Intermittent Disconnection

[Grumpy]

I had an intermittent disconnection problem previously and after a number of phone calls Sky just capped my download speed to 2mb instead of the 8mb I was getting

Since then it seemed to sort itself out and after getting advice I contacted them and got my connection uncapped.

It seems the problem has now come back. On my new system (see sig) everything was working OK but in the last couple of days I keep having to reboot the router as it just locks up, get the 'cannot connect to website' message, etc.

The question I have is this: my new mobo has Smart Lan and when I have it open it detects my cable length as anyhting from less than 10M up to 247M. My physical cable length from PC to router is 1.5M.

I have tried a spare cable and this makes no difference to the readings. Do you think this could indicate a problem with the router rather than my PC / connections?

 

[tbz_ck]

From what you have described it seems to me to be the signal to noise ratio for your broadband connection. I had the same on ADSL Max whereby BT's systems would alter the SnR so that your line gets its most stable connection speed.

I specifically asked my ISP (ADSL24) to ask BT to lower that figure so I could get faster speeds. As I consequence I knew that my connection would not be rock solid, but its a risk I was happy to take for a good jump in speeds.

I would imagine a similar situation with your line. At the speeds you like the Signal is just too weak to be rock solid. It therefore raises your minimum Signal so that it is solid, and sync speed drops accordingly.

Things you could try are plugging the router directly into the master socket (with a filter) and see if it stays stable for longer. If it does you could fit a filtered face plate onto the master socket and check all extension wiring (if you have loads of wired phones around the house). That will ensure you get the best signal possible for your line.

 

[errata]

smart LAN could be wrong or its a red herring re your router but its worth trying different ports on your router (if any), new (good quality) LAN cable and a different PC LAN adapter if you can to rule out that problem.

Can you access the log on those routers to check if its recording the disconnects on the broadband or the lan side.

It does sound more like a router/broadband wiring issue though, sometimes these thinks get fixed at the exchange or more often you have to improve your houshold wiring (testing at the master socket with nothing else plugged in will give you a clue)

 

[Grumpy]

Thanks for the responses I'll try those out and see how it goes.

 

[Dead and Gone]

Just been through this with BT it turned out to be what BT Openreach call BATTERY FAULT were there is interference on the line or two lines are touching eachother. BT Openreach came out 8 times and on the 8th time the guy finally replaced my cable from the cab to the exchange and I had rock solid line! Well so far anyways