Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ADSL Issues => Topic started by: browolf on December 10, 2006, 05:34:17 PM
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Hi i've had max since nov 17th. it hasnt been an enjoyable experience so far; which is disappointing because my 5 previous years of broadband on 500/1/2 mb have been excellent.
my first 2 weeks i was running at 3-5mb. i had one day of problems and found myself on interleaved but good with 330k/s downloads. went away for the weekend. came back. found myself downgraded to 128k (that was last monday)
phoned isp. they said there'd been a load of disconnections on sunday (when was away) and have rate adapted down. they wanted me to try the test socket and a different router (which ive just bought off ebay yesterday)
basically my problem seems to be my router has random periods of lots of disconnecting where the noise and sync is all over the place and sometimes zero.
my stable stats are
Noise Margin 28 dB 15 dB
Output Power 12 dBm 18 dBm
Attenuation 6 dB 15 dB
Stream Type Interleaved Channel Data Rate
Up Stream 448 (Kbps.)
Down Stream 5824 (Kbps.)
i live about a mile from the exchange as the crow filies and the router is plugged on a short cable to the master socket which is an engineer installed filtered faceplate. tried a filter with the test socket but no difference.
my router is a 3com 3CRWE754G72-A with latest 1.31 firmware
i have my router logs for the past 5 days, every min, including a ping to google and status of up/down
periods not shown are when the router was off.
what do you think?
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It wasn't stated in your stats which figures were upstream and which were downstream, so I'll assume that the first figures are upstream. You have very low attenuation and respectable noise margins, so one would normally expect a pretty stable connection. Something is producing serious intermittent levels of interference. Possibilities are:-
- poor internal extension wiring picking up unsuppressed interference from an electrical appliance
- a very bad local source of interference (exercise treadmills have been implicated a few times)
- an intermittent line fault
You can eliminate the first item (and in part the second) by plugging the router into the test socket behind the master socket faceplate (assuming that you have an NTE5 master socket).
As to the third possibility, do you hear any crackling on the telephone, and does using the telephone affect the ADSL connection?
And finally, you do have every piece of telephone equipment (including Sky boxes, fax machines etc.) connected via a filter, don't you?
Eric
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thx,
the stats are upstream/downstream
1. where the wire comes in from outside there's a very old connection and exposed wires (See attached pic)
2. i have minimal electrical appliances which are off when im not using them. the sunday that the blowout that put me on 128kb the only thing on was the fridge (i was away) however i do live in the top half of a semi. who knows what goes on down there. is that: electric interference on the same circuit? or by distance?
i get crackling on the line when its really windy. I noticed on one occassion where i was having trouble connecting talking on the telephone caused it to magically work and then stop working when i put the phone down. happened like this on 3 occassions that night.
i tried the test socket with a filter. the connection stayed up for 9 mins. i dont use a filter normally as the faceplate is filtered. it has a data and a phone socket on.
did you look at the csv files?
for the first time in a week i seem to running at 480.0 Kbps (60k/s downloads)
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I think that the fact that you sometimes get crackling on the line, and the telephone sometimes affects the ADSL connection, leads to the conclusion that you have a line fault (could be a high resistance fault). If the crackling is there frequently you could report it directly to BT as a voice fault. This could be a good move as they should tidy up your incoming wiring for you without charge. Otherwise you will need to report it as an ADSL fault to your ISP (you can't report ADSL faults directly to BT retail).
Eric
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high resistance fault: is that something that can get worse over time? I mean ive noticed when its bad; leaving the router on trying to connect seems to perpetuate the badness whilst turning the router off for several hours seems to clear it. I've been on to my isp but they want me to try another router which i havent gotten my hands on yet.
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A high resistance fault is just a poor connection, often caused by rust on a terminal. The chances are that it will get worse with time. Sometimes, the extra current drawn when you pick up the telephone is enough to temporarily repair the connection, but it's never going to heal on its own.
