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[waltergmw]

Hi Dave,

You are correct in that pins 2 and 5 are all that's needed for a phone connection.

HOWEVER just to be safe, make a record of the wires that are conected to each terminal before you disconnect them.

The reason for my caution here is that your socket has probably been wired up by someone not too familiar with phone wiring and the incoming cable looks as if it has a lot more than the standard 3 pairs. I'm guessing that it might not have been wired up by a BT trained engineer. It is possible that there are other sockets connected elsewhere and that you have a proper BT master socket elsewhere in your house. You could well have star wiring which is not the best practice for broadband connections. This doesn't mean to say that you definitely have a wrongly wired phone line, just that it is somewhat unusual. If you've kept your wiring diagram you can replace the wiring if you encounter some difficulties.

(Metal-clad sockets are also not too comon but at least it has been earthed which is good practice.)

Kind regards,
Walter

[dave1892]

Thanks Walter.

Well, I've learnt a lot more tonight. I've managed to find 4 sockets hidden around the flat - all identical to the first. I've tried the modem in all of them, and they're all the same apart from the least convenient one at the far end of the flat in a small room, which gave me 12000. Figures below.

So, I can come up with some method of using that socket which I guess will involve a long ethernet cable.

However, some last questions. Does my setup sound like a star? Even with the one socket that's working fairly well - I guess that could make that one the master, or close to it. So, is the ring wire still worth removing? From all of them? Does it make a difference if there's nothing plugged in to a socket?

many thanks for all your help
Dave

                Down            Up
SNR (dB):       9.9             6.0
Attn(dB):       32.0            16.5
Pwr(dBm):       19.0            12.6
Max(Kbps):      12136           1004
Rate (Kbps):    12014           1003

[waltergmw]

Hi Dave,

Yes, most certainly remove all additional wires everywhere and wind them back as the spare wires in the socket picture you posted, but make sure you've recorded the wire positions first. (BT max users should be careful not to keep connecting and disconnecting the modem too often as that can make the exchange equipment reduce your speed as it detects your circuit is unreliable.)

It is almost certain that you have star wiring as you have the ADSL signal at four sockets. Unless you have one socket with four cores in each pin, which is unlikely or at the very least highly undesirable, you also have a junction box somewhere, possibly in a service shaft along with power, gas, water and drainage services. The usual configuration is one incoming wire to a master socket and then daisy-chained to other slave sockets, without the yellow capacitor fitted. If you can find the junction box and disconnect the wires from the sockets not required you might improve your performance. However you would need a tone generator and a tone tracer to discover the correct pairs to cut so it's probably not something you can do yourself.

Rather than a long trailing ethernet cable you could experiment with home plugs which transmit the signals over the house wiring, but you need to find out if any of your neighbours are using them and whether they are on the same electrical phase as you are. (Even if they are, and a reasonable electrical distance from you they will still work. Don't buy the very fast expensive ones, you only need the slowest ones usually around 14 mbps or perhaps the 85 mbps as you won't achieve anything like that speed from your internet connection. (The faster ones can sometimes be a bit tempramental in some circumstances.)
See:-

http://www.netgear.co.uk/home_powerline_adapters.php

Good luck with your endeavours,
Walter

[kitz]

>> what does the target SNR do

Bit of light reading SNR, SNR Margin & Target SNR.
On some routers you can over-ride the target SNR set by BTw system.  Decreasing it can give you a higher sync speed, whilst increasing it can make your line more stable.  If your line is dropping then you dont wnat to be decreasing it.


>> I can disconnect the ring wire from pin 3?

If you have all 6 wires connected, then certainly remove pin 3 (orange + white) and its pair on pin 4 (white +orange).
1 & 6 usually arent needed but just make a note of were they were for the reasons mentioned by walter.

Something to mention that I can't see quite clear from that pic, but at the top behind the earth..  it appears theres been some coiling of wires around others?  IIRC Ezzer has mentioned in the past (before the days of adsl) that engineers used to do this for the sake of tidyness.
If they are... are you able to uncoil those wires?

[dave1892]

OK, here's the latest and it's good news. I removed all except 2 and 5 from all boxes. The first two, in the room with the most electrical stuff, gave me 9700 then 11200 respectively. The other two gave me up to 12927. And that was all without restarting the router. Restarting it afterwards gives the same values. I'll see what happens with the router in the other room, but it's also my wireless box so handy if I keep it where it is. To be honest I'm pretty happy with the improvement. Online speed tests are giving me 11.48Mbs.

I wish I'd got your post about coiling the wires, because I've coiled them in all four boxes. I did think about trying to leave them uncoiled, as instinctively you think they may be able to interfere, but I was worried about them touching the metal case. In any case, I think the improvement is pretty good, so probably not worth opening them all again to uncoil? I may do it one rainy day as an experiment.

Here are my latest figures. The only thing apart from speed that really seems to have changed is attenuation down 0.5.

                Down            Up
SNR (dB):       8.6             5.8
Attn(dB):       30.0            16.5
Pwr(dBm):       19.0            12.4
Max(Kbps):      14832           1000
Rate (Kbps):    12927           999

So, many thanks again to all who have helped. I work from home and this has made a significant difference to me, so it really is appeciated that people have put the time in to help.

cheers
Dave

[kitz]

Prev

Atten   30.5   16.5
Rate    8072   1011

Now

Attn(dB):       30.0            16.5
Rate (Kbps):    12927           999

Nice result - almost another 5Mb