System goes off after several minutes after ONT reboot

[Ghostie]

I had picture pixelation qualities for quite some time and yesterday a technician came out. He replaced a Verizon box located inside my exterior box. Everything was working right and then I noticed about a half hour after he left, both my internet and tv went down. When I reboot the interior ONT box in the basement, the tv works for a few minutes and then it has no service on any channels. But at about the same time the tv goes away, the internet comes up. The internet seems to last about 20 minutes before it, too, goes down. I repeated this several times... the services work for a while after rebooting the ONT box, then they go down. I called tech service and they say that the box is working fine and it must be a problem with my interior wiring. They can't get a tech out until tomorrow afternoon. What could it be? I don't see how it could be a problem with my interior wiring if it works a while before quitting.

[Edg1]

The power wire coming from the ONT has red and black thicker wires for power and a gray wire for a signal alarm. If that grey wire is not connected at either the ONT or the power adapter then that is why it is going out. Make sure that it is actually making contact.

[Ghostie]

Thanks. I tugged on the gray wire at both boxes and it is firmly connected. I did find a black wire that is disconnected, and it has an orange tag on it that says something like "don't disconnect this wire without contacting Verizon". I don't know where it's supposed to connect to, though.

I did a bit more experimenting. I got a long coax cable and I disconnected the splitter and instead put in this long coax, and ran it to the tv and router.  I got the same symptoms: after a reboot, the tv worked for a few minutes then the picture froze. Right about the time the tv froze, the internet came up ("WAN" light turned green on router).

I also noticed that before a reboot (when nothing is working), on the ONT box the "MoCa" and "Data" lights are out, but after I reboot it, they are both on (for a little while).  

[Edg1]

You can try taking the power wire directly out of the ONT and see if any of the pins are bent and try to straighten them out. If the gray wire is good on both ends the pin might be bent.
The black wire is the ground wire. That won't cause the issue you are having by being disconnected. 

[Ghostie · Accepted solution]

The correct solution was changing out the interior ONT box. It should have been replaced at the same time as the outside box.

[John19320]

SON OF A.... Okay, you saved me. I'm ready to admit when something is my own **bleep** fault- as soon as I saw this comment I knew EXACTLY what I'd done. I had to enlarge the hole in my wall to pass the ethernet cable through from the ONT and sure enough, the drill bit severed JUST the grey wire on mine. Fortunately they use quick connectors and they left several extra feet of wire in the wall, so I'm good to go now after two days of frustration and returning a perfectly good router. Thanks so much!!

[Bengo]

What was the grey wire? The small of the 3 wires for dc power going into the ont?

[kh-gary]

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