One thing you may want to also consider on drop noise. We have started making our service techs check the inhouse wireing with the plant activated in the home by using a 2 way splitter as a combiner at the tap. That way you can see if you have a peice of equipment that only shows noise when it actually has signal hitting it. we have found some bad modems that way.
This is CABL.com posting #366930. Tiny Link: cabl.co/mbHCo