Modem Overheating?

[hayheather]

Possibly unnecessary story, tl;dr at the bottom

I recently purchased a refurbished Arris SBG6700-AC modem/router/wireless ap to replace the comcast one that I've been renting. Installation went fine, it activated, is receiving, everything works. However during extended periods of high traffic it seems to lose it's connection to the internet. Pings to google will time out, tracerts return weird latency and dns probes fail. The last time this happened, on a hunch I decided to take a temp on the box as I thought it was running hotter than it should be. The surface temps of the plastic case were 145F (63C for my Canadian friends). I unplugged it let it set and then plugged it back in and took an idle temp of 110F (43C). My question is: Could the heat be affecting the performance? How hot is to hot for a modem?

 

tl;dr - Modem has intermittent issues. Temping @ 145F(63C) at load, 110F(43C) at idle. Could the heat be causing the issue?

[unijab]

Linus might recommending water cooling it....or maybe mineral oil submersion...

[mynameisjuan]

Its a possibility. The chips are usually pretty crap and if they throttle (which I am unsure if they do) then it could really hurt performance. Usually what I have seen is they just turn off when they get too hot. 

[hayheather]

1 hour ago, unijab said:

Linus might recommending water cooling it....or maybe mineral oil submersion...

If only. I was thinking about stealing a fan off an old BFG (yes that old) video card and using some of those stick on heatsinks. I just don't want to spend the time/money and then find out it won't help.

[Donut417]

5 hours ago, hayheather said:

Possibly unnecessary story, tl;dr at the bottom

I recently purchased a refurbished Arris SBG6700-AC modem/router/wireless ap to replace the comcast one that I've been renting. Installation went fine, it activated, is receiving, everything works. However during extended periods of high traffic it seems to lose it's connection to the internet. Pings to google will time out, tracerts return weird latency and dns probes fail. The last time this happened, on a hunch I decided to take a temp on the box as I thought it was running hotter than it should be. The surface temps of the plastic case were 145F (63C for my Canadian friends). I unplugged it let it set and then plugged it back in and took an idle temp of 110F (43C). My question is: Could the heat be affecting the performance? How hot is to hot for a modem?

 

tl;dr - Modem has intermittent issues. Temping @ 145F(63C) at load, 110F(43C) at idle. Could the heat be causing the issue?

My router used to get blistering hot. I used a laptop cooler to cool it down and account it had a USB port on it. That might be a good way to test it. Could also be that they didnt do a good job refurbishing the modem. My modem feels slightly warm to the touch. My modem is an 8x4 modem just like yours, but mine is just a modem, no router built in. Take in to account that your devices had to do extra work. Id see about getting a laptop cooler or some other cooling solution for it. See what happens. 

[Brian Blankenship]

Modems will overheat if they are having to push their amplitude too far.

The same thing is true for routers if the transmit power is boosted too high.

 

You can help modems out two ways. 1. have to provider do a check up on the line. 2. get a good powered booster. It possible the line is old/worn, or

[kirashi]

13 hours ago, hayheather said:

--SNIP--

 

tl;dr - Modem has intermittent issues. Temping @ 145F(63C) at load, 110F(43C) at idle. Could the heat be causing the issue?

Definitely a possibility. You could try adding mini heatsinks to the hot bits inside, or cut a hole in the side and throw a tiny fan in to cool it down.

 

Or switch to an ISP that provides modems free of charge like all should since they're providing the service. (I know, I know, the states is one of the countries that doesn't do this for whatever reason, but it's still a good suggestion.)

[hayheather]

23 hours ago, Donut417 said:

My router used to get blistering hot. I used a laptop cooler to cool it down and account it had a USB port on it. That might be a good way to test it. Could also be that they didnt do a good job refurbishing the modem. My modem feels slightly warm to the touch. My modem is an 8x4 modem just like yours, but mine is just a modem, no router built in. Take in to account that your devices had to do extra work. Id see about getting a laptop cooler or some other cooling solution for it. See what happens. 

That's a great idea, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks

[hayheather]

So I got a ticket to Arris to ask them about it. Got an email back in under an hour with a number to call. Called got transferred to a supervisor. Turns out that they are super concerned that it could be a fire/injury hazard and told me several times to unplug it and stop using it immediately. They are going to ship me a replacement unit on Monday and emailed me a prepaid return label for me current unit. I even get to keep the included ethernet cord, bonus! I'm really (pleasantly) surprised by their customer service. I mean, I would have been even more excited if their modem couldn't compete with Luke's pizza warmer pc, but that's irrelevant at this point.

 

tl;dr - Issue solved. Arris is sending a replacement, can't keep old modem to warm pizza. Thanks everyone for the helpful suggestions!

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, hayheather said:

So I got a ticket to Arris to ask them about it. Got an email back in under an hour with a number to call. Called got transferred to a supervisor. Turns out that they are super concerned that it could be a fire/injury hazard and told me several times to unplug it and stop using it immediately. They are going to ship me a replacement unit on Monday and emailed me a prepaid return label for me current unit. I even get to keep the included ethernet cord, bonus! I'm really (pleasantly) surprised by their customer service. I mean, I would have been even more excited if their modem couldn't compete with Luke's pizza warmer pc, but that's irrelevant at this point.

 

tl;dr - Issue solved. Arris is sending a replacement, can't keep old modem to warm pizza. 

I would still do the laptop cooler with the new one. I found my router works a lot better with active cooling, rarely have to reboot it. 

[hayheather]

1 minute ago, Donut417 said:

I would still do the laptop cooler with the new one. I found my router works a lot better with active cooling, rarely have to reboot it. 

I probably will. Seriously though, that's really clever. I never would have thought of it.