Things You'll Need:
- Surfboard Cable Modem (not working)
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Step 1
On the Motorola Surfboard cable modem model SB5120 you have 4 yellow LED’s (some say they're green - whatever) and two orange. LED stands for Light Emitting Diode (it means the lights on front of the modem). When you first plug the modem into power, the modem will do a little light show. This is a power on self test checking itself like a computer does upon booting up. Once this is over, the “Power” LED will go solid, and the “Receive” LED will start blinking trying to sync up with your cable provider. After the “Receive” LED goes solid the next two LED's will do the same blinking trying to connect to your cable provider. They will go in order. If one of these (Receive, Send, or Online) fails to go solid this routine will start back over at the “Receive” LED trying to connect to your cable provider. If the first four LED's don't go solid and connect with you cable provider, check you coax cable and make sure it is screwed in all the way, power cycle the modem and let it try to connect again. After several tries of doing this and it doesn't connect, contact your cable provider for help in troubleshooting.
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Step 2
The first four LED's are yellow and the last two toward the bottom are orange. Going from top to bottom you have the "Power" LED. If the power LED is lit up yellow it means you have it plugged into power. The second LED is the "Receive" LED. When it is lit solid it means you have a good downstream (RX/receive) signal from your cable provider and it is locked on that signal. The third LED is the "Send" LED. When it is lit solid it means that you have good return path (TX/Transmit) signal levels back to your cable provider. (Side note) This is where most cable modems fail to sync up with your cable company/provider. The forth LED is the "Online" LED and when it is solid it means that you are connected to your cable provider and that modem is allowed on their network. The fifth LED is the "PC/Activity" LED which is orange in color and it will be lit and possibly flashing if it is connected to a PC or router that is powered on and the modem sees that device. It will flash orange when you are sending or receiving data. This is the only LED that should flash once your modem is connected to your cable provider. Sometimes this LED will flash even when your computer is not turned off but don't worry about it; it's either communicating with your router or the cable company. The final LED is the "Standby" LED, it's orange in color and this should only be lit if you have pushed the "Standby" button located on top of the modem. This LED will not blink as stated in the article above. It will either be solid or not lit at all. When the Standby LED is lit no other LED will be lit. It does this to remind you that your modem is in standby mode and if you want to use the internet you will need to push the Standby button again to make that happen.
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Step 3
If you can't get online, don't just call the cable company. First reset the modem by unplugging power and then plug it back in. Also restart your computer (and router if applicable). If the power, receive, send, and online LED's are all lit up, you are connected to your cable provider. If you can't get online when the online LED is lit, your computer or router might be the problem. If the PC/Activity LED isn’t orange or flashing orange then either you don’t have the Ethernet or USB cable hooked up to a device that is powered on, the network port you have the network cable plugged into is not working (this could be on your router or PC), the network or USB port on the back of the modem is not working, or it could several other things. You can contact tech support for your cable provider to help walk you through a few troubleshooting methods.
Don’t have both the USB and Ethernet cables hooked up at the same time. Only use one or the other. Ethernet is the most reliable & I would recommend using Ethernet at all costs. If you don’t have an Ethernet card in your PC then you can use the USB cable to connect your modem to your PC. In lightning storms, the Ethernet port is notorious for popping and not working ever again. If you think this is the case, get out your USB cable and drivers and hook it up that way. This will at least get one computer online and working until your cable provider can come out and swap out your modem or you go buy a new one.
