Connection of Ethernet cable

[jenfamily1]

My son's room often has poor signal at times of the day and I'm unable to connect from there to the two other Tivo boxes in our house.I have a very long Ethernet cable which I thought by connecting into a spare terminal at the rear of the router and the other end into my son's Tivo ethernet would bypass the weak wi fi signal but it makes no difference. Am I supposed to change any settings on his Tivo box in order to strengthen the signal or won't this idea fix the problem?

What advantage is there to connecting an Ethernet cable between the router and a Tivo box?

Many thanks

[jenfamily1]

Sorry to bother you all again. I forgot to say that my son is able to connect to 'catch up' and Apps e.g Netflix etc even with poor signal ( 25% ) so why is it that these service rely on wi fi from the router yet his box won't connect to either of the other boxes? I tried turning off his Tivo box and re-connected it 10 mins later but that doesn't make any difference. I can connect the other two boxes in our house to each other as the signal strength is 37% marginal at worst.

[japitts · Accepted solution]

First off, do you have TiVo's or V6? You've referred to both, and although they run the same software, they are very different in connectivity requirements. If you're not sure, check here 

As general advice, a wired connection will always be preferable to a wireless one given the choice.

TiVo's have their own inbuilt internet connection, don't have WiFi and only use the Ethernet for multiroom streaming.

V6 need a connection to your homehub for all online functions including all streaming & OnDemand. That can be wireless or wired, but Ethernet is always recommended, given the free choice.

[jenfamily1]

Hi Japitts

Sorry about the mix up between Tivo & V6.I have the 'latest' which I believe 'V6' boxes. They automatically connect to the hub for all Apps & catch up functions. I don't understand why when I plug in one end of the ethernet cable into one of three spare sockets at the rear of the hub and the other end into the only available socket on the rear of my son's box, it makes no difference in being able to connect his box with either of the other two. The screen shows a 'wheel' and says wait for 30 seconds and afterwards it says unable to connect!

Is there a setting I should change to when the cable is being used? I looked at Settings / Network ( as I was advised normally to see the signal strength ) and it shows that an Ethernet cable is attached but doesn't show the signal strength and still doesn't connect. I'm sure I tried the same thing ( to see ) in the other son's bedroom who does however get a reasonable signal whether this too would improve his signal but I don't think any of the three boxes connected by ethernet makes any difference. Hope this makes sense.

[japitts]

In my previous post I included a link to a page that has photos of all 3 boxes - if you're not sure which you have, click on this link and check 

If you have a V6 and have an Ethernet cable connected, that will override a wireless connection and the signal strength is irrelevant. Look in the top-right corner of the network connections screen, and if you see an IP address allocated, this means your box has a working internet connection.

TiVo's have an Ethernet connection, but it serves a different purpose to a V6.

[newapollo]

Hi Steve,

I had a quick look at your profile and found a thread from you earlier this year April 2021 post 

 You do have a V6 box. 

Possibly your son using the Xbox in the garden shed is using all the bandwidth.

It's possible that the V6 not connecting to the internet hasn't detected the change from wifi to ethernet so maybe try re-booting all three V6 boxes and the router at the same time like you did previously and they should all talk to each other again.

It's also possible that the very long ethernet cable has worked loose either in the hub or the V6 box or isn't performing as well as it once was.

Without trying to over complicate things, you could also try putting the ethernet cable in a different ethernet port in the hub.

In fact you can perform a test on the ethernet cable to make sure it's working properly by inserting both ends of the cable into the spare ports on your hub. If both ports light up then the cable should be fine.

[jenfamily1]

Hi Dave

Thank you very much! I did plug in each end of the ethernet into two ports on the rear of the hub and both lit up. When I removed one of those connections I noticed that the one remaining did not light up like the one which VM provided from the PC to the PC. Would this be correct to prove if the cable is ok?

My son isn't living at home so much these days and was out yesterday when I tried all this so I don't think he's responsible for using up the bandwidth.

So, by connecting either end of the long ethernet, it should by rights, enable his V6 to get a better signal strength.I'm not sure why this doesn't appear to be working unless I try turning off all three boxes + the hub and try again!

cheers

Steve

[jenfamily1]

They're defo V6 boxes and I've done a quick test of the long ethernet cable which lights at both ports when plugged into the hub. I still can't understand having got an IP address why I still can't connect to another box but will keep trying.

[japitts]

It sounds like you now have a working Ethernet cable connection.

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@jenfamily1 wrote:

So, by connecting either end of the long ethernet, it should by rights, enable his V6 to get a better signal strength.I'm not sure why this doesn't appear to be working unless I try turning off all three boxes + the hub and try again!

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Signal strength is only relevant for wireless connections, and is one reason why an Ethernet wired connection is always preferable to a wireless one given the choice. It's a bit like asking about signal strength over a landline phone.

So what's the underlying problem that you're having with your VM TV services?

[japitts]

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@jenfamily1 wrote:
I still can't understand having got an IP address why I still can't connect to another box but will keep trying.

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Are all of your boxes V6?

The boxes don't connect to each other, but go via your home-hub which acts as the intermediary.

So you need to prove that each individual box has a working connection (using OnDemand is an excellent test on any V6) before then checking for any specific error codes when you're trying to stream between individual boxes.