MoCA Issues w/Orbi

Tech Talk
1

After listening to this week’s tech guy I thought I would ask this question regarding MoCA.

A few summers ago I wanted to hard wire all my Orbi (RBK40 system) satellites together using MoCA. I got 4 HiTron 2.5 MoCA adapters.

I live in a single family home and the cable from the pole is split 2 ways, one goes to the basement (which eventually makes its way to the family room connected to the cable modem) and the other split goes to the bedroom that connects to the VOIP modem.

Nothing else goes through the cable anymore but internet. It took me a little manipulating but eventually I got all the MoCAs to connect and the ORBI was reporting all 3 satellites were connected via wire.

Now, as time went on, from time to time, (I think) the MoCA in my bedroom would lose connection to the one at the router. This would cause the entire network to become unresponsive until the connections to all satellites were re-established. I really thought this was strange since it was only the 1 MoCA/Satellite that lost connection, but it would take the entire network down.

Also, in my basement I have a bunch of Retro Computers (Atari 8/16 Bit) set up, and I use an ESP232 based wifi modem with those.

For some reason when I would be using the ESP232 wifi modem, it would get extremely choppy. i.e. I would be typing a message and as I was typing it would pause for say 1-2 seconds and then catch back up. It would do this constantly. Thought I was the EsP232 modem, talked with the creators and we could never figure out what was the issue.

Well after a few times of the MoCA taking the network down while my wife was trying to watch Netflix, I decided to give up on the MoCA. I ended up returning two of the units but still have 2.

Once the MoCA’s were out of the loop my Retro Computer Modems started working properly. So that issue was caused 100% by the MoCA.

I eventually pulled cat 5/6 cable for the family room and Living room. Those two satellites are no hard wired to the router.

My bedroom is still connected wirelessly. Hearing it discussed on the show, spurred me to look into connecting the remaining mocas I have and see if I could get it to work any better.

There was a filter spoken about. I don’t/Didn’t have this installed, but it seemed to me as explained on the show this was more geared for an apt building where the cable is shared across many units. Could this help with my original issue? Let me know if I am wrong on this.

Does anyone know why the MoCA’s would cause the entire network to go down while they are reconnecting? I am probably going to give the bedroom to the router another try.

Any insight appreciated.

2

I’m not overly familiar with how MoCA interacts with the OSI layers, but based on your described symptoms it sounds like the adapters are causing a network loop. It’s possible that the adapter’s failure mode causes this behavior.

3

Thanks for the info.

I put the one back in at the modem and the other in the bedroom but they aren’t connecting at the moment. I will work on this.

In the meantime I ordered two filters. I wasn’t sure if I could fit one in the junction box outside where the line comes in so I have two to put right before the two MoCA adapters if need be. I figure it can’t hurt. Or maybe it can. Time will tell.

I don’t have then one upstairs wired Into the satellite quite yet. I will do that once I can get a good connect between the two.

Will let you know how things work out.

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4

Well I was never able to get the hitron MoCA adapters to work. They do actually work as I tested them just connected to each other.

The filters didn’t help either.

I did a search for best MoCA adapters for 2024. The hitron models were on the list but down near 4 or 5.

I figured I would give 1 last shot and get another set and see if they worked. Ordered the ASUS models. Installed them and BAM they work. They also don’t seem to grab an IP for the adapters. They seem to he invisible to the network. The Hitron did get their own IP address and had a web interface.

For the past 2 days no network degradation with the ASUS MoCA adapters.

Maybe because the hitron set up a web interface caused some disruption with the Orbi system.

I know I got the Hitron because they had pass through coax (I try to keep splitters to a minimum) and they were around $100 a pair. Oh well, live and learn. Now all my Orbi satellites (except the one in the garage which is wifi only) are hardwired together. Yeah.

I could have saved a lot of headaches if I just got the ASUS from the get go.

Thanks for all your info!

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5

Interesting, thanks for the update! Now we know to avoid those Hitron adapters. Glad you got it sorted.

6

The hitron adapters do work but they just don’t play nice with Orbi systems not to mention when I was trying to do a full hitron system there were some locations where the coax was weak.

But I am already ecstatic with the ASUS model I got.