ADSL woes - a little help?

[Spatial]

Bit of a long one, but here goes.

So last Tuesday my internet connection went right up the ****ter. It was working fine first thing, went out to do a few things and came back to find there was nothing.

The router was powered on and broadcasting a wireless signal but the lights for the PPP and DSL were off. I initially didn't worry as this had happened before, the last time when BT decided to mess around with the exchange for a whole weekend and knocked out everyone's services.

Quick check in the evening with the neighbours shows they're all working fine, so the next day I spend a few hours buggering around with the connections, filters and plugging the router into the master socket.

There's no change at all and I'm about to ring the ISP when I notice the Internet's working again. Thinking its sorted I stop and carry on. The router is telling me that it's syncing at around 6000kb/s as opposed to the usual 7300kb/s but at least it's working. For the whole afternoon it works great until 17.00 when, suddenly, off it goes again.

This time it doesn't seem like it's coming back at all. Meanwhile the house phone is ringing and cutting off after one ring. When I pick it up it sounds like I've got a line straight to hell, there's static and hissing / screaming that sounds like that sequence from Event Horizon. You know the one.

Turns out it wasn't Satan but the other half (is there a difference?) and while I'm not convinced that it wasn't her screaming down the phone (lolz) the phone line seems to sort itself out on its own. I notice when I pick up the phone and start the dial tone, the internet connection comes back for 10 minutes before going again. At this point the router is telling me it's syncing at an amazing 812Kb/s.

Royally pissed off by now I've missed the opening hours for the ISP so have to wait until the next day.

Ring the ISP on Thursday and in fairness they were as good as gold. Went through a load of things including reconnecting it all to the master socket where it seems to work all of a sudden. Guy says there's some really weird noise ratios on the line but he'll run some tests for the next few days and get back to me.

Had no response by yesterday so called him up. He says the line seems to be more stable at the moment but that it seems to be disconnecting quite a bit and the noise ratios are still a bit wonky. The router is syncing at around 5000kb/s but a speed test shows I'm getting just under 512kb/s. He says that it could be the exchange capping my speed because the last time it checked it thought this was all I could manage.

The next test from the exchange is supposed to be later in the afternoon which, if it works OK, should bring the speed back up.

Which brings us today the router is syncing and giving me the following:

Connection Speed 5376 kbps
Line Attenuation 48.0 db
Noise Margin 12.3 db

Which, although it's not near the original sync rate, seems pretty good to me ? But a speedtest shows I'm still locked at 512kb/s. Is this really going to be down to the exchange or is there something more than this?

What's the score with exchanges testing the line to see speed capability? Is this done on a regular basis or am I going to be stuck like this for days?

[abigsmurf]

Does it only in certain weather conditions?

I had something almost exactly like this. What it was, the overhead phoneline had been rubbing against some trees and eventually the covering got worn through. BT sent out 3 engineers to replace various bits and pieces before one identified the problem as the overhead wire.

If you're getting noise on the phone line, it won't be the router as the splitter would filter out any noise from it. However one of the most common problems with routers is the PSU going. Check the power brick/plug, is it buzzing or getting far too hot? You pay £80 for a decent router and they give you the cheapest, nastiest power supply possible. Go figure.

[Spatial]

No it's been a pretty good connection all things considered. It just seems that Tuesday something went wrong that did some massive damage (possibly an enemy crab).

I've tried it with two different supplies now (as the first was tangled up in all the others) and it's made no difference.

The cabelling to the outside of the house is probably donkey years old though, so it's possible.

The guy from the ISP is making sure he's got enough info to go to BT and for them not to be able to fob it off as being something other than a fault on the line of some sort.

[charlesr]

Once BT realise it's a line fault, it'll probably be fixed in a couple of days unless it's serious, but since your neighbours have ok line, it shouldn't be serious.

[Spatial]

Dunno what's going on with it now but it's just hit 12Mb/s. Not bad for a line which has only ever been able to do 5Mb/s and I've been told was only ever able to manage 6Mb/s at optimum.

Then again it's dropping between 12 and 2

Possibly BT / the Exchange testing the line to cap it again?

edit: make that 14Mb/s - a new maximum

[Strolls]

Did you try switching the microfilter?

Most ADSL problems are with the line, but it's easy to let this blind you.

It's worth removing the master faceplate & plugging the router in at the test socket behind there (I say this because I myself recently omitted to try this & it was proved to be the problem a few days later by the ISP & the customer's son)

Stroller.

[Spatial]

Bought a new microfilter on the weekend and that didn't make a difference. The socket's an old one (make that ancient) so it doesn't have a test socket as far as I can tell.

