Recent outages

D-Dan · Mar 16, 2009, 23:14:08

Hi - in the past 3 - 4 weeks - I'm losing sync periodically. There appears to be no pattern as to when, or why. I've tried all the usual tests, and kept a very close eye on activity at home, and I'm stumped. Has anyone else (esp around the Manchester area) noticed this?

Things I've tried:

Different router
testing for timed events (heating etc)
Master socket
test socket (neither master nor test are viable long term options)
Filters

I've reached the stage where I'm powering down the router when I go to bed or work, since I want to avoid errors flagging to often at the exchange. SNR is fluctuating more than usual, too, which is probably causing the re-syncs, but I have no idea why. re-sync always comes back far too low. I can reboot the router and get back an improvement, but hardly ideal.

Steve

Simon · Mar 17, 2009, 00:19:39

Have you raised the issue with IDNet, Steve?

D-Dan · Mar 17, 2009, 07:21:06

Not yet. I was waiting to see if it was perhaps a fleeting local problem, or exchange work, but clearly it's not.

I'll drop support an email this evening when I get home from work.

Steve

Rik · Mar 17, 2009, 08:26:35

It sounds local, Steve, so I wonder if your exchange is getting close to WBC?

Sebby · Mar 17, 2009, 13:32:51

That sounds likely.

D-Dan · Mar 17, 2009, 20:09:36

It's supposed to have already happened. Fingers crossed up to now it hasn't had any discernible effect on my BRAS profile. However, I'm still not entirely convinced it's external to home. I was going to buy a couple of 10M ethernet leads to try and run from the master socket for a few days, but that failed when traffic got heavy and the place I was buying from was closed.

Then I had an idea to buy a wireless card for my main PC and see if that stopped the SNR fluctuations, but I found a cheaper option at PC World of all places.

At a shade over £11 they had some 5 M shielded socket to router cables. One of those gets me of the extension and being shielded should help, so I bought one. Now, it's only been plugged in this way 15 minutes, but I have a good sync (6688) and my SNR is fluctuating between 6 and 6.5, which I would consider normal and acceptable.

I'll see how this goes - maybe I found the answer - early tests are promising, and I may even get another half meg on my BRAS if there's no resync.

Steve

Edit - the other advantage is I now only need one filter in the chain. My landline and fax machine can double up on the already filtered extension lead.

Lance · Mar 17, 2009, 20:20:45

Sounds promising

D-Dan · Mar 21, 2009, 12:01:42

Well. I was still getting the drops in sync. Rang IDNet and they couldn't find any sign of a fault. So next step - bought a filtered faceplate for the master socket. Now, I have teh filtered faceplate, shielded cable from socket to router, and a sync of 7,392 since I disconnected to fit the faceplate 3 and half hours ago. SNR hasn't dropped below 5.5 in that time, and tends to stick at 6 most of the time, so fingers crossed.

As an aside, I have to say excellent service at ADSLNation. Ordered the faceplate yesterday, and it arrived this morning (even though they said 5 - 7 days). Highly recommended if anyone else is thinking of getting one.

Steve

Rik · Mar 21, 2009, 12:05:47

Thanks for that, Steve. I have a lot of time for ADSL Nation and their products.

Glenn · Mar 21, 2009, 12:09:06

I brought some parts from them 6 weeks ago, they all arived next day

Sebby · Mar 21, 2009, 12:44:49

I've ordered from ADSL Nation and the service has always been spot on.

Lance · Mar 21, 2009, 16:38:00