XF-1e ???????

[SteveS]

i hear people talking about XF-1e, simple question i think.. what does that mean???

also,
Line Attenuation and Noise Margin , whats good stats for these? mine atm are:

ADSL Link          Downstream  Upstream
Line Attenuation   40.0 db       20.5 db
Noise Margin        11.6 db       19.0 db

[Gilba]

XF-1e is a broadband filter from ADSLNation. They suppose to be one of the best you can get. I have two and I think they are better than my old ones.

As with your stats, it is hard to tell without knowing your sync.

[SteveS]

my router says:

DownStream Connection Speed 4064 kbps
UpStream Connection Speed 448 kbps

[Gilba]

That is a good sync, but could get more out of it. The default ds margin is 6 but yours is  about 12. This could have been done to stabilise your line.

Did you have any problems with your line with stability?

If not, ask for your noise to be reduced to 9 or 6. Also it you don't say if have interleave on your line as this will drop you sync down a bit.

[SteveS]

no i didnt?
do i just ask my isp to lower it?
how do i know if i have interleave?

[Gilba]

Yea you have to ask your ISP to lower your noise margin.

You can find out if you have interleaving by looking at your router status.

[SteveS]

i tried looking on my netgear dg386pn but cannot find nething??

i also just purchased a filter for the hell of it.. well see if it makes things better...

[Gilba]

Sorry I can't help you with that router maybe someone else on here might help if they have the same router.

[SteveS]

i just DC the two wires. 3 and 5 and my sync is now: 4992 kbps :-| wonder if its a one off?

[Gilba]

Could be what is your noise margin at?

Now just wait a couple of days for you profile to adjust if you keep that sync.

[SteveS]

11.8 (it varies on refresh)

sorry what does Line Attenuation mean and whats a good kinda rate for it?

[rireed3]

Disconnecting 5 is bad.

****** EDIT
If you disconnected it at the master socket, that just disabled one or more extensions, but it might improve the performance at the master.

The two wires you need are 2 and 5.  Disconnect 3 in every socket.  That's the old-style bell shunt, and just acts like a noise antenna these days because phones no longer need it to ring -- there's a short one in the microfilter anyway.

[rireed3]

Once you get rid of some noise I think you have, you ought to sync at 6 Mbps or more.

There is a fairly clear explanation of wiring with lots of pictures here:

http://www.dslzoneuk.net/socket.php

The 'click here' is for a static page without the animated intro.

The whole idea is to reduce as much as possible the noise contributed by your house wiring.

Find the master socket as described and take off the lower half.  That disconnects all your extension wiring.  Then plug your microfilter and router cable (the short one
that came with the router) into the "test socket" underneath shown in the diagram.  That's your cleanest possible connection to the exchange.  It cuts out bell wires and everything.

[SteveS]

sorry i didnt mean 5!! LOL, i did exactly wot it said on dslzone.., i dc 3 and 4. 2 and 5 were left

[rireed3]

Attenuation and noise margin:

Attenuation stays the same mostly and indicates how long your line is.  It changes a little between routers and goes up if you go LLU to and ADSL2+ provider.  Lower is better.  Your 40 db means your line is around 2.5 km long by the time it winds its way to the exchange.

Noise margin is the head room of clean signal power above the combination of base noise and what is used for your 4 Mbps.   Yours is higher than is needed on a low-noise line.  BT starts out assuming you just need 6 db to carry you through variations day and night.

If you have been re-syncing a lot, BT does two things automatically.  One is to increase your target noise margin by 3 db at a time.  If they have done this, your target may be at 12 db, in which case you may see your speed go up less when you get rid of your noise.  Your 5 Mbps sync would have still shown around 12 db noise margin if that's the case.

The other thing they do is cap your throughput at the lowest connection speed until you sync higher for three days.

If you're sure you've cleaned up your wiring as much as possible, then would be a good time to worry about getting the target noise margin lower, either by ISP asking BT for it or using a margin-tweakable router.

Richard

[rireed3]

2 and 5 were left

Ex    Disconnect 3 in every socket.  Wherever it's connected it's dumping noise it picked up into your phone wiring.

Richard

[Rik]

sorry i didnt mean 5!! LOL, i did exactly wot it said on dslzone.., i dc 3 and 4. 2 and 5 were left

That's a relief, Steve, no 5 = no phone line.

We have our own wiring guide here. It doesn't add much to the excellent advice that Richard has already given you though. What I would say is that if your target noise margin has been raised by BT, the chances are that you do have interleaving on. This will increase your ping time, and decrease your throughput a little, but in return you will get a more stable line (and because of the error correction that comes with interleaving, sometimes you may actually feel the line is going faster as less re-transmits are needed. You ISP can get BT to reduce the target margin, but you might want to take it in steps and go to 9db first, find out if the line is stable, and then consider 6db.

[SteveS]

hey, i got my xfe filter!

i checked my router and it has synced at just over 5000, with like a 14 noise margin, I then plugged in the new filter and it syced at 5536 kbps with noise of 11.7.

[Rik]

Sounds like things are moving in the right direction, Steve. I am a great fan of the xf-1e, it demonstrably gave me better results. I have seen people reporting problems with them, but this does seem to have been restricted to a particular batch.

[rireed3]

Any details on the batch or the symptoms?  I reported one on dslzoneuk and have switched to Clarity PRO.  Have another, but reluctant to use it.

Richard

[jupiter]

I don't think you need to worry because ADSL Nation will readily change anything you find faulty.  In my experience they have always been good to deal with and run by people who know their stuff.