Connection Problems (Noise Margin)

[CBailey]

I have been having a lot of problems with my connection recently and I am pretty certain its not something in my house having replaced just about everything (the router, phones, filters, cables etc etc)

I used to always have a stable connection with speed somewhere between 5500-6000 kbps and occasionally it will still go back up to this level, but most of the time recently the speed and sync rates etc have been awful. BT speed test results have shown that my IP Profile is often bottoming out completely.

Yesterday I was syncing at about 5856 kbps and noise margin was around 9 db and now today its dropped back down to 2048 kbps and the downstream noise margin is all over the place. One second its 26.9 db the next its 10.0 db.

I'm assuming these sort of jumps in noise margin every few seconds are not normal, can anyone shed any light on possible causes?

I have had Openreach out to test the line and they tell me there are no issues, though I'm not totally convinced as I am struggling to see what else it could be.

Current Full Noise stats etc:

ADSL Link               Downstream    Upstream
Connection Speed    2048 kbps       448 kbps   
Line Attenuation      40.0 db       25.0 db
Noise Margin          26.9 db       23.0 db

Current results from BT speed test:

Download speed achieved during the test was - 1634 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 800-2000 Kbps.
Additional Information:
Your DSL Connection Rate :2048 Kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 Kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP Profile for your line is - 1750 Kbps

Any advice would be appreciated.

Regards

Colin

[Rik]

It looks, at first glance, like a bad joint on the line, Colin.

Where does the router connect, eg master socket or extension, what else is connected to the line, if you dial 17070 and select option 2, quiet line test, do you hear any crackling?

[CBailey]

Router is connected to master socket and this has a new faceplate courtesy of the Openreach engineer who visited a couple of weeks ago, the only other thing connected is a phone as I already disconnected everything else while trying to alleviate the problem some time ago. The phone itself is a replacement for my old which I removed in the hope that might have been the issue.

Cannot say I can hear any crackling when doing the quiet line test.

Thanks for your time.

Col

EDIT: Spelling

[Rik]

Is there a test socket behind the faceplate, Colin, could you try from there if there is. Any chance you could borrow a spare router to try? (I know you've changed it but some work better than others with particular BT kit). To give you some perspective, I'm on a 4M connection with a 63db line.

[CBailey]

Yes there is a test socket behind, I had it plugged in there prior to the openreach engineer visit for quite some time and it never appeared to make any difference.

Ref the router: I originally had a Netgear DG834G which had always served me well, when I started to get these issues I replaced it with a Linksys router which I don't recall the model of, after having this for sometime and still having problems I managed to convince the shop that it was faulty and exchanged it for my current router which is a Netgear DGN2000. Although I am generally willing to try anything I can't help but feel its not a router issue.

[Rik]

I'm inclined to agree with you. Do you have a battery-powered MW radio?

[CBailey]

No I don't. Why?

[lozcart]

You can use an untuned battery powered MW radio to check for noise coming from electrical appliances and plug in transformers. As there is a lot of noise on your line Rik is thinking you could check with a radio to see if you can find if an electrical item is causing your problem.

[CBailey]

Ah I see, how very clever.

[Rik]

We're sneaky.

[CBailey]

Having been at home all day today I have been monitoring connection quite closely and at several points it has dropped out. When I have noticed the drop I reran the 17070 quiet line test again and could hear quite a lot of crackling/static like noise on the line, I assume this would back up the line fault theory?

[Rik]

It would.

[Glenn]

You now need to report a noisy line fault with your provider, be it IDNet or someone else but don't mention ADSL to them

[CBailey]

After much fun with the phone company I have got them to arrange for an engineer to come out to look out our phone line again for the noise issue.

As this issue seems to have an intermittent element to it and I would like to avoid the engineer turning up and telling me there is nothing wrong is there any way I can monitor the line and record the massive spikes in noise? I imagining without specialist equipment this is going to be a no but thought I would ask.

Cheers

Colin

[Lance]

Depending on your router, you might be able to use routerstats to record the noise margin changes.

[CBailey]

Depending on your router, you might be able to use routerstats to record the noise margin changes.

Thanks, that works.

[Lance]