Constant dropping out and slow speeds

Lethal` · 8 Mar 2010 at 10:10

I'm on UKFSN C&W LLU broadband, normally getting speeds of about 4mb/s.

Recently, it keeps on timing out. Often when I view a web page, I'll have to refresh it 4 or 5 times before it actually loads as it times out most of the time. This is happening on all PCs on the network. Also, quite often I'll switch on my PC and find there is no net connection and have to reboot the router (Netgear DG834Gv2), it also drops it quite regularly.

Now, I'm not sure if this problem is ISP related or if it is caused by my router.

Any ideas?

WOMBATWILSON · 8 Mar 2010 at 13:04

router stats please

Lethal` · 8 Mar 2010 at 18:23

Here you go:
Connection Speed 6365 kbps 983 kbps
Line Attenuation 38 db 10 db
Noise Margin 1 db 20 db

Thanks

Rainmaker · 8 Mar 2010 at 18:38

Lethal` said:
Noise Margin 1 db

There's your problem. The default SNR (noise margin) is 6dB, yours is 1. Even on an excellent line (full 24Mbps ADSL2+, very low attenuation, fastpath) you'd be pushing your luck with a measly 1dB - never mind on a higher attenuation line like yours.

Ask your ISP to investigate and reset your SNRm to 6dB. You didn't "tweak" the router to that yourself did you? If you did, put it back; it isn't working.

Lethal` · 8 Mar 2010 at 20:00

Rainmaker said:
There's your problem. The default SNR (noise margin) is 6dB, yours is 1. Even on an excellent line (full 24Mbps ADSL2+, very low attenuation, fastpath) you'd be pushing your luck with a measly 1dB - never mind on a higher attenuation line like yours.

Ask your ISP to investigate and reset your SNRm to 6dB. You didn't "tweak" the router to that yourself did you? If you did, put it back; it isn't working.

Nope I didn't do anything like that. I rang UKFSN earlier, and they got me to change to OpenDNS - thought i was on it anyway but it didn't make much difference.

I have noticed that when it goes sometimes the downstream noise margin goes to 2147483646 db

I will ring tommorow and see if they can help, thanks!

Lethal` · 9 Mar 2010 at 17:27

Just been told it is probably my antivirus :rolleyes:

I told them it often goes down to 1db noise margin on downstream, and he said well often routers don't report that very accurately.

So I said I would check my antivirus...

Anyone got any ideas? It's not a constant 1db, just seems to be when connections to websites are timing out.

Rainmaker · 9 Mar 2010 at 17:31

I'm no expert, but a 1dB SNR is way too low. The fact the browsing issues coincide with these SNR crashes points even further to there being an issue with the connection/line. Telling you to check your antivirus because your SNR is crashing out is laughable tbh. Routers may not be 100% accurate down to the dB when reporting SNR but they're pretty reasonable.

The massive figure you described above (789372dB or whatever it was lol) is simply your router trying to say that your SNR is so low it can't really detect it - so it gives you a random guess. It's a 'bug' of sorts in the reporting. Either way it's a line fault and needs investigating properly. Ring them back.