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Author Topic: VM - Smart Hub 3 - Will there ever be a fix for the Puma?  (Read 2912 times)

Bowdon

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VM - Smart Hub 3 - Will there ever be a fix for the Puma?
« on: February 12, 2018, 11:16:35 AM »

One of the biggest issues on virgin media seems to be the problems with the smart hub 3 and its intel puma chipset.

To make matters worse VM seem to force people to have the SH3 either as the full router/modem, or just modem. I've heard if its set in modem mode then the lag spikes happen less.

From what I've been reading it seems the puma chipset is under-powered and can't come with the number of tasks it needs to do and temporary freezes, which causes the lag spike.

This situation seems to be a big issue for gamers on virgin media as lag and high pings effect the gaming experience.

What I don't understand is why hasn't virgin media changed the hub? They seem to be sat blaming Intel and saying "We're waiting for a patch from Intel". But this problem as been going on for years, since the SH3 first appeared.

Isn't it time VM dumped the SH3 and either allowed other hardware to be used, or bring out SH4 with a different chipset in?

Also an addon related question when eventually DOCSIS 3.1 comes along will VM be forced to upgrade to SH4 to deal with the new frequencies DOCSIS 3.1 uses?

I've been reading about DOCSIS 3.1 and it sounds good. Interestingly it has specific technology to reduce lag/ping. So I hope VM don't bottleneck it with under-powered hardware.
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Ronski

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Re: VM - Smart Hub 3 - Will there ever be a fix for the Puma?
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2018, 01:25:27 PM »

I'd be interested in the answers to this, luckily I very rarely game these days and nobody else in the house does either, so shouldn't affect us when we switch.
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gt94sss2

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Re: VM - Smart Hub 3 - Will there ever be a fix for the Puma?
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2018, 02:00:14 PM »

Intel released a fix for this last year which Virgin were testing.

Re: DOCSIS upgrades,  I see they have decided to  upgrade customers to the V6 box
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Ronski

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Re: VM - Smart Hub 3 - Will there ever be a fix for the Puma?
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2018, 03:55:24 PM »

Been about a year since Intel released a fix, and VM where trialing it in June, so may be soon  :fingers:

It would also be worth mentioning that the V6 box does not contain a modem, it's just for TV
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Ronski

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Bowdon

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Re: VM - Smart Hub 3 - Will there ever be a fix for the Puma?
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2018, 03:16:06 PM »

Sounds like a fix has just been rolled out.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/virgin_cable/f/4580152-wireless-issues-on-5ghz-with-sh3.html?fpart=3&vc=1

That will be good if its a confirmed fix for the puma6.

I think for their next modem/router they should probably stay away from Intel  ;)
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Bowdon

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Re: VM - Smart Hub 3 - Will there ever be a fix for the Puma?
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2018, 10:45:58 AM »

News item of interest to the thread here: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/02/quick-update-virgin-media-hub-3-router-latency-fix.html
Quick Update on the Virgin Media Hub 3 Cable Router Latency Fix

Let's hope that VM are now on the way to tackling this issue.

The main problem from what I can see is that the SH3 is under powered. Apparently the chip only has 1 core so its trying to do many things at once and locks up for a few seconds. Lets hope the issue can be corrected fully, or VM start issuing their DOCSIS 3.1 device and invest more in to it.
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niemand

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Re: VM - Smart Hub 3 - Will there ever be a fix for the Puma?
« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2018, 09:55:14 PM »

There is no fix for the issue. There is unlikely to ever be a fix for the issue as it's a hardware problem.

Regarding DOCSIS 3.1, yes, a new hub is required. 3.1 isn't going to use frequencies outside of the 3.0 range, at least initially, however it's a completely different technology from 3.0.

EuroDOCSIS 3.0 uses a series of 8 MHz wide QAM modulated carriers on the downstream and essentially load balances them. 3.1 follows the example of xDSL technologies and uses a series of much smaller OFDM carriers in a larger block. The 3.0 carriers are restrained as a single carrier can only carry as much data as the worst part of its spectrum while the 3.1 OFDM carriers can not only use higher order modulations more readily but also have more advanced error correction allowing for more coding gain.

3.0 permits a maximum of 8 bits per symbol, 256QAM, 3.1 goes up to 12 bits per symbol, 4096QAM, and indeed can get close to it in conditions where 3.0 only just manages 256QAM.

It also carries the added bonus that 3.1 modems lock to up to 32 3.0 channels, so there's up to 1.6Gb/s of 3.0 bandwidth available and shared with legacy devices, along with a gigabit or more (96 MHz wide OFDM block seems to be the cool thing, can be between 24 MHz and 192 MHz and can have more than one, these blocks seem to average around the 2048QAM mark) of 3.1 capacity.
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