In this article I discuss dealing with instances where you are loosing access to Bell services (internet, home phone, tv) by random restarts of your Bell Gigabit Fibe modem (or other modems). Or your modem starts to reboot often (effectively going into a boot loop) also causing you to loose internet, TV and/or home phone.
READ AND TRY THIS!
In my case, after approximately 2 years of rock solid performance, I started to get random drops on my Bell Gigabit Fiber modem progressing to a complete boot loop... Bell support was little if no support in this case as they simply read from a script and attempt to use their virtual support tools, etc. without doing detailed analysis to find the root cause for the issue. Even thou this is a very, very common problem affecting hundreds if not thousands of loyal customers resulting in endless frustrations and lack of confidence in Bell's services and their customer support. All for a $20 fix!
Root Cause - Cheap Power Supply
The culprit is that Bell uses Power Supplies that are underpowered. They are 12v 5Amp supplies that are low amperage for the demand on the router and over time, they fail.
Solution
Bell's only response is to supply you with a whole new modem but only after forcing users to go through endless calls and useless troubleshooting "scripts" - this is crazy given it is an easy fix to simply supply new power supplies. I was able to definitively prove that the power supply is the root cause for the modem rebooting issue. An easy fix is to go find yourself a 12v with at least 5Amp (current). Ideally one that is capable of closer to 6-10 amps. Otherwise, have Bell ship you a whole new modem and simply take out the power supply and then return the replacement modem.
Troubleshooting Background
When my issue started, I called Bell and they made me go thru the troubleshooting tools, re-initialization, etc. Eventually forcing factory resets on the modem. All this caused for a ton of re-work (updating DHCP reservations, port forwarding, etc.). All to no avail. In the meantime I was not able to work remotely, watch TV, have a home phone, etc. In the end, and while I waited for Bell to ship and deliver a replacement modem, I decided to do more detailed testing to see if I could isolate the issue which included:
- reviewing the system logs, addressing any routing issues, including IGMP issue, etc.
- Systematically removed devices to see if the situation improved. Note - this did introduce an artifact. Given I was reducing the load on the router (i.e. power supply) by removing devices the problem appears to go away, only to come back after you put more load back onto the modem (this made it even more difficult to find the root cause).
- Cleared out any routing issues in the router. Bell IPTV devices utilize IGMP (this is a UDP based broadcast mechanism utilized to allow multiple devices to listen for common events). There were log errors showing that the router was having trouble deleting broadcast groups to certain devices. I was able to clear out this issue in order to rule it out as a root cause.
- I completely isolated the modem - meaning I removed all (customer) IP based devices from the modem (devices, routers, switches, etc.). Leaving just the modem, Bell home phone and two Bell IPTV boxes (now configured for WIFI connectivity) and was still able to reproduce the problem.
- Factory reset the modem to clear out any other potential cached routing issues, etc.
- Replaced the fiber patch cable from the modem to the outside termination block (issue remained)
- With the modem totally isolated and the fiber patch cable replaced, I finally concluded that the power supply was likely the culprit and I replaced the modem power supply with a new 12v power supply off of one of my other devices (a computer) and Eureka - the modem connected and stayed connected and all services (internet, TV, Home Phone) returned with no issues.
- I loaded up the modem with my IP related devices (switches, computers, internal routers, etc.) and the modem remained rock solid.
Final Update
The Bell replacement router showed up a couple days later. I took an outage and simply replaced the power supply and updated the original router. I ran it for 48 hrs and things are rock solid. I have decided to return the replacement modem (still in its shrink wrap) and just keep the new power supply - sending back the old failed power supply.