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[mist]

Due to an unexplained sudden increase in noise margin to 9db I lost a whole 25% of my profile on ADSLMax, my isp said it could be my router at fault a DG834N with the latest firmware so have been browsing various forums which seem to suggest that Billion routers are very useful at dealing with noise margins and synchs,

Can anyone please advice a not very techy new poster on a Billion which has good wireless capabilities, happily holds synch on a long line of 56 attenuation plus likes making my line perform at the capability it had until a couple of weeks ago?  All wiring checks/filters etc have been re-done due to this increase in margin.

Thank you for any help/advice you can offer.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Hi Mist,

I'm not sure about the DG834N but, by and large, a fair few people on long lines (me included, so I'm biased) find the Netgears (DG834GT in my case) are pretty good, actually.

Is there any possibility you may have caused the router to resync a lot in recent days, either by physically disconnecting/reconnecting the phone line, or power off/on, or whatever?  If so, it is possible that BT's DLM system would mistake these resyncs for instability, and so penalise you with a higher target margin.  And that would happen regardless of whether  you had a Netgear, or Billion, or whatever router.  If so, it's supposed to sort itself out after a couple of weeks, but I'm afraid it often doesn't, and changing your router won't make it happen any sooner.

It's also possible that DLM has correctly decided, for valid reasons, that 9dB really is the most appropriate margin for your line even if it means a small sacrifice in speed, but without seeing the full stats it's difficult to comment.

To get your line stats, see http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php
See also http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php , which will give you a rough idea of what kind of speeds might be expected from your line.

- 7LM

[kitz]

The DG834N uses the same modem chipset (BCM6358) as the much favoured and recommended DG834GT for stability on long lines.
As far as the adsl side of things are concerned, it is very much akin to the DG834GT, the major difference being the (separate) wireless chipset which is 'N' technology and has a greater wireless range.

>> my isp said it could be my router at fault a DG834N with the latest firmware

Latest firmware for v1 should be 1.02.15 and 1.00.09 for the v2
Differences between the v1 & v2 are the front pushbutton and LEDs (linky)

I'm not aware of any adsl issues on either.

---

The Netgears in general are regarded as good pieces of kit for long lines and as mentioned by 7LM it is possible that your problem may well would have occured regardless if you were using the Netgear or a Billion.

Is the line still unstable?  or is it just that the increase in Target SNR that has caused the loss of sync speed.
We'd be happy to look at your linestats...
...... or alternatively if it is just the increase in target SNR that is causing you the problem, you could attempt to tweak the target SNR using DMTv8.

[mist]

Thank you for your replies, most grateful. I changed ISP mid june due to lack of weekend/evening throughput and am now with a monthly  contract BTIPstream provider. Previously my line had a 4 meg profile with synch at 4544 -4672 noise margin set at 6db, plugged into BT fitted split plate thingy. I noticed that routerstats was not reporting its usual almost perfect straight line and phoned isp, they suggested that I had a 'battery error' showing which may be a faulty ADSL cable. New shielded cable purchased fault apparently cleared.

Reported to ISP that I had been  getting a low througput on bt speedtester on July 24th still synch at 6420 noise margin set at 6db. Next day Saturday whilst out  the noise margin jumped to 9db and speed down to 3808, throw a wobbly here and try to re-synch stayed the same, noticed router stats getting worse so did all the filter changes etc etc. ISP say equipment can fail so wondering now if router is packing up as causative.
Trying not to fiddle until it registers 336 WAN uptime.

Firmware Version  V1.02.15 
System Up Time 235:32:34
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 989117 1436126 0 203 1890 235:31:49
LAN 10M/100M 1299655 1031703 0 1358 198 235:32:25
WLAN 11M/54M/270M 648248 411382 0 29982 2603 07:21:00
 

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 3808 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 56.0 db 31.5 db
Noise Margin 7.8 db 17.0 db
 


[attachment deleted by admin]

[mist]

Further stas, BT profile is now set at 3 meg. hence 25% loss not a lot to many but on my line....its making a large difference.

# adslctl info --stats
adslctl: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: ShowtimeRetrain Reason: 0
Channel: INTR, Upstream rate = 448 Kbps, Downstream rate = 3808 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode:                   G.DMT
Channel:                Interleave
Trellis:                ON
Line Status:            No Defect
Training Status:        Showtime
                Down            Up
SNR (dB):       7.4             17.0
Attn(dB):       56.0            31.5
Pwr(dBm):       19.4            12.1
Max(Kbps):      4384            968
Rate (Kbps):    3808            448
                        G.dmt framing
K:              120(0)          15
R:              16              16
S:              1               8
D:              32              4
                        ADSL2 framing
MSGc:           1               1
B:              120             15
M:              1               8
T:              1               1
R:              16              16
S:              1.1322          9.0000
L:              968             128
D:              32              4
                        Counters
SF:             49867212                49867532
SFErr:          4567            203
RS:             3390970446              423873019
RSCorr:         2325267         1378
RSUnCorr:       65574           0

HEC:            4036            99
OCD:            252             0
LCD:            0               0
Total Cells:    3318648740              0
Data Cells:     34462460                0
Drop Cells:     0
Bit Errors:     0               0

ES:             1637            0
SES:            26              0
UAS:            12              0
AS:             847748

INP:            2.11            2.00
PER:            1.98            1.96
delay:          9.05            9.00
OR:             28.26           28.44