Eric
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Hi
Sorry not been around the past week.. but roseway has given you good advice.
As an aside.. I suffered badly up here last sunday and a lot of houses in this area lost bits from their roofs etc.
I'd go with erics suggestion that its an actual line fault and persue it as a voice fault Hopefully then they will put an NTE5 type socket in at the point where the line enters your home. Judging from the pic.. things look a tad out of date and need tidying up.
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thanx. the voice fault i have is pretty intermittent. it hasn't done it since last thursday. My connection has seemed a lot more stable since i took the filtered faceplate off to try the test socket AND put it back when the test made no difference. At the moment Im on 512kb so i've gotten some increase. Got a router off ebay that should be better at holding the line when the noise fluctuates so will have to see how that goes when i get it. other than that im monitoring it with my script.
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wierd. got home from work discovered router sync'ed but completely refused to connect even with a reset (pc been off during day). left router off for 45 mins and reconnected ok and seem to have gotten a speed increase w00h00. downloaded zen test file at 400k/s
synced at 448/5600 interleaved
Operation Data
Operation Data Upstream Downstream
Noise Margin 27 dB 15.5 dB
Output Power 11.5 dBm 18 dBm
Attenuation 5.5 dB 16 dB
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it was fine when i got up this morning but
/cry
back on 128kbit
left router on this morning; from its logs its started dropping off from 12:40pm
24 times from then to when i got home at 16:44
coincidently or not its gotten windy again.
according to a weather station page i know approx 7 miles away it started increasing around 9am from an average (for the last few days) of 20ish mph to now of 35-40mph
i've reported it to talktalk and they said they'll get it looked into.
any ideas how long this might take?
obviously if the wind drops i should get the speed back in 4 or 5 days
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damn :(
and yes re the wind >:(
Not sure how long it could take for TT to get an engineer round - depends on how busy BT are as well.
Its always worth considering reporting it as a voice fault - however I wouldnt do that just yet if TT are on the ball with BTw
BT wont send an adsl engineer out if there is a voicefault registered on the line, so you may just have to sit tight for a few days Im afraid :no:
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no i've reported it to TT as a voice fault; the line crackles as well. my isp f2s are reluctant to get involved at this stage because they think its a line fault rather than a specific dsl fault.
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got a new old dlink DSL-G604T router off ebay
interestingly its sync'ed at
Upstream Rate (Kbps) 448
Downstream Rate (Kbps) 7872
thats like 2k higher than before. unless bt have done something.
other stats are
US Margin 28
DS Margin 13
DS Line Attenuation 17
US Line Attenuation 14
interesting the UP attenuation is wildly different :-S
i shall commence rewriting my script as soon as time allows. already verified that i can get pages with wget.
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hmm it was fine for 3 hours. the wind dropped completely but then it started raining and wierdness ensued.
e.g.
Connection Status Connecting...
Upstream Rate (Kbps) 0
Downstream Rate (Kbps) 0
US Margin 7
DS Margin 14
Modulation MMODE
LOS Errors 21
DS Line Attenuation 18
US Line Attenuation 63
Path Mode Interleaved
left it on going crazy for a while then turned it off for an hour and then back to normal....
Connection Status Connected
Upstream Rate (Kbps) 448
Downstream Rate (Kbps) 8128
US Margin 28
DS Margin 13
Modulation MMODE
LOS Errors 0
DS Line Attenuation 16
US Line Attenuation 14
Path Mode Interleaved
see how the attenuation jumps!!
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There's obviously a poor connection between you and the exchange. Hopefully BT will be able to fix it. If it's any comfort to you, I had crackly line problems a few months ago, and eventually BT fixed it, although it did take three visits. Just be nice to the BT engineers and make them lots of tea. I'm told that bacon butties go down well too.
Eric
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hmm i never have bacon & rarely bread in my house lol
seems to have been ok during the night. would feel better with a log file. work on that tonight. :-)
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>> no i've reported it to TT as a voice fault; the line crackles as well. my isp f2s are reluctant to get involved at this stage because they think its a line fault rather than a specific dsl fault.
