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[Weaver]

Has anyone ever had experience of a post storm-cloud or lightning event that has caused what I will term “subtle” damage, meaning that DSL performance is affected, with reduced speeds or unreliability, but without there being anything visibly “blown”, or not working?

I’m thinking of micro-filters, the NTE5, modems and DSL cables only here, rather than burnt out ports on switches or fried NICs.

[Black Sheep]

Hard to actually define what you after, but lightning strikes depending on where they hit (Direct or in-direct) can have a range of effects. An extremely common fault scenario after the event will be a 'Loop' condition, whereby the capacitor in the NTE is 'blown'. You would know this because your phone wouldn't work.

As regards the subtlety you talk about, I can't think of a time this has happened ?? I do know that due to the high 'noise' levels lightning can bring about, the DLM can have a knee-jerk reaction and punish the circuit. I believe G.INP will halt this kind of evasive action ??

[Weaver]

If the NTE capacitor blows does it go open circuit?

(Sanity check: It’s in the main back part of an NTE5, not in the removable front part?)

[Black Sheep]

Yeah, the back part.

Every scenario you can think of will occur through lightning strikes, through to blowing the socket and phone to the other side of the house. But the common indirect strikes will see a 'loop'/'Rect loop' fault ....... as opposed to open circuit.

Either fault would see you lose dial tone, and could not be classed as 'Subtle'. 

[Weaver]

To clarify, by “subtle damage”,I  mean permanent effects, not DLM feeling poorly for a period, long term reduced sync rates or increased error counts. But nothing visibly blown or simply not working at all.

We had a horrendous couple of months in Dec - Jan, and this spring I've replaced lots of microfilters, DSL cables and modems, gaining sync rate improvements at every step. I started to wonder if a winter near-miss might have mildly cooked things, and I'm wondering if I should replace NTE5s too just in case.

[Black Sheep]

A direct strike is classed as within 50mtrs, anything beyond that (Circa 50-200mtrs) is a proximity strike. Did you experience anything like this

Another point is, that usually quite a few EU's in the same locality would be affected too. I, nor anyone, can conclusively answer the question without actually performing tests both through the NTE, then again directly on the wires, to determine if the NTE is introducing errors into the circuit.

Sorry, but that's all I've got. 

[NewtronStar]

I started to wonder if a winter near-miss might have mildly cooked things, and I'm wondering if I should replace NTE5s too just in case.

Damaged electronics don't have bad days or good days they either work or they don't and if the voice and broadband is working no need to replace NTE5, there was a kitz member last year the SSFP MK1 or 2 was damaged due to T/Storm broadband worked but no voice/telephoney.

[Weaver]

If anyone has replaced an NTE5 just because of long term crap sync rate, then I’d like to hear their story.

I need to look into exactly what components there are in the back part of my (2004-2011 vintages) NTE5s.

This is in part an “is ‘subtle’ even possible?” question.

[NewtronStar]

If anyone has replaced an NTE5 just because of long term crap sync rate, then I’d like to hear their story.

I need to look into exactly what components there are in the back part of my (2004-2011 vintages) NTE5s.

This is in part an “is ‘subtle’ even possible?” question.

Someone has told you to replace the NTE5 to get better Broadband speeds who could that be 

[Bald_Eagle1]

Has anyone ever had experience of a post storm-cloud or lightning event that has caused what I will term “subtle” damage, meaning that DSL performance is affected, with reduced speeds or unreliability, but without there being anything visibly “blown”, or not working?

I’m thinking of micro-filters, the NTE5, modems and DSL cables only here, rather than burnt out ports on switches or fried NICs.

It happened to me last year - Phone dead but DSL still working with massive FECs etc:-

http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,14208.msg266554.html#msg266554

[Weaver]

@Bald_Eagle1 - thanks for pointing out that earlier thread. Very helpful.

[sheddyian]

A long time back, I was working in a company whose offices were (in effect) two storey tin sheds.  They were very hot in summer, and not so cosy in winter.

Come the inevitable day, one of these units was struck by lightning.  The lights flickered, I got a strange metallic taste in my mouth, and a lot of the equipment connected to the 10base5 ethernet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10BASE5 that I was responsible for went pop.

Thankfully the phone didn't suddenly go mad with complaints, as the internal exchange had gone pop too 

I went and hid in the computer room behind a Vax 8350 and used the fixed outside line to call the support company to send some spares quick

Ian

[Weaver]

Mmmm.. Vax 8350. Yum. drools..

[sheddyian]

Mmmm.. Vax 8350. Yum. drools..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAX_8000#VAX_8200_and_VAX_8300
With two 6.25Mhz CPUs!



You can emulate these on a Raspberry Pi.    I feel very old

Sorry for hijacking your thread

Ian

[neilius]

After a couple of years of having a low error rates on a 13dB interleaved line at 6dB SNRM profile (TalkTalk), we had a very close lightning strike. Flash and bang at pretty much the same time, and boy was it a bang! The router was nuked, as in the status LEDs were blinking very quickly in unison and it was non functional.

Replaced the router with an identical model (HG533) and found that there were a lot of errors accumulating. Telephone was fine. After a day or two DLM kicked in, twice, and left us on a 12dB SNRM profile.

I noticed that if I disabled Wi-Fi on the HG533, the errors stopped. Using an old D-Link DSL-2640R caused no more or less accumulation of errors whether Wi-Fi was enabled or not. We got the new HG533 replaced by TalkTalk and had the same problem with the replacement unit.

As we were moving house within the next few months, I never bothered to investigate it further, but I do wonder if there was damage to the capacitor in the NTE5 or some other component in the MK3 SSFP that made it prone to picking up interference.

We've since moved and I replaced the HG533 with a HG635 which has much better Wi-Fi coverage. Using the same MK3 SSFP and we get a consistently stable connection which remains at a 6dB SNRM profile. Although the distance from the exchange and therefore attenuation is greater... I do miss the speeds we got at the old place!