600mpbs ongoing speed issues, dropping to exactly 80mpbs - please help & need engineer

[TonyEdwards]

Hello everyone, I really need help as getting nowhere with Virgin’s technical support phone lines. 

We’ve had an issue since June 2021 whereby our internet speed keeps dropping from 600/650mbps to 80mbps download speed. Upload speed remains unaffected. It’s like someone flips a switch, it never recovers once it drops, the only way to recover the speed is to restart the Virgin Super Hub 3. 

My son is an IT Technican for his job and has spent countless hours on the phone to Virgin trying to get an engineer sent out but they refuse stating the SuperHub is in working order. We have called multiple times since June 2021.

The first time they sent a firmware/signal fix to the hub remotely and it worked. Almost 4 weeks it was perfect. But then it started happening again. Further phone calls but the situation has got worse. It’s got to the point we now have a smart plug that resets the Virgin SuperHub 3 every night. This seems to, in the main keep the speed from dropping to 80mpbs. 
My son has concluded it’s likely either the SuperHub 3 or the attenuator/booster box that Virgin installed years ago.

Speed tests are done directly connected to the modem, in both modem mode and router mode. Tests are never done via wireless. 

If we do not restart the hub ever night, within a couple of days the speed will drop from 600mpbs to 80mbps. As a test we left the hub alone for a few days, the speed never recovered. As soon as you restart the hub, the speed recovers. 

We are aware we do not always get 600-650mpbs speed during peak hours, we always expect a drop but this is unacceptable. This happens at anytime, it’s not caused by peak traffic.

We do run the hub in modem mode and connected to the Google Nest WiFi which we have been running since May 2020 without any issues. No firmware upgrade has happened on the Nest WiFi since before the issues started. This issue remains even when we disconnect the Nest WiFi and run the hub in router mode. As we did that as a test as well to rule out issues with the Google Nest WiFi. 

We tried to get a replacement hub but Virgin refused, we tried to ask for the Hub 4 to see if that would fix the issue (even offered to pay), but Virgin refused due to Gig1 not being in our area yet. 
Countless times we have asked for an engineer but they will not send one. 

We understand that the technical teams you speak to on the phone are just reading off a script but it’s very frustrating when my son just wants to talk to a technical person who understands. 

Please see below the screenshots of the hub when the speed drops to exactly 80mpbs (although my son cannot see a difference from screenshots when we have good speeds):

We are desperately running out of ideas on how to force an engineer visit, please could someone respond to help us get an engineer visit to finally work out the sudden and unrecoverable speed drops we are getting (before restarting). 

Thank you 🙂 

[Andrew-G]

It may not be your only problem, but your downstream power levels are too low.  I'll flag that for forum staff to take a look, but you'll need the hub in router mode for VM staff to do remote diagnosis; As a temporary measure it makes sense to put the hub in router mode, and your own router in access point mode but only until the problem is resolved.  Doing that means that (other than the restarts of the hub and router) all your devices can remain connected as before, and are not reliant on the hub's weedy-fi.  When the speed problem resolved, which I suspect will involve a technician visit, then put the hub back in modem mode and your own router back into router mode - no point relying on the hub's pound shop router if you have paid for a decent one.  A Hub 4 won't help you - if anything it is more demanding of line quality than earlier hubs, and the wifi is no better.

In these situations it isn't unusual for the hub to come back on line with a good connection at first but then to deteriorate. 

[TonyEdwards]

Thank you for answering so quickly Andrew. Finally someone who can look at the diagnostic screen and state what might be the issue. My son has put the hub in router mode and turned off it’s weedy-fi as you called it. Virgin’s technical staff on here can do any remote diagnostics when they can and hopefully book us (finally) an engineer to visit. 

In your opinion what could be causing the power levels to be low? My son asked how do you know the power levels are low so we can look out for this in the future? 

[-tony-]

levels can change over time as to the levels - VM state they should be within the range -6 +10 - yours are just outside that - if you have an attenuator on the hub - a small barrel shaped connector between the coax cable and the hub you could remove it - there are various values - so whatever its value is will raise the downstream poer - it may affect the upstream - that value should be below 51 - not sure of the low limit - 35ish i believe

[TonyEdwards]

Thank you for answering. That makes more sense. We believe we have booster instead of an attenuator (apologies for the mistake in the first post). We used to have signal issues about 6 years ago but been fine until June this year. We remember having to be moved in the main cabinet in our road due to signal power levels being low. We won’t touch any of the set up as we would prefer a engineer visit to ensure the right cables are replaced, tested and potentially boosted to ensure better power levels into the house. 

For reference, this is what was put in last time we had power issues (6 years or so ago)

[-tony-]

thats a powered splitter afaik - a booster would be another name for it i guess - standard splitters reduce the power level by about 4 so if the signal is low and cannot be adjusted at the cabinet then they use a powered splitter which does not reduce the power levels - if your levels are still low and thats the reason for the speed problems they will need to look how to raise them - my knowledge or what i believe to be correct ends there but sure they will be able to increase the levels

[TonyEdwards]

Thank you for the explaination 🙂 Fingers crossed someone from Virgin on here answers and can get us an engineer booked in so we can fix the power levels and hopefully these speed drops. 

What my son does not understand is why it always drops to 80mpbs, without fail! 

[TonyEdwards]

Just for information the speed has just dropped to 80mbps again 😞 5 minutes ago it was running at 650mbps download and 43mpbs upload. 
It’s now 80mpbs download and 43mpbs upload

[-tony-]

whilst the downstream levels are low they are not a disaster - thats not to say they dont need to be resolved and they could be the route cause of the problem i think you [or your son] should look at 2 things

1 - check the levels when the system is running at 80 if you have not done so - if the booster splitter is intermittently faulty or there is a bad - loose connection the downstream levels could drop by 4 points or so - at -10 that would be a far worse level and a bigger problem - check all the coax connections are tight into the splitter and to the hub etc

2 - whenever someone reports download speed of 80 the 1st suggestion is a lan cable or connection - poor quality - damaged od anything below cat5e spec will return a a download speed of about 80 - so check all lan cables and reseat them all - if you have a switch in the system check its not faulty - they dont always die sometimes revert to lower specs so again 80 is the speed they would max out at

its perfectly possible the fault is on VM's side but imo its equally possible its your side

[TonyEdwards]

Thanks for responding. After the drop down to 80mbps the power levels dropped a little more than the screenshot I sent originally in the post. Now running at about -7 on some of the channels/streams. 

All connections on the splitter/booster have been checked and are all tight. It could be this box is faulty in itself but I would hope an engineer would be able to look at this and test in person. 

The LAN cables being used are all either CAT5e or CAT6 rated as well. 

One thing to note which we only thought about today. We upgraded our V6 boxes to the new Virgin TV 360 software middle June and our problems started with the speed about a week later. Just wondering if that’s had an impact as well.