Virgin Media Community

[sebh]

Hi,

I moved house about 6 months ago. When VM came to do the installation, he re-installed my old TiVo box, but installed a new SuperHub 3, rather than my existing SuperHub 2 (which at the time I thought was strange). I wish I had pushed him to install the 2, as we all know the 3 and 4 are awful (which I didn't know at the time).

I have soldiered on the SH 3, but I am at the point now where it is effecting my home working. It simply is not capable of handling large volumes of UDP traffic.

Luckily he left behind the SH 2, I've tried a couple of times to get the faults department to reactivate the SH2, but they keep just trying to get me to test my wifi settings (the usual scripted nonsense).

I'm at the point now where if I don't get this resolved soon I'm just going to take this is the ombudsman, VM are not supplying me the service I am paying for. I don't understand why they can't just put me back on the old SH 2, which is here in my home ready to go.

Can anyone help?

Seb

[risc19]

I can't help you but I can share your pain. 

I would pay real folding money to have a SH2ac again.

[jbrennand]

They do reactivate them occasionaly but you need to get lucky with the agent and then convince them there is a good reason. At the moment, if you say you have a working Hub3 to return to them - they may bite your hand off as these are in short supply 🙂

Alternatively why not just put the Hub3 into modem mode and get your own wireless router or Mesh system that is built to the quality/spec you need for your use.

[risc19]

I WILL HAPPLY SWAP FOR A HUB2AC VIRGIN!

YOU CAN KEEP THE 3!

[jbrennand]

They wont "swap" them - they have no (Zero) stocks of SH2's - they are all recycled by the users or the Techs who may collect them. If you have the old one that was previously on your account - there is an outside chance - if not - there is none.

Use the 3 as a modem only - I have never used any ISP Hub for routing or wifi since 2001 with not a single equipment issue

[-tony-]

start here -

dial 150 or 0345 454 1111 and follow the prompts to - 'thinking of leaving us' - dont worry about that they do much more - open 8am -10pm 7 days a week - should take you to a UK call centre

if you dont get a UK agent either start again or say you want to give 30days notice afaik only the uk handle that - once you get through just forget the notice and ask about the hub reactivation - i suspect you will get standard answer one which is no - be forceful but polite and dont accept no - the main problem i see you having is the fact the SH2 has not been on your account for 6 months - unless the mac address is still showing on your account they are unlikely to activate it

[sebh]

Probably should have specified, I am using the SH 3 in modem mode already, with a pfsense firewall etc.

I do still have the SH 2, all I need them to do is reactivate it. Which seems to be a very hard task to achieve.

When I phoned them they actually told me they were going to send another SH2, but actually sent a SH3. So I now have two SH3

[jbrennand]

JFI... So what could the SH2 do that the Hub3 cannot?

What make/model of router do you have that cant handle what a ~£20 SH2 can ?

[sebh]

The issue is the Puma Chipset in the SH 3 and SH 4

https://www.theregister.com/2018/08/14/intel_puma_modem/

So the way they resolved the issue listed here is by giving more precence to TCP packets vs UDP packets. The problem being that if you are doing something that uses alot of UDP traffic you can crash the modem, the sort of traffic I am generating is mainly UDP so I continuley have extreme packet loss, crashed modem, etc.

This is a known issue, and there are many posts in this forum about it - https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Speed/UDP-issues-on-SuperHub3-collective-thread/td-p/4382720/pa...

So basically VM are not giving me a good level of service at all. I'm happy to use a SH 2, infact I was using it fine up until I moved house. Like you say I'm only using it as a modem so it makes little difference to me apart from the 200mb cap on the SH 2. But a stable 200mb is much better than an unuseable 350mb

[-tony-]

so have you followed my suggestion above - if you dont speak to the right people you will get a blanket - the computer says no 

no guarantee retentions will be any better but you have more chance with them