Purchasing a new cable modem

[5tephen]

My NTL modem is pushing 5 years old and loves to crash while I'm in the middle of downloading at the full 10meg connection. I would get maybe 30 minutes downloading at most before it falls over. NTL insists it's because I'm using a router and so they won't provide me with a new modem. (I've used 5 different routers in the last few months and the same symptoms exist every time).
A friend got one off the bay one time, second hand, and he had to change the username and password to be that of his own NTL account. However he couldn't do this without knowing the original password first, which was that of the previous owner.
Question - can I simply buy a new or second hand cable modem and expect it to work on my NTL cable?

 

[5tephen]

It's the silver one.
Can I not run the broadband setup wizard that I got with the modem originally? I still have the software; does it do anything in the way of registering a MAC address?

 

[5tephen]

Thanks for the advice.
What is a choke?
I'm assuming it cannot be the cables because then I would be getting disconnections at the most random of times, whereas my problems only occur when the modem is going full pelt as they say. It obviously can't stick the speed for sustained periods of time.
This has only happened once I upgraded to 10 meg. My connection has been faultless for 5 years and even now my only fault is the modem, not the service, which is good

 

[5tephen]

I'll try calling them again and see what happens. The last time, they said they had recorded 74 dropouts in the last 3 months for my account which was recognised as normal because most people switch their modem on and off every day. Therefore mine was normal. The goon just could not understand that I never switch my electrical equipment off, especially my modem, it's deliberately switched off maybe once a year; the rest of the occasions are resets because it's crashed.

 

[5tephen]

i got 10m and a silver modem. its ok, it doesnt like bittorrent though. anythign with lots of connections just causes the modem to reboot or shut down entirely needing a power-off reset.

Oh don't get me started on bittorrent I don't use it at all now unless needing something very obscure.
Writing to the chief executive seems a bit drastic! I'll phone the customer service first, go through the whole getting-nothing-out-of-them thing, then go to the complaints department after that.
Would I be given the blue one in its place? And is it a big step up in stability?

 

[5tephen]

I can't break it because that would mean being without internet for a few days - if that happened I would have to move out Will try tech support on Monday.
Actually, no, just as I wrote that, I thought I would give them a call now - got an engineer coming out this Wednesday between 12 and 6 to have a look at the line etc. yay

 

[5tephen]

Well the most recent router I've tried is a Draytek 2900 which I've had in for the last 3 days or so before giving to a customer - I can't imagine it falling over from having too many simultaneous connections And anyway, if I restart the router I still get no internet access, it's the modem that has to be done.