02/2015 - 18:19

    7 years is getting a bit old in the tooth. modems usually run hot and the low quality capicitors used in them start to bulge. also the power adapters can start playing up. but that is not to say it is not working right. i still use a pretty old modem which runs to my broadband router . it works fine. my suggestion would be to try and borrow a modem off a friend overnight to see if it makes a difference.

  • Sage on 07/02/2015 - 19:03

    Optus are great, you can call them up and say your modem is acting up or broken then they'll replace it for free with the latest model.
    I'd recommend doing that.

    I've gotten my modem replaced many times over the last few years, every time I end up with a newer more powerful and feature rich modem.
    So I'd say updating every 5 years is a good thing to do.

    • thehillsgirl on 07/02/2015 - 19:29

      Ahh thx. But im not with Optus anymore…. was with them in 2008-2009. Do you think they will consider the free modem request?

      • Sage on 07/02/2015 - 19:32

        Oh woops, I missed that.
        Maybe TPG will do it, I don't really know how they do things but Optus are pretty generous.
        Might be worth trying anyway. Tell TPG them you need a new modem and see if they offer one.

        • djones145 on 07/02/2015 - 20:31

          yeah optus are usually good with that
          had around 3 modems changed over the years for free
          have been with them for over 15 years though!

  • terahammer on 07/02/2015 - 19:51

    I'm still using my SB5100 when broadband first came out.

    That 200mb monthly plan. fantastic

  • airzone on 07/02/2015 - 20:03

    I rarely get more than a few years out of a modem. Dust, ventilation, proximity to other heat generating equipment, load, etc all affect serviceable life. They seem to be quite sensitive to their environment.

    Historically I have invested in good quality routers (with whatever features take my fancy), and bought the cheapest adsl modem / router and run it in bridge mode. The routers will outlive the modems a few times over. It's an extra box, but I have found that even a good quality modem doesn't last as long as a cheap separate router.

    That said, my old man has a 7 or 8 year old modem sitting in a dusty carpet under a couch with no ventilation where it has worked faultlessly since he pulled it pre-configured out of the box from when Telstra delivered it.

    • troyww on 27/02/2015 - 11:29

      I've dealt with dozens of cheap modems over the years and they invariably don't last much longer than the 3 years warranty . The one exception was the Linksys wrt54g . I installed it in a steel manufacturing workshop for wireless downloads to cnc controllers . Huge amounts of high voltage and rf from welders , steel dust/filth everywhere from grinders but 6 years later it was still going strong with the occasional 3 monthly reboot . Haven't been back for a couple of years but I assume it's still chugging along .
      Linksys used to owned by Cisco but unfortunately are now owned by belkin who make utter rubbish from my experience .

  • Charity on 07/02/2015 - 20:07
    +1

    TPG / OPTUS / Any Aussie Telco… could only dream of saturating your 54MBs modem!!

    seriously, even if you have a 100mbs fibre NBN line it is not even close.

    btw, transferring data on your home network, if you have one, may be a different story, which involves your router (not modem).

    If you didn't understand that last sentence, don't worry about upgrading.

    Also, people telling you to replace your equipment blindly every 5 years do not understand the technical capabilities of the equipment. these people are just lemmings. In the year 2100 maybe australia (aust politicians more precisely) might put in a new system that saturates your 92 year old modem.

  • trex on 07/02/2015 - 20:11

    Modems don't have any moving parts, so there's no wear and tear like a mechanical item as it ages. With electronic components, if something is wrong with it, it's kaput full stop.

    I find that the 5 year rule is to cater more for technological advancements whereby the old equipment might be obsolete such as in the case of increasing broadband speeds that the modem can't support, for example NBN. This however doesn't warrant for the 5 year rule to be a rule of thumb. One needs to know the specs of the equipment and not just chucking out things older than 5 years old.

    I have used modems and routers which are quite old, some even over 5 years old with no issues.

    • airzone on 07/02/2015 - 22:17

      The caps can start to go and result in funny behaviour before they finally die. It really comes down to the individual circumstances though.

      • trex on 07/02/2015 - 23:19

        Funny behaviour by just slowing the connection speed down with everything else working fine? I don't see how it can be possible since it must be just the right capacitor (assuming a capacitor is involved in the speed circuitry) and it must be failing in just the right way that it is still semi-working.

        The probability of something else affecting the speed (such as main exchange congestion, bad connection, telephone cord of inferior quality etc) are much more higher.

