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[William Grimsley]

Hello!

Over the past few months, my Nan has had an intermittent HRJ fault. Basically, as soon as the phone is answered, the ADSL light goes out on her DSL-3780 (she is with Tiscali). Now, a Qube engineer visited the property about 40 days ago, fixed the line and it was syncing at a healthy 18 Mb about 500 m from the exchange. Today, me and my dad today visited the property and I logged into the router and found the rate had dropped to 8128 Kbps, which was a shock to say the line was in a perfect state several weeks ago. So, I rang the phone from my mobile and wholla the line dropped out, again. At the current time, the router is plugged into an extenstion socket, but this socket was put in in 1989, when I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) test sockets weren't invented. So behind the one hole socket there is just wires not a test socket. Annoying. Unfortunately, my Nan has to have the router in the extension socket because the TV is next to it and a YouView box is connected to the router via ethernet (for some reason the YouView box cannot connect via WiFi). However, what is more odd is that as soon as I disconnect the phone from the master socket the line drops out in the extension socket and the phone in the master socket has to have a filter connected for the line to not drop out in the extenstion socket.

So, I hope the above makes sense. But, am I right in saying there's no test socket or am I still yet to find the right socket to test the connection with? Also, what should I do with regards to the fault?

Many thanks!

William

[ejs]

What if anything did the Qube engineer actually do? I thought one of the few things an ISP's own engineers are allowed to do is install a modern master socket. Apart from that, they are limited to doing the same things the end user can do.

Extension sockets never contain a test socket. A modern (NTE5) master socket has a test socket, removing the lower front part of the master socket, to expose the test socket, disconnects the extension wiring.

All telephones and anything else connected to the telephone line needs to be connected through a filter. The phone in the master socket will always need a filter. Technically, the ADSL modem is connected to the unfiltered side of the microfilter, so the ADSL modem itself doesn't actually need a filter, but the filter provides the RJ11 socket needed by typical ADSL cables.

It sounds a bit like the problem was due to the unfiltered telephone in the master socket, although I'd have thought the Qube engineer would have spotted that.

[jelv]

Do any of the sockets have a removable lower half?

[William Grimsley]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your replies.

I have to admit the Qube engineer was rubbish. He didn't even know what SNR Margin was. The telephone does now have a filter attached to what we think is the master socket. The only sockets I have found have no lower half it is just a socket with a square middle for the filter, 2 screws and behind is just a massive hole with lots of wire pairs. I'm confused as to why a Qube engineer was sent and not an Openreach engineer. I visited the property when the engineer was visiting and I was unpleasantely surprised to see a white van not an Openreach van...

Basically, as ejs described, we think that the master socket is the same design as the extension socket!

[William Grimsley]

It sounds a bit like the problem was due to the unfiltered telephone in the master socket, although I'd have thought the Qube engineer would have spotted that.

The phone was already connected via a microfilter when I visited the property today.

[ejs]

Does the "square middle for the filter" mean a filter that looks like http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/adsl-microfiltersplitter-a61ak ? (I wouldn't trust any filter from maplin, that link is just for the example image)

The microfilters that look like that tend to be not very good, the ones that have about 5cm of cable to plug them into the phone socket tend to be better. Although it's not the 5cm of cable itself that makes it a decent filter, it's also possible for abysmal filter designs to have a short cable.

[William Grimsley]

Does the "square middle for the filter" mean a filter that looks like http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/adsl-microfiltersplitter-a61ak ? (I wouldn't trust any filter from maplin, that link is just for the example image)

The microfilters that look like that tend to be not very good, the ones that have about 5cm of cable to plug them into the phone socket tend to be better. Although it's not the 5cm of cable itself that makes it a decent filter, it's also possible for abysmal filter designs to have a short cable.

Yeah, but it's square not rectangular. I changed the filters round to see if that helped. I will visit in a few days and see if the speed has improved.

In fact, listening to the voice message he sent me. He said "Make sure the microfilters are inserted correctly and if they are check they aren't faulty, if you need to reset the router press the reset button for 1 minute. Re your noise margin at 22 dB press the reset button and that should reset it.". Listening to that makes me, 1) Want to cry. 2) Annoyed, because he actually inserted the microfilter's that were new with the new router (only a few months old) and 3) Why would pressing the reset button reset the noise margin?

[ejs]

If the SNR margin is currently very high because the DSL dropped out and re-connected while something bad was happening, then doing anything that re-connects it when the problem has gone away should result in a higher speed and more usual SNR margin. Resetting the router to factory defaults is probably complete overkill to achieve the desired result.

Yes, it's very annoying that there seem to be some "experienced IT professionals" who can get away with saying pretty much anything as long as it sounds good to someone who doesn't know any better.

[William Grimsley]

Yeah, very true. What should I do now?

[burakkucat]

What should I do now?

Take a picture of the exterior of each and every socket. Then, for each socket in turn, take an interior picture of the wires connected to each IDC. (Assuming IDCs rather than screw terminals.) Make the pictures available for us to view and ensure that we can identify each of socket with its location in the property. If it is possible, please also identify the first socket that is connected to the line once the latter has entered the premises. Is the incoming line an aerial or underground feed?

[William Grimsley]

Is the incoming line an aerial or underground feed?

Ok, I should be able to do that at some point this week. The line is underground.

If it is possible, please also identify the first socket that is connected to the line once the latter has entered the premises.

Is this the box or the master socket? I have a feeling that all of the socket have no test sockets.

[burakkucat]

We really need to see "what's what" to be able to make any suggestions. So if there are any internal junction boxes, it might be worthwhile including them in your photographic record.

[William Grimsley]

We really need to see "what's what" to be able to make any suggestions. So if there are any internal junction boxes, it might be worthwhile including them in your photographic record.

Ok, I'll aim to go over at some point this week and have a rumage.

[William Grimsley]

Hi!

Ok, I have some photos. The first photo is of the master socket, the second photo is of the extension socket, the third photo is of the internal wiring of the master socket and the fourth photo is of the internal wiring of the extension socket.

I hope this helps, kitizens!

[burakkucat]

Thank you for those images.

Numbers 1 & 2 show us that both sockets are Line Jacks and that there is no NTE5 visible.

Numbers 3 & 4 show us that neither of those Line Jacks is a primary. I.e. Neither of those sockets is the "master socket".

There is one thing you can do. I refer to image number three. There are two wires, coloured orange (each with a white stripe) connected to IDC3 (top right hand). Very carefully pull them both out of that connector. Do not cut them. Once they have been disconnected, just neatly fold them back with the other non-connected wires.

There might be some other means of providing the correct termination of the circuit, perhaps another hidden socket which is an NTE5. So please have a good search. Start at the point where the line enters the property. Is there an external junction box of any kind? Can you see where the cable enters?