[TriLUG] [OT] Time Warner Cable - new modem problems

[Jeremy Portzer]

Hi,

This a tech support question from my parents who live in Apex.   They 
wrote to me:

Our Internet connection keeps dropping.  We can get it back by power 
cycling the modem and the router, but that is annoying, of course.
Here's the background.  A couple of weeks ago Time Warner told us that 
they were going to be upgrading their service, and we should get a new 
modem.  So, we took the old one back to the store and exchanged it, for 
no charge.  We brought it home, and when we plugged it up correctly, it 
worked.
But only for a little while.
So we power cycled the modem, then powered up the router, and we were 
back in business.
Then we went away [on a weeklong trip], figuring the problem would solve 
itself.
Except that it didn't.
So now we have totally unreliable service.  Sometimes we only stay 
connected for 20 minutes before we have to do the power cycling to get 
back online.
So surely there must be a better way.  Perhaps you can give us some tips 
for looking at log files, or router activity, or something that will 
give us a clue as to what is going on?

I've told them they should call Time Warner support, of course, but they 
did and they just get the same advice to power cycle it.  I'm not sure 
how strident they've been about the repeated problems... I've also 
advised them to note the specific dates/times when the modem seems to fail.

Does anyone know what model modems TWC is likely installing these days?  
Are there any user-accessible log files as my father suggests?  Do they 
likely have a bum modem, and how can they convince TWC to replace it... 
just take it back to the store and argue?

Sorry for being so vague... I'm about 10,000 miles away so remote 
support is challenging :)

One thing that makes this on topic is that there is a Linux server 
behind this modem...

Thanks,
Jeremy