Anybody else having broadband problems?

[Inkblot]

At some point yesterday afternoon (Around 4pm) I started to have problems with my IDNet connection. Did some basic troubleshooting including rebooting the router, changing DNS server and pinging various sites on the net (Ping results were slow with high loss, DNS was not always working).  I am fortunate enough to have 2 broadband lines here - the 2nd one is a freebie from Orange that rarely gets used unless there is a problem with the IDNet one so I changed my default gateway to be the Orange circuit and the problems dissappeared. Throughout the course of the evening I changed back to the IDNet circuit several times but the problems remained. Around 11pm I gave up and went to bed thinking it would all be sorted out by this morning. However, I am still having the exact same problem this morning. A double ping test (Orange circuit - change gateway - IDNet circuit) to IDNet.net shows:

Orange circuit: Sent 20, received 20 (0% loss) with an average round trip time of 50ms
IDNet circuit: Sent 20, received 14 (30% loss) with an average round trip time of 1047ms

Screenshot: http://gallery.idnet.com/main.php/v/inkblot/PingProblems.jpg.html

Is this just me? IDNet status shows everything is good, OpenDNS status shows their services are good and nobody else on the forums seems to be having a problem! Obviously, the problem could be my router and if necessary I will swap the 2 routers over when I get back from work but before doing that I wondered if anybody else was having any issues.

[Glenn]

I haven't experienced any packet loss problems, try swapping the routers, if that doesn't work, give support a call.

[Rik]

No problems here either. If it's not the router, remember it's a bank holiday weekend, so support will be closed till Tuesday. I've had you line checked and support say it was fine until 3:45 yesterday when they started seeing user-requested drops. If that wasn't you manually re-booting your router then either the router is failing, or you have a noise issue affecting it. The number of re-syncs suggest you will now have a low profile and will have to wait up to five days for that to recover.

[Inkblot]

Thanks gents, I'll change the routers over when I get back from work - hopefully I will be back in plenty of time for me to call support if the problem isn't with the router! I've not got access to the stats at the moment but as far as I recall the noise, attenuation, etc. were all what they normally are (Attenuation 34.5, Noise ~6, Output Power ~12).

Incidentally, tracert to my IP from the outside world gives most of the hops in the 20ms to 40ms range but the final one (The one that hits my router) up at 1217ms, guess that means it's more likely to be the router

[Rik]

It does sound that way.

[Inkblot]

Sadly the old Netgear DG832 didn't want to play on the IDNet circuit so I ended up going and buying another router anyway - got myself one of these: http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=450535

All seems to be good - I'm back online without problems (Boy, was I glad that it fixed the problem, wife would not have been impressed otherwise!) but one thing missing from this router is line statistics - the status only shows connection speed with no stats for SNR, Power, Attenuation or anything else. With the old one I could get these from the web interface or in more detail from a telnet session - trying to telnet to this one however gives a 'Connection failed' type of message, anybody have any experience of this and know if it's a 'hidden' page like the Netgear DG834?

Thanks!

[Rik]

Kitz doesn't have anything for that particular model, but does have this general page of Belkin hidden page commands which might help:

http://www.kitz.co.uk/routers/belkin_commands.htm

[Inkblot]

Ah, thanks Rik - I was just looking at that site but hadn't found that page! Unfortunately none of the commands work with this model so I'll have to live without them, I guess all I *need* to know is that it's working but my inner geek wants to know more detail!

[RonGodwin]

I've got the Belkin N1 too.

Here's how to get the stats

1) Go to http://192.168.2.1/wukongjiuwo.html

2) leave password blank

3) Click submit

4) Ignore everything on this page except the blank box to the left of the Enter button

5) insert this into the box: adslctl info --stats

6) stats come up pronto!

Sadly the old Netgear DG832 didn't want to play on the IDNet circuit so I ended up going and buying another router anyway - got myself one of these: http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=450535

All seems to be good - I'm back online without problems (Boy, was I glad that it fixed the problem, wife would not have been impressed otherwise!) but one thing missing from this router is line statistics - the status only shows connection speed with no stats for SNR, Power, Attenuation or anything else. With the old one I could get these from the web interface or in more detail from a telnet session - trying to telnet to this one however gives a 'Connection failed' type of message, anybody have any experience of this and know if it's a 'hidden' page like the Netgear DG834?

Thanks!

[Rik]

Thanks, Ron.

[Inkblot]

Indeed, thanks a bunch! 

Talk about obscure! Guess it might mean something to some but I don't think I would have discovered that in a hundred years - although given an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of PC's connected to an infinite number of Belkin N1's I guess I would have got there eventually

[Rik]

If it's monkeys you want, you've come to the right place.

[RonGodwin]

Yes - all too tricky. I nabbed the info from some Forum hidden deep in Google's ratings. Works a treat now.

Indeed, thanks a bunch! 

Talk about obscure! Guess it might mean something to some but I don't think I would have discovered that in a hundred years - although given an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of PC's connected to an infinite number of Belkin N1's I guess I would have got there eventually

[Glenn]

If it's monkeys you want, you've come to the right place.

Stop apeing around, we all know meerkats are the IT whizzes, simples

[Rik]

I was more aligned with Chuck Berry.