Sorry when you mentioned TT earlier I'd assumed they were your ISP :/
>>> Just be nice to the BT engineers and make them lots of tea. I'm told that bacon butties go down well too.
lol.. Ive heard that rumour too... but if no bacon is available.... choccy biccys work well too.
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>> got a new old dlink DSL-G604T router off ebay
heard these tend to work pretty well on hanging on to low SNR..
However attenuation jumping all over the show isnt right - this figure should remain fairly static and therefore points to a problem on the line itself.
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Just be nice to the BT engineers and make them lots of tea. I'm told that bacon butties go down well too.
Yes be nice to the engineers. They have been sent out on the behalf of your SP and won't know the problems you've had etc. The last thing people like when they turn up is for the customer to have a moan at them when they have come to try and help.
Don't forget Openreach was created to meet ofcom requirements for treating all service providers equally. So apart from Openreach arranging a visit and doing repair work it is up to TT to take care of you and if you think nothing is being done you ought to complain to them given it is their responsibility to keep you happy.
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>> got a new old dlink DSL-G604T router off ebay
heard these tend to work pretty well on hanging on to low SNR..
thats why i got one; after reading it on your fine site :D
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lol :-[
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still havent managed to get rate adapted up. experienced a couple of short periods of instability over the weekend.
what i would like to know is, if i turn my router off when im not using my pc (to "bypass" any possible instabilities) will the time period for rate adapting still be same? ie if im stable when i am on, will it still be 3-4 days?
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>> if i turn my router off when im not using my pc (to "bypass" any possible instabilities) will the time period for rate adapting still be same? ie if im stable when i am on, will it still be 3-4 days?
Should be.
The only thing to be aware of if you do do this, - is that as soon as you do hit an unstable period again, then you will be back at square 1 :/
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k thx. yea realise that; least if im up to speed and i'm on my pc i can turn the router off quick for 10mins or something if i do loose sync.
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worth giving it a shot then.. if you dont mind turning the router off at the times when it starts going erratic.
good luck :)
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Woohoo ~ good call ~ back on 4mbit, turned router off for 14 hours whilst asleep/at work. must do that more often. :)
also got call off bt; didnt know it was bt at first; the guy was speaking so unclearly it sounded like gibberish; nearly put the phone down. at first he was either asking/telling me fault was fixed. then was saying bt couldnt find any noise. so in the end i said well if bt cant find a problem. if i have any more problems i'll go through my isp as a broadband fault and that was that.
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>> back on 4mbit
:thumbs:
btw.. I think it was you that mailed me about some router stats.
Unfort theres been a few periods over the past month or so when Ive been awol several times.. and I still literally have about 80-100 mails that I havent caught up on yet.
However it seems good stuff and could well be very useful to many others. Thank you :)
If you'd like to open a new thread on here with the script & details, then I'd be more than happy to link to it on the main site on the frogstats page. That way you also get relevant credit as being the author for you hard work :)
Ive also got quite a few mods and updates that I want to do on the site... and I need to really contact you properly about this... but I was perhaps thinking of hosting the batch files rather than you having to mail them if that has your agreement?
(I'm currently looking at new hosting cause I need more bandwidth, which is another reason why some things have ground a bit to a halt site wise.)
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yeah that was me. got 2 scripts now one for 3com and one for dlink; might be getting a free different router to write another one.
the script is pretty self contained but it is a folder of stuff cos you need the windows port of wget, wait.exe and strings.exe; a vbscript and a batch file.
also i need to alter it to run off c: drives cos i have it on an e: drive and i wouldnt think too many people had one of them lol.
i think hosting the files (zipped) would be best. if your concerned about bandwidth i could stick them on my isp webspace.
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heh you could have a cottage industry going with routers soon if you carry on writing scripts for them :D
lol.. I think youre quite correct about the e drive :D
Id seen your mention of mailing which is why I also thought hosting would be best.
