school me: cable modem troubleshooting

[chunk_stir]

OK, I get my internet through cybersurf (which "rents" lines from shaw). so essentially, I have shaw cable.

I'm having problems with my internet always slowing down and requiring a reset of the modem (or voice terminal). After getting on with tech service, they say that all the services are good from their end (of course) and that there is likely a problem within my network. They asked me to run a speedtest from a computer plugged directly into the cable modem.

So after doing a tracert, it appears that my cable modem is always timing out.

eg.
1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.102.100 (my router)
2 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.102.1 (my voice terminal)
3 * * * Request timed out (my cable modem?)
4 11 ms 9 ms 9 ms CABLE -72-53-21-1.cia.com [72.53.32.1]

and so on....

Is there something wrong with the modem that I can troubleshoot? It's a motorola surfboard 5101 modem.

Thanks!

[lilaznviper]

from my knowledge you will always get a time out once u get out of the router to the internet

[InvisibleSoul]

Having a hop that times out is not indicative of any problem with your modem, especially if there are hops that come after it. That means the trace is making it upstream past the modem.

Just keep a computer plugged directly into the modem. If you still get the same problem where you have to reboot the modem to get things to work again, then you have pretty good evidence that there's something wrong with it.