Right now it's still yo-yoing at anything between 4.65Mb/s and 14.4Mb/s. And the ISP didn't call me back today when they were supposed to. Grr...

The more I think about it, the more it has to be the line. Time to get on to the ISP and get BT on their way.

[Spatial]

Believe it or not this is still going on and I need to vent

So the connection had stabilised but was getting nowhere near the 7MB sync speed it was before all this started. That said it was usable, even if Live was a laggy.

Then this month it all went tits up again. Got on to the ISP who've dragged their feet - ISP guy says it's probably my Netgear router because the chipset in it is notorious for not being able to handle signal noise. I smell something a bit fishy there but play along. He tells me I need a router with a Broadcom chip in it but he can't tell me which ones have them in... hmm...

So I manage to beg / borrow / steal a cheap router (a TP-Link which I've never heard of before). Router syncs at 7MB and speeds are as they were before... so I begin to think it is the router after all.

Off I trot to the shops and buy the latest Netgear, a DGN2000. Get it home, set it up, it syncs at around 4Mb.

After an hour the thing is so hot I literally couldn't hold it my hands. Then it goes `pop` and won't work any more.

Take it back and get a Belkin. Get it home, set it up and again it's syncing at around 4MB. So, thinks I, it must be the line and I'm about to get back on to the ISP...

Then I find find that the landline is playing up and there's really bad echoing and crackling on the line. And the router doesn't allow DHCP so LIVE will only ever detect a strict NAT... back goes that router...

So with the phone playing up I get back on to BT who are at odds to point out to me that they don't care about my internet connection and that if they come to my premises and find there's nothing wrong with my line I can look forward to a charge of ?122 + VAT.

They ask me to conjure up another phone to try on the line (why do they all insist that I should be able to lay my hands on multiple bits of kit to try and test stuff??!! It's not like decent phones / routers grow on trees). I cadge another phone off a neighbour. There's no difference on the line. I get back on to BT and they arrange to come out Monday.

Being slightly paranoid that some lazy and surly engineer will come out Monday, tell me nothing is wrong and try to charge me for it, I decided to hunt down someone with a wired phone to see if that makes any difference.

Plug it in and it seems to be working fine. No fuzz, no static, perfect.

Now I have to decide whether to bite the bullet and see what the engineer says on Monday, or rapidly tell BT by 14.00 tomorrow that I want to cancel the engineer visit.

NARGHHHHHH!!!!

[capcom_suicide]

A bad device on your line could cause all these issues, but I imagine you tried disconnecting all equipment except router already anyway?

It sounds to me like there is an issue here, maybe the local copper (Local loop), maybe the DSLAM at the exchange, but certainly something sounds dodgy.

The communication between the relevant departments at BT can be mighty poor, so they may have fixed the issue at the Exchange, and not told the customer services team handling your case.

[Spatial]

Yep, tried that and it made no difference to the speeds.

[Spatial]

So I bit the bullet and the BT guy came out today.

Gave him all the details about the problems yet he's told me there's absolutely nothing wrong with the line and thinks it's the actual phone.

That's despite me telling him that I tried threee phones on that line and they were all doing it and that I took that particualr phone elsewhere to try on someone elses line and it was crackle / echo free.

FFS, looks like BT are going to charge me ?122 + VAT for apparently wasting their time and I'm stuck with **** internet speeds and a crap phone line.

Not. Happy.

[Spatial]

For anyone who wants closure on this, it took three BT engineer visits before one of them, who actually knew what he was doing, realised that there was a split in the cable from the line to the house.

It was sorted last week and my speeds are getting back to normal now as the line retrains itself.

Hurrah!

[charlesr]

Yay. Shame it took them so long to figure this out.

[abigsmurf]

Exactly the same thing that happening to me. Took 3 callouts for me too

[Kongster]

For anyone who wants closure on this, it took three BT engineer visits before one of them, who actually knew what he was doing, realised that there was a split in the cable from the line to the house.

It was sorted last week and my speeds are getting back to normal now as the line retrains itself.

Hurrah!

Good news, fella. I've had a similar experience where my internet went tits up over the weekend. I did the "test" whereby I had to unplug all my equipment, unscrew the faceplate on my main phone socket and plug in my phone(s) in the test socket to see if there was still any interference on my line. There was.

One callout and three hours later (it was this morning funnily enough), it turns out that the external wiring was faulty. The BT chap seemed competent enough and sorted it out by replacing the external wiring. All this on the morning of my day off lol.