Bitswap:        0               0

Total time = 1 days 19 hours 29 min 31 sec
SF  = 49867212
CRC = 4567
LOS = 1
LOF = 0
ES  = 1637
Latest 1 day time = 19 hours 29 min 31 sec
SF  = 4127699
CRC = 442
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 141
Latest 15 minutes time = 14 min 31 sec
SF  = 51212
CRC = 1
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 1
Previous 15 minutes time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 52982
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 0
Previous 1 day time = 24 hours 0 sec
SF  = 5082319
CRC = 654
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 156
15 minutes interval [-30 min to -15 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 52923
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 0
15 minutes interval [-45 min to -30 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 52923
CRC = 1
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 1
15 minutes interval [-60 min to -45 min] time = 15 min 0 sec
SF  = 52982
CRC = 0
LOS = 0
LOF = 0
ES  = 0
Showtime Drop Reason:   0
Last Retrain Reason:    0
#

[kitz]

router stats is showing frequent fluctuations between 0db <> 8dB.  From your graph it more looks like you have some sort of EMI on the line causing the SNR to suddenly dip.
- See REIN faults for more info and possible causes.

I'd keep router stats running on that line for a longer period of time and see if you can see any obvious pattern forming.
You can set up routerstats to retain daily logs.

[jid]

As Kitz says, definately REIN issue with those spikes in the router stats graphs.

Have you tried only plugging in the router to make sure none of your other telephony equipment may be causing the issue?

[mist]

I am keeping router stats running permanently at present except for dear old microsoft do those dratted updates and shut down PC.

Only telephone plus filter in house was unplugged for a whole afternoon as I thought that was maybe the problem. It wasn't

The drops seem to happen when I use PC after it being idle, ie not overnight even though it and router are left running 24/7.

An oddity is that, remembering I am not techy, is that the clock bottom right Vista home premium 32bit when I have thought to look stops as well at the same time, 4 minutes the other day, so as a further diagnostic test in case PC is to blame I have a new one ready to power in at the weekend...No spare router to try though which is why I posted for advice on which to purchase in case that is the culprit

No sky boxes etc etc, no personal nor burgular alarms and it all seems to stem from the ADSL cable being suggested as causing an error....

[sevenlayermuddle]

phoned isp, they suggested that I had a 'battery error' showing

Admittedly I've led a sheltered life, but I can't say I've heard of a 'battery error', and can't imagine what it would mean or why it would be equated with a dodgy cable.  It sounds more to me like a BT line fault.  Maybe some of the gurus could comment on that?

Meanwhile, and with that inspiration, another suggestion... have you ensured there's no correspondence between your noise margin and use of your telephone?   

[orainsear]

Do you have a faceplate similar to the one on this page and have your router connected by screened cable to the RJ11 socket?

[mist]

I have the BT/openreachNTE5 fitted by them two years ago when I first became interested in how the PC works
 My then ISP tried to tell me that err dial-up speeds were okay. That is when I started trying to read here and TBB etc , removed ringwires as per the diagrams which caused a minor miracle then we decided to part the £150.00 to have it all done properly.
Brand new Belkin RJ11 high speed ADSL cable 1 metre length after isp said 'battery error' showing on their test equipment. 17070 opt 2 gives a decent line with occasionally the sound of waves breaking on the shore, bt test said line ok..
House phone not used except the odd-incoming call as use free calls on mobile no correlation between the maybe twice a week incoming call and noise ...
No new electrical equipment bought plus I am very rural

As you may realise I am tearing my hair out here I didn't post till I had done everything that the main-site and TBB etc says are the tests

So electrical interference, need maybe now to try another router as an option, plus new surge protector which is in plug beneath desk.

[mist]

Addendum,
Just phoned ISP,  When I joined them I was apparently on a 'hot vp' so they did a tied pair modification with a card change as well., frantically scribbled that down as he told me.
As clear as mud to me.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Personally, I'd hesitate to encourage you to think that a new router would be likely to help.   Then again,  in my view they're fairly cheap so having a spare in case of sudden failure is not a bad thing anyway.   And if it fixes the problem, better still!

17070 opt 2 gives a decent line with occasionally the sound of waves breaking on the shore, bt test said line ok..
 desk.

Hmmm, I've always had TOTAL silence... not sure about that... can you still hear it, after your 'addendum' post a moment ago?

[mist]

Personally, I'd hesitate to encourage you to think that a new router would be likely to help.   Then again,  in my view they're fairly cheap so having a spare in case of sudden failure is not a bad thing anyway.   And if it fixes the problem, better still!

17070 opt 2 gives a decent line with occasionally the sound of waves breaking on the shore, bt test said line ok..
 desk.

Hmmm, I've always had TOTAL silence... not sure about that... can you still hear it, after your 'addendum' post a moment ago?

It is one of those dratted intermittent things. ISP attitude is that you have a 3 meg profile now with no throughput problem so...
Did ask if the change stuff they did could have made my line bad. I will not write my cynical thoughts on the reply I received. Especially after being told Routerstats is not a good programme to monitor with.

Okay so at the weekend will hook up the new PC, in case this one is causing the problem with its apparent glitches, will buy a new surge protector cable bank as ours is about 5 years old and possibly buy another Netgear..got to the point where if all that fails will just scream then give up   Will have done all within my power.

[orainsear]

It's probably unlikely, but there could be a fault with the faceplate.  If you have a micro-filter (you probably got one or two with your router) try removing the faceplate and plug the micro-filter into the test socket and router into the micro-filter.

If you still see similar stats it's probably not going to be the faceplate, but give it a good half hour before you put the faceplate back on - it's best to not upset the digital line management with resyncs any more than you have to.

Also if your router power supply/cable is any where near the cable to the faceplate can you try separating them as much as possible (particularly if they are lying in parallel).