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[mr_chris]

To be honest I've not asked them to put me on Fast path, and I don't think I will be doing either... my downstream FEC errors run into the billions within a couple of weeks

So obviously my line is far from perfect, and it looks like Interleaved mode is saving my ass at the moment

Given I still get ~24ms to the beeb, I'm perfectly happy with latency, and I'm not a gamer, so I'm not pushing for that extra couple of ms In fact it's better than it was on BT sometimes, and that was on Fast path! (I think that was mainly down to BT's ATM for taking my traffic half way round the country sometimes when they rejigged something!!)

[guest]

If you bumped up your downstream margin by 1 or 2 dB I bet you'd see most of the corrected errors disappear - no real point in doing so in your case though. Do be aware that if you are using the BeBox (780WL) with heavy interleaving then it does get very warm - not a problem for this time of year but summer is quite entertaining (watching all the people cursing the BeBox )

[mcbazza]

Edit - as you seem to be somewhere around London (87.194.196.1 = London North gateway) I'd expect your latency to be around 10ms once you're on fastpath

Thanks for that. As soon as I've had a proper chance to tinker I'm going to get one of my own ADSL2+ modem/routers in place of the BeBox. Then I can tinker (for myself) with the SNR limits (raising/lowering/etc).

Was moved to fast path this morning.
Has brought latency to PSN test server down to 9-10ms - not bad from the 220ms (peak) I was getting with Virgin Media!!

I'll be watching it like a hawk over the coming week, or two. If I'm getting errors/problems, I'll get the line tweaked, and maybe even move back to interleaved. When you (as a gamer) have had latency of 220ms evenings/weekends, 24ms (as it is/was on interleaved) is a sheer luxury!!

Thanks all.

ps: Norf Wotfud, in Herts. btw.

[guest]

I'd recommend getting a static IP address from them (they don't charge for it now) as whoever setup their DHCP servers was an idiot - lease renewal times measured in minutes (40 IIRC) when I was on Be. I lost count of the number of times the DHCP servers bombed but it never affected me since I had a static IP address.

There was also some sort of MAC issue whereby if you wanted to use another router you had to wait for the DHCP lease to timeout before it would work. No idea whether that's still the case but bear it in mind.

[mr_chris]

Do be aware that if you are using the BeBox (780WL) with heavy interleaving then it does get very warm - not a problem for this time of year but summer is quite entertaining (watching all the people cursing the BeBox )

Heh - actually they've changed to the 585v6 now. I do have it propped up at an angle though to allow air to circulate underneath a bit better, for that "just in case" moment. Like you say, wait til the summer!

[guest]

Its a quite stunningly bad design. There couldn't have been any mechanical design input at all. What is the point of putting airholes on the bottom below the circuit board when there's no other venting?

For those who aren't technically minded : what happens is that the air inside the router gets hotter and when it gets hot enough then it rises, hits the top of the case, flows around the board and escapes out the holes at the bottom. Unfortunately as any mechanical engineer could tell you, this is very hot indeed without additional venting. The only reason its been done this way is aesthetics.

This is why you'll often see advice to Be users along the lines of "turn the router upside down"

[kitz]

>> The only reason its been done this way is aesthetics.

.. and bad forethought really. 
All the other routers I have had some sort of ventalation on the top.  Some of them do become dust traps, but some manufacturers have managed to overcome this...  say for eg the  voyager 2100 etc, which  IMHO has quite a nice design yet still allowing air flow out of the top.
The STs though... well theyre all practically the same box aren't they regardless of model?

[mr_chris]

The STs though... well theyre all practically the same box aren't they regardless of model?

Yeah, pretty much I think! Mind you look at Netgear! And BT for that matter (apart from the home hub of course) - though at least they use variations on the design!! Speedtouch seem to just plonk em all in the same box whatever

Maybe they're all just the same router with different firmware

(only kidding!)