Noise

mufc802 · 2 Nov 2010 at 10:18

In the past few days I've noticed my internet speeds are a lot slower, from about 350kb/s down to 100kb/s. Also my internet will disconnect if a phone or fax is recieved. There is also a lot of noise on the phone and fax machine.
We have a phone, fax, sky downstairs and internet connection upstairs all connected through a seperate microfilter. There are also two homeplugs one upstairs connecting the internet to the downstairs computer. This setup has been ok for half a year no problems.
We reciently had problems with the old sky box, so an engineer came out and gave us a new box, and since then there has been noise on the phone and slow internet. I don't know if this is a coinsidence or not, or maybe there is problems with the microfilters, or a problem at my exchange. What should I do?

Edit: We also have a wireless phone which links to the fax machine, I turned this off and it removes the noise. My internet speed has gone to 140kb/s, still not right and I've tried disconnecting every other phone and sky in the house.

rpstewart · 2 Nov 2010 at 10:32

If the problems started when the Sky box was changed then disconnect it from the phone line to start with and see if the problem goes away. If it does then it's either the box itself (unlikely) or the filter it's plugged into.

Do you need the sky box plugged in for multiroom? If not just leave it disconnected.

mufc802 · 2 Nov 2010 at 10:41

rpstewart said:
If the problems started when the Sky box was changed then disconnect it from the phone line to start with and see if the problem goes away. If it does then it's either the box itself (unlikely) or the filter it's plugged into.

Do you need the sky box plugged in for multiroom? If not just leave it disconnected.

Disconnected the sky phone line and it made no difference.

rpstewart · 2 Nov 2010 at 10:58

Just spotted your edit to the OP. If the noise goes away when you disconnect the phone/fax then I'd be looking at the filter they're connected to.

If the ADSL sync speed has reduced as a result of the noise it'll take a few days to come back up. A restart of the router might encourage it a bit but don't do it too often or the exchange will drop the sync because it thinks the line is unstable.

wonko · 2 Nov 2010 at 14:14

Just looking at sync speed alone won't really let you track down what's generating the noise. If the noise is great enough, the modem will lose sync and reconnect at a lower speed, but if the noise then goes away then you'll get a bigger noise margin figure but no immediate increase in sync speed.
I'd be looking for changes in the reported noise margin as you disconnect items from the phone line, switch off items at the mains, swap microfilters (etc.). Routerstats might help - it 'polls' your router and can draw graphs of sync speed and noise margin over time.
When I had a problem like this it turned out to be a faulty monitor power supply that was (presumably) putting enough noise out over the mains to upset the router in another part of the house. Maybe your new sky digital box has a similar problem?
Good luck!

mufc802 · 5 Nov 2010 at 18:17

Right so the engineer came out yesterday and my dad saw him as I was not at home. He said he found a fault with a wire that connects from outside, to the master socket. So he "fixed" it by using a spare wire which was with the faulty one. This removed the noise. Now a day has passed and the phone/fax will send but not recieve. No noise but will not recieve a call of fax. My internet is even slower so something is still wrong.

Just wish the engineer could carry out a detailed inspection and not leave as quickly as possible as the house wiring is ancient and all needs replacing imo.

I will have to put up with 20KB/s speeds all weekend now.