How Often

[wonder woman]

Should I turn off or re-boot my router?

I seem to stay connected for about 48-60 hours and then lose my connection. When it re-connects the connection speed shown by the router stactistics seems to drop and subsequent speed tