Intermittent ADSL connection problems

[Danny]

About a year or so ago I upgraded my ADSL connection from 1mb to 8mb, and ever since then I have suffered from intermittent connection problems.

My ISP has suggested that the most likely cause is that my router/modem is connected to an extension socket rather than the main phone socket in the house.

I am doubtful about this because:

a) I never had any problems until my ADSL connection was upgraded to 8mb
The connection problems are very intermittent - i.e. I can go many days without a problem occurring, and then suddenly find I have a bad connection for several hours, only to have it return to normal.

My ISP has said that they could get BT to check for faults on the line, but if it turns out that the problems are due to my internal wiring then I would face a £100 bill. On the other hand get BT or an electrician to check my internal wiring is not going to be cheap either.

What should I do?

 

[Shaun]

Replace the micro-filter first and see if that sorts it (borrow one if you can, or maybe you got a spare when you got the router?).

Also, get BT to do a line test and find out what the SNR (Signal-To-Noise) ratio is?

Sometimes running at full-pop just doesn't give stable line speed/quality, so you could also ask BT to turn down your line speed a little to see if that makes a difference?

Just a couple of things you could look at.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Bman]

What I would do here is when I'm experiencing these issues, would run continuous pings to both my modem, my (the routers) default gateway and a site like bbc.co.uk

If you lose the response from the gateway and the internet site but not your modem you know its not your problem.

Do you know how to ping your modem?

 

[rh100]

What I would do here is when I'm experiencing these issues, would run continuous pings to both my modem, my (the routers) default gateway and a site like bbc.co.uk

If you lose the response from the gateway and the internet site but not your modem you know its not your problem.

Do you know how to ping your modem?

+1

This helps isolate where the actual problem lies, within your local network or with the BT line onwards.

You could try plugging the modem into the main incoming phone socket to rule out problems with the phone extensions if you have them.

Did anything change in the house at the time the problem started - a colleague of mine had intermitant faults, had to pay BT for the visit as it was down to the carpet fitters snagging a cable - a very common problem.

 

[Danny]

Replace the micro-filter first and see if that sorts it (borrow one if you can, or maybe you got a spare when you got the router?).

Also, get BT to do a line test and find out what the SNR (Signal-To-Noise) ratio is?

Sometimes running at full-pop just doesn't give stable line speed/quality, so you could also ask BT to turn down your line speed a little to see if that makes a difference?

Just a couple of things you could look at.

Cheers,
Shaun

1. Have already replaced the micro filter but it made no difference.

2. Do I ask BT to do the line test or my ISP? And what would the results tell me?

3. When my line was first upraded to 8mbs the problems were much worse, so my ISP did turn down the line speed which improved things considerably and makes me suspect the problems relate to the line.

 

[Danny]

What I would do here is when I'm experiencing these issues, would run continuous pings to both my modem, my (the routers) default gateway and a site like bbc.co.uk

If you lose the response from the gateway and the internet site but not your modem you know its not your problem.

Do you know how to ping your modem?

I am not sure how to ping my modem - though know how to ping other sites.

In any case if the modem is on an extension socket, isn't it possible that the problem could still be down to the internal cable that goes from the telephone socket the modem is plugged into to the main telephone socket?

 

[Danny]

You could try plugging the modem into the main incoming phone socket to rule out problems with the phone extensions if you have them.

Did anything change in the house at the time the problem started - a colleague of mine had intermitant faults, had to pay BT for the visit as it was down to the carpet fitters snagging a cable - a very common problem.

The main phone socket is not in a very convenient place, which is why I have the modem plugged into the extension socket.

Also, the fault is sufficiently intermittent that I would have to have it plugged into the main socket for a week or more to be certain I had ruled out problems with the home extension.

Have sadly not had any carpets fitted or done any other internal work. The only change I can think of is that I subscribed to Vonage and now have one of their devices plugged into my modem.

 

[ian turner]

Go into the router config and check the attenuation and snr/noise readings in the status page. Assuming your router isn't a piece of junk like the one here at work that doesn't list these values ack.
SNR should be above 6db and attenuation below 50 but note these may vary so best to check when you lose connection.
To ping the router run "cmd" and type ipconfig in. Then ping the default gateway address. Or just get the routers ip address from its status page or lan config page.

 

[soulful dog]

a) I never had any problems until my ADSL connection was upgraded to 8mb

Your 1mb was a fixed rate connection, and if there is any noise or interference on the line it's far more forgiving than the the 8mb max adsl. I had similar intermittent problems when I first changed from 1mb to 8mb - I spent ages trying to test my connection, comparing my line stats from the router etc, a new ISP, new router and then finally a new master socket later, and my connection is fine now!

You really do need to try and plug your modem/router into the master socket to try and sort things out, BT are unlikely to admit any problem with the line unless you can prove it's not a problem at your end, and that's really the only way of you being able to do that. From what I remember they generally want you to have the modem connected via the test socket and everything unplugged from any extensions when they are testing the line anyway.

 

[2Loose]

I second the try the connection from the master socket to help diagnose the issue, secondary sockets are mostly wired from this one and the wiring can introduce extra noise on the line.

I have heard of problems with faster connections being caused by the 'ring wire' still being connected in the sockets. Although this wire serves no modern purpose, it can act as a big antenna to introduce signal noise on the line.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/faq/sections/radsl.html#235

As Soulfull Dog says, 1mb connections are far more forgiving and can often work fine with this 'noise' in place, whereas a faster (8mb) connection will suffer dropouts because it needs a cleaner signal to work smoothly at full pelt.