        • bradsmrbetty on 08/02/2015 - 09:17

          I use to work for an ISP, the amount of modems that would start being replaced after the three year mark was very high.
          Most of the time it was 1) small power surges, 2) overheating and 3) physical damage.
          I helped test over a thousand modems most with wireless integrated.
          We had spares of the same models that the customers bought from us with the same firmware level that was sent to test for a week.
          We would test their modem for a night or two and physical and wireless pings to our dns servers, the modem ip address and google. This was so we could see if they dropped packets. Often the packet loss wss low but the speed test we used that logged the results on our radius server showed very poor speeds. Once again testing with a the same model modem and the same firmware and the same conditions the speeds where perfectly consistant as the previous speed tests from when it was new.
          We would get them to try the spare modem and their faulty modem for a week, swapping them and run speed tests on both. Same result the spare was fine their model was giving poor speeds.

        • trex on 08/02/2015 - 14:02

          @bradsmrbetty:
          While your test results does show that older modems have a higher rate of packet loss but it can't be concluded that the performance issues of the old modems are caused by aged components. Was a hard reboot and hard reset performed on the test units? Were the leads of the socket in the modem inspected for corrosion or oxidation or other built up? Were the defective units all of the same make and model? Three years is an awfully short time, if all the defective units were of the same brand and model, it could be a design/quality issue.

        • bradsmrbetty on 08/02/2015 - 16:39
          +2

          @trex:
          Most modems are on for 24/hrs a day we could see that from the radius server logs. The heat just kills them in end.
          Thats why they fail and modems can be failing for weeks. I have tested a modem with performance problems for days and often just before they die completely they drop their logon session which comes up in the radius log. You reboot because you can no longer access the ip interface and they don't come back on.
          Yes to hard reboot and hard reset these where always done first, as we needed to put test settings in and so we could start with a clean slate.
          We would typically change our models every 18 months to 2 years.
          These included Billion, TPLINK (these where the worst we sold supply issue with Billion) and Netgear and rebranded ciscos.

          We consistently seen the same issues with models of dlink, Belkin( you would be lucky to get 12 months) , tenda. Which we did not sell but where all brought in for testing as they where have poor performance when they ran the speed test.

  • retiredfeline on 07/02/2015 - 20:24
    -1

    Well I don't know if it can be considered an experience in support of the 5 year rule of thumb or not, but I've just replaced my 6 year old ADSL modem because it was losing sync too often and causing my dynamic IP address to be changed often (I monitor via DDNS). I've just put the "new" modem (scrounged from a friend, surplus to their requirements, natch, I'm an OzB'er :)) in so it could still be a case of line quality or perhaps the DSLAM changed and doesn't play well with the old modem.

    It's not true that no moving parts means something lasts forever or utterly fails. Semiconductor components do age, not to mention things like capacitors and may eventually fall out of spec. The old modem was running quite warm which couldn't have helped with longevity. As a bonus the new one runs cooler which should save a few cents electricity. Who has not experienced a PC that gets more and more cranky with age?

    I could have gone inside the old modem and looked at the statistics, but it was faster to simply put the new one in. It's in bridge mode so there are very few things to set anyway.

    So back to the OP, if it's easier to borrow a modem to see if that improves things, that's the easiest way to check.

    • scrimshaw on 07/02/2015 - 20:29
      +1

      +1
      solid state electronics do fail. So it's not entirely impossible that an old modem can die (or degrade in performance) if a capacitor bulges/leaks fluid or when the MOSFET is damaged by an ESD electrical surge.

  • mskeggs on 07/02/2015 - 20:34
    -2

    Lots of misleading advice and conjecture in this thread.
    Modems don't require replacement unless they fail. There are some improvements in wireless networking standards and what have you, but there is no reason to replace a working modem.
    That said, I have had several issues related to lightning ( I live in the mountains and we get some pretty active storms) that cause issues with the filters and in one case, the modem.
    My solution is to have a spare modem and filter in the cupboard, so I can easily swap it over and check if any issues are with the modem or something else. They come up on OzB regularly for under $40.
    In your case, if plugging in the phone with a filter causes an issue, it is very likely and issue with the filter. A replacement will be under $10, I think I have even seen them in bigger Coles/Woolies, or Dick Smith/Jaycar/any computer store.

    As a general comment, I do not recommend calling ISP support for slow Internet speeds (what does this mean? That you are syncing at low speed, or syncing fine but getting poor performance?). The support people generally don't have a skill set to troubleshoot this appropriately. Take a look at Whirlpool for tips on how to test things yourself.

