DSL issues

ChaosdaJoker · 5 Jun 2010 at 22:35

Hey

Im having major issues with my DSL this last 4 or 5 days, my connection should be 8Mb/s down and 512K/s up, and it has been for the last 5 years without any issue, but this last few days its been bad, real bad, currently my ADSL router says its connecting at 4588mb/s but its no where near this, most of the time the webpages etc time out, i tried to download an update for the Router but the site times out as it only downloads at 700bytes/sec so the server stops sending,

The Router is a Netgear DG834GT, and the ISP is Eclipse, ( they have been great for the 5 years ive had them )

Now, i read in another thread that had anyone seen any BT vans, funny thing is, right out the front of my house, BT have been pulling cables up under the street, this last few days, but my main line comes in overhead, i contacted Eclipse and they said from there end the phone line was great, but they could see it was only connecting at 6mb/s.

They had me run a series of tests and even the test account they had me enter into the router only gave out 300kbps on a speedcheck, so basically in the morning it will jump to 4mb/s for about 10 minutes, then die off completely for the rest of the day, the router has been rebooted several times, even the powerdown for 30 minutes reboot, to still no avail,

Eclipse said its possible the router could be dying ( it has been on 24/7 for nearly 4 years now ) but i dont want to change it out if its not the main problem, espically as the connection seems to jump from 300kbps to 4mb/s or could this be sign that router is slowing dying,

So far i have changed the ADSL filters on the lines, now heres the strangest thing when it comes to noise on the line.

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 5952 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 21.0 db 11.5 db
Noise Margin 16.9 db 21.0 db

I just copied that from my router as you can see its already went up nearly 1.2mb while just typing this post, now the noise that i highlighted there, when its low my connection drops out, when its higher the connection runs better, surely that not right....

Sorry if this post is hard to read, or if i missed anything else out, im not that great when it comes to ADSL setting etc, if and what may need tweaked, i guess because for 5 years im used to it just working.

Thanks Guys

Tealc · 5 Jun 2010 at 23:38

If the noise margin drops below 3 or so the line will be unstable. 16.9 is a good margin and indicates that the line can go faster. Try in the bt test socket to eliminate your wiring. My dg834gt loses line from time to time but SNR remains more or less constant.

You have a good short line there and should not have these problems.

Any friends/neighbours with a router to borrow?

ChaosdaJoker · 6 Jun 2010 at 00:58

So lower is bad, funny because when the net drops out it usually hits around 4-5bd if it goes lower i dont know because it crashes out,

I will have to ask a friend to see if i can borrow a router to test.

What do you mean the bt test socket, my ADSL is linked from the master phone point straight into the back of the ADSL router ( including adsl filter ) which has been changed to a brand new one, the distance is less than 2 feet from phone point to router.

My distance from the exchange is less than 500 yards.

Like i stated this is the first time in 5 years ive had an issue, currently the connection is still connected at 5844mbps

I did a speedtest just now and it came in at 2.4mbps down and 0.36mbps up this is way down on what it should be, approx 30 mins ago it came in at 0.30Mpbs up.

I will try a different router and hopefully will get a result.

Thanks again

Tealc · 6 Jun 2010 at 08:52

If you can show that nothing your end is causing an issue then it's got to be the BT line at fault.

I'd expect with an Attenuation of 20db you'd have a higher Noise Margin than 16.9 at 5952kbps. This may be due to the overhead line you mentioned but is more likely something that's been introduced recently. Did you ever note down the line stats before the fault occured?

If the Noise Margin fluctuates drastically throughout the day then I would think it's your line that's faulty. When I monitored mine a while back the Noise Margin fluctuated up to +/- 0.2 of a db throughout the day. I also have an overhead line coming into the house, but a lower attenuation.

tolien · 6 Jun 2010 at 11:51

You should try another router anyway just to be sure that yours isn't broken. Your ISP should ask you to do that before they'll pass a fault on to BT Wholesale.

A lower SNR margin isn't in itself a bad thing; yours is a long way above the 6dB default target and increasing the SNR margin comes with a reduction in speed (for the same other conditions). Getting that reset would probably get you back if not to full rate then to something a good bit higher than you have.
The issue is why has it been increased. If your connection showed signs of being unstable the target SNR margin will have been increased in an attempt to fix that. Resetting the target might leave you back at square one.

ChaosdaJoker · 8 Jun 2010 at 21:04

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 6656 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 20.0 db 11.5 db
Noise Margin 4.2 db 22.0 db

This is today, after i plugged it into the BT test socket, the line is nearly unusable now, Eclipse have said there end if fine bla bla bla, the guy basically said it could be anything,

Tomorrow i will get the router to test both in the BT test socket and the normal one just to 100% rule out router, in which case, is my next step going to be BT Engineer...