I should be an IDNetter later today

[Lance]

If you're not already, you may get more luck from the BT speedtest running it in Internet Explorer as opposed to Firefox oor any other brower - that is quite a common error message though. Importantly, we now know what your profile is, but what would be good is knowing your connection rate / sync speed - you should be able to see this in the router stats. I'm guessing that the downstream will be 8128kbps

[Rik]

The BT test is notoriously fickle. I managed to run one before lunch, from Firefox, but it used to be impossible using anything other than IE, whatever the website may say, and at some times of day and some days of the week. Persistence is all we can advise with it, sadly.

Try http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/, I find it a reasonably accurate test.

[BrianM]

  Dan  A wise move, i've no regrets moving here.   

[Dan]

I'm back... At the start of the week I was getting 6MB downloads but the last couple of days I've not been able to get above 3.5MB. That said we just had our hall and stairs plastered so we had to take the BT box off the wall (and while we were there I took the opporunity to sink in a box and transfer the contents of the old socket box into this sunken box).

While the plasterer was here he likes the electrics to be off (unlike a Polish electrician who visited our old house) so we tested running the router through a really long extension socket down to my office in the garden (I think that managed about 1MB download - we only tested it that evening).

So now that all the cables are back where they were last weekend (although we have fitted a new combined phone/filter socket for the extension) but we just can't get above 3.5MB.

Upload is a tad slow. Can you try a BT test, Dan?

I tried Rik's link to a BT test (worked first time on IE7) and it completed quite quickly this time, no errors:

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test:  -provides background information.
    Your DSL connection rate: 7616 kbps(DOWN-STREAM),  448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
    IP profile for your line is - 3500 kbps
    Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 3268 kbps

When I tried the test on Monday the test was saying my profile was 6500kbps (that test never finished to reveal anything else). Reading through a couple other recent posts about wiring it seems it might take 5 days for the profile to return to normal? If you've read this far does our activity sound like this is what has happened for us?

[Lance]

You've pretty much worked this one out for yourself! At some point with the activity (or possibly otherwise) your router has synced much lower than it's current level. This low sync has pushed your profile down. The bad news is, as you say, it might take up to 5 days for the profile to return to the correct level. Hopefully though as it is a quite large difference the timeframe will be reduced to up to 3 days.

The only other thing I'll add is that with your current sync, that is the maximum (depending on exchange equipment) for someone with interleaving on. If your router has error counts, you could post them with the router's uptime and line stats and we'll be able to advise whether you should get it turned off to gain the magic 8128 sync!

[Sebby]

Do you still have the ring wire removed in the socket that was replaced?

Sync is good - in fact, it's the maximum for an interleaved line (you could get better if you have interleaving switched off, but that depends on your current error count). The reason your throughput is poor is because the profile has been upset, probably by the disconnections. This will recover itself over the next few days. It's completely normal, by the way (and very frustrating at times!).

Stay away from extension leads with ADSL - they pick up lots of noise and reduce the sync.

[Dan]

Thanks Lance and Sebby. I guess we'll wait and see...

When you say "disconnections" - do you mean disconnections when sockets gets disconnected and rewired, or do you mean disconnections when the router is switched off? I turn our router off each night when I'm finished surfing - so it's usually off between 11pm and 9am most nights - does being green affect the profile?

(yes, ring wire is still removed). Are error counts the same as collisions?

[Rik]

That kind of disconnection isn't a problem, Dan, it's the type where the router drops due to noise on the line that cause an issue with the BT dynamic line management (DLM) software.

[Sebby]

In theory, switching off the router once a day hpuldnt be an issue, but I'd avoid doing it if possible.

[wecpcs]

Do you still have the ring wire removed in the socket that was replaced?

Sync is good - in fact, it's the maximum for an interleaved line (you could get better if you have interleaving switched off, but that depends on your current error count). The reason your throughput is poor is because the profile has been upset, probably by the disconnections. This will recover itself over the next few days. It's completely normal, by the way (and very frustrating at times!).

Stay away from extension leads with ADSL - they pick up lots of noise and reduce the sync.

I actually have a 5mt ASL lead from an Iplate on the master socket to my Netgear router, as I altered the layout in my computer room. But it is a quality shielded CAT5 cable instead of a normal extension cable and gives me no problems at all. I get the maximum sync of 8128 with a profile of 7150 and I received a throughput of 6.96Mb on day of activation (yesterday).

Colin

[Rik]

You're just trying to make me jealous, aren't you.