# Cable internet problem, any ideas?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-internet-problem-any-ideas/477590>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 17, 2008, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-internet-problem-any-ideas/477590 "2008-12-17T17:06:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2008, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-internet-problem-any-ideas/477590/21 "2008-12-18T17:28:41Z")

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I’ve been using [OpenDNS](https://www.opendns.com/smb/start/) on one of my computers, it works well.

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**Author:** ![DadWagonDriver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/edb3f5/32.png) [@DadWagonDriver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DadWagonDriver)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cable-internet-problem-any-ideas/477590/22 "2008-12-18T21:25:32Z")

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I am a former cable technician, and here is my educated guess:

Looking at those levels from your modem, I think that your modem is coming off a splitter AFTER the first splitter. This causes the levels to drop significantly, which can cause intermittent issues. The system should go like this:

Pole to house, where it gets screwed into a grounding block, usually hidden in the plastic box on the outside of your house.

From that grounding block, there should be a piece of cable going to a splitter. This, optimally, should be a two-way splitter (one input, two outputs). One of the output legs needs to have a cable going directly to the modem with NO further splitters in it. The other leg should go to another splitter or splitters, which should feed your TVs.

If there is a three-way splitter where I just described the two way splitter, make sure that the cable going to your modem is coming from the leg marked “-3.5 dB”; that is how much signal the splitter is cutting from that particular leg.

If you need to reconfigure the cables, all you’ll need is a 7/16" wrench for the coax connector and a pair of pliers to hold the splitter.

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