Out of curiousity how big is the zip file?
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i think i must have meant mailing it to you to host.
Not sure am at work. i'd say between 1 & 2 mb
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Yep could probably do that :)
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another incident.
i came back home after being away for new year on tuesday to find my phone line dead. no dial tone. i took my phone to my parents house round the corner; it worked fine. phoned talktalk; they did a "line test" said the problem was at "my end". scared me off with the whole it cost a lot routine. i'd left the router off whilst away. tried the internet. it eventually connected with an attenuation of 63! decided id best leave the router off.
tues night: when i picked up the handset; i just got bad static. discovered i could get incoming calls but the static was so bad could barely hear each other and it would often just disconnect.
wed morning decided to brave talk talk and order a bt engineer. coming sat morning
wednesday night. the static is reducing and the dial tone is intermittent.
thurday morning: hardly any static, i can dial out; internet stats back to normal.
i'm worried that when the bt man comes he wont find anything wrong!! i can't afford for bt to keep coming and find nothing wrong. why the hell is getting better? :'( :'(
should i try and cancel the bt engineer?
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Sounds a bit like water ingress into your phone wiring, which initially would have caused a complete short circuit and is now slowly improving as it dries out. With the high winds and rain we've had recently, certainly in my part of the country, that would seem to be the most likely explanation. Tricky one regarding BT visit, as there may be no evidence by the time they arrive. On the other hand any joints/junctions in their wiring should be properly weatherproof otherwise this is likely to recur. Have any neighbours had phone trouble?
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my downstairs neighbours had their approx same age line as me replaced a few years ago. the engineer said mine looked pretty bad but couldnt do anything unless i had a problem. I just wish it would break and stay broke.
concerning the line test talk talk claimed to have run how does that work? and what makes them think the problem is in my house; which the weather evidence clearly disputes. is it something to do with the fact that the phone rang on incoming calls but when i answered it was static. is that like the two wires. ones ok and one isnt?
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hmmmm the time before last when you had problems was when we had gales.
I know youre pretty localish to me.. and the weather here was really bad on New Years eve again.
The Engineer can only charge if they find a fault with your own equipment (ie internal wiring/PC/router). I would let him come.. explain the full circumstances and that it gets worse when the weather is bad. Ask if he thinks there could be a possibility of water getting on the line somewhere. Also mention the static and how you could hardly hear phone calls
Im inclinced to agree with what astral has said about the weather.
Make sure you offer him a cuppa and biccies and try get him on your side.
You could even go for the sympathy vote and say that your ISP has mentioned the possibility of charges.. but say that things are so bad that you needed it looking into because you cant keep having connection problems everytime the weather gets bad.
Make sure you tell him that you have done everything you can possibly do from your side of things. Throw in a couple of words such as attenuation being 63dB so that he knows you aint stupid.. but balance it so that youre not trying to appear too smart and know his job.
>> the line test talk talk claimed to have run how does that work?
Line test is normally a WOOSH test. It tells your ISP if you are connected, and your current line stats - therefore they will be able to see your line stats.
A copy of a woosh test is here if you want to see what one looks like from the ISP side of things http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/images/WOOSH.gif
The only other thing I can say is that because its also now affecting the voice side of the phone - you could perhaps try getting it raised as a voice fault?
>> and what makes them think the problem is in my house
They always tend to say that - I had problems relating to the exchange - I was reporting them as exchange related - I had proof it was exchange related.. but it was still marked down as a fault in my home :/
Good Luck
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no talk talk is my voice provider not my isp. they did a voice/line test
thanks but in the end i phoned up talktalk and said it had magically fixed itself; they assured me the fault would be kept on my phone records. so i cancelled teh engineer. It was worrying me too much.
if i could stop my broadband from downgrading I could almost live with it. i had a for no reason downtime of 27mins at 18:27pm before i noticed. so am back on 128kbit. I think i could alter my script to disconnect the broadband at the first sign of trouble. see i can do scripts with confidence but not people. :-[
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funnily or not enough, the phone died again. so booked another engineer. guess i'd better stick with it this time as clearly the problem has escalated from fixing itself and being ok for weeks to mere days. Better get some milk too as i dont normally have it. i'll try and follow your advice thanks kitz.