    • scrimshaw on 07/02/2015 - 20:40

      I actually have the same issue as OP. If I plug in a phone and start using it, my modem drops the connection and the noise worsens. And I have tried 2 different filters — a good one recommended by Warcom and the default one that came with my Billion 7300n router. I sync at 11mbps and the SNR ratio is pretty bad (less than 5db).

      So it may not be the modem, or any of your equipment at fault, simply a line that has high attenuation and noisy and some modems cannot tolerate a noisy/distant line.

      There is actually some merit in buying and playing around with a different modem — quoting somebody on WP:

      Trendchip modems sync more aggressively on downstream with less tolerance for adverse conditions which is why they are only suggested for good, short lines. On medium to long lines a Trendchip modem may dropout often and provide worse performance than a Broadcom modem.

      Trendchip make no DSLAMs while a large portion of deployed DSLAMs use Broadcom chips.

      So if you have a distant line (more than 1.6KM) may be worth trying out a Broadcom modem.

  • alxr0101 on 08/02/2015 - 09:01
    +2

    1. You mentioned placing a filter in front of your modem? Don't….Filters are only for everything else except the modem.
      Also limit how many devices are directly connected to the line. Each device places an electrical load on the line.

    2. Yes indeed, modems can go bad after several years. However the reason for changing them is more for technical/performance/security reasons:-

    a) newer router/modems have faster processors..Whilst line speed may remain the same, faster processors can handle more requests, more sophisticated firewall filters etc.

    b) if wireless, newer standards provide greater range and speeds. However this is dependent on the capabilities at the other end (the client devices)

    *** A SIGNIFICANT REASON TO UPGRADE ***

    c) security protocols become outdated and vulnerabilities are exploited. Manufacturers don't always bother to keep firmware updated for older devices.

    Is this a problem? YES! There are many models of routers (some very popular years ago) that are actively exploited (security holes etc) to generate denial of service attacks on servers. This causes your modem to participate in a globally coordinated attack to bring down servers. What the customer sees is significantly degraded performance as their modem router is busy pinging the buggery out of some server in Hungary or such.

    Your data usage mysteriously goes up and it can knock the hell out of the ISP's service to other customers.

    One particular ISP identified and contacted all customers with these specific models on their network and gave them a time limit to replace their modem before their service would be suspended.

    EDIT: vulnerabilities also allow external access INTO your local network…

    Whilst there are great modems that go on for years, given how cheap they are, in troubleshooting issues it can be more time/cost effective to drop in another modem. Inherently a new modem provides other benefits and capabilities.

    So the Rule of Thumb of five years is quite meaningful.

  • WT on 08/02/2015 - 10:25

    Our old modem is actually faster, even when compared to our current one wired.

    We only changed it for wifi and didn't want the clutter of modem + router. Modem is 8 years old or more and router is 10 + years

  • mattyman on 08/02/2015 - 22:14

    Honestly. Borrow a modem off of a friend and test it. That will tell you if you need to replace the modem or not.

    Modems can go funny over time, surges etc. In this case though you need to sort the static out first. There are two ways you can go with this.

    • Get TPG to lodge a fault with Telstra. They will come out and test the line up to the first termination point on your property. If they find no fault (ie the fault is on your property) you will be charged a call out fee and you will need to organise an austel electrician out to fix it.
    • Get an Austel approved tech out to test your internal wiring.

    Personally, I would expect the fault to be on Telstra's end. I would go with the first option.

    • alxr0101 on 09/02/2015 - 11:53

      " Get TPG to lodge a fault with Telstra. They will come out and test the line up to the first termination point on your property. If they find no fault (ie the fault is on your property) you will be charged a call out fee and you will need to organise an austel electrician out to fix it."

      Which is why should do some testing yourself before getting a call-out. Eliminate own equipment causing the issue first. Just unplug everything then plug a CORDED handset into the first socket and check for static/crackling.

  • ramshead on 09/02/2015 - 11:58

    If you are going to buy a new modem, first check that it is compatible with TPG.

  • 1bug on 11/02/2015 - 00:14

    If you want to continue to use the modem, make sure it has the latest available firmware installed (even if the firmware's a few years old).
    You can download firmware from the Netgear support site.

  • senorclean on 02/04/2015 - 09:59

    I'm still using an iibelkin which will be 10 years old this year… Still works just as well as it did when it was new.

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