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seems like the phone dies every time it rains now. :o
the internet is actually functioning on these crazy line stats
Connection Status Connected
Upstream Rate (Kbps) 352
Downstream Rate (Kbps) 160
US Margin 6
DS Margin 0
Modulation MMODE
LOS Errors 0
DS Line Attenuation 45
US Line Attenuation 63
Path Mode Interleaved
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When your phone dies in the rain, this is probably the damp shorting out the circuit. If someone tries to call you they would likely get engaged tone as effectively your line is in use!
Broadband is actually quite a resilient technology, as you have seen, even when the phone line is inoperable for normal use the broadband can still just work on very high resistance/poor signal.
Indeed even if one of the wires in your line was cut, the phone circuit would not work but broadband can actually continue to work over one out of the two wires.
It is doubtful that the damp is getting in anywhere to far out from your premises, as if you might expect other neighbours to be having problems unless you were somehow the only affected line (external cables + connections are now all grease filled for damp proofing, DPs, joints etc are supposed to be water tight anyway and UG cables are pressurised to prevent water getting in).
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Yes, a few months ago I had a bad problem with a line which went crackly after heavy rain and messed up the ADSL performance. I reported it as a voice fault, and after a couple of visits BT decided to replace the cable from a nearby pole to my house, and this fixed the problem.
Eric
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It is doubtful that the damp is getting in anywhere to far out from your premises, as if you might expect other neighbours to be having problems unless you were somehow the only affected line (external cables + connections are now all grease filled for damp proofing, DPs, joints etc are supposed to be water tight anyway and UG cables are pressurised to prevent water getting in).
my flat the top half of a semi, is at least 30 years old. when i moved in 6 years ago. had to have it rewired and the sockets were still on the skirting boards. All the cabling outside the house is more than likely the original cabling when the line was originally installed. I live by the coast so lots of salt in the air too. even tho the cabling inside the house is old too its doesnt get wet.... its either the line to the eaves of my roof or the cabling/connections from the eaves to the window where it comes in. thats what I've got my money on. :-)
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w00h00 bt guy replaced all the outside wiring and and through the wall and put in a little box that connected the wire from the master socket to the new wire. my broadband stats were instantly much better. he said the wiring was at least 25 years old. he declined a brew.
Connection Status Connected
Upstream Rate (Kbps) 448
Downstream Rate (Kbps) 7968
US Margin 28
DS Margin 12
Modulation MMODE
LOS Errors 0
DS Line Attenuation 16
US Line Attenuation 13
Path Mode Interleaved
should of have asked to have the speed reset doh! wait a few days to get back to mbits then see about getting the line retrained.
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Excellent news. Nice to know that my two years as a (pre-BT) telephone engineer weren't entirely in vain.
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Sounds like a result! :)
Eric
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thanks for everyones wisdom on the matter :)
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>> no talk talk is my voice provider not my isp. they did a voice/line test
doh - you had said that in the past - sorry I forgot :/
/me slaps self :(
>> bt guy replaced all the outside wiring and and through the wall and put in a little box that connected the wire from the master socket to the new wire. my broadband stats were instantly much better.
YAY.. at last thats good news :)
good luck with the reprofiling and may you soon be seeing the actual increase in throuput :)
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got the bras profile reset. back to my usual 4-5mbit. my isp is implying something called dynamic line management will eventually put me back on fastpath. is that so?
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DLM is supposed to do that if your connection is stable, but I'm not sure how they define 'stable'.
Eric
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i found something that says 10 days if you're on interleaved. suppose i can wait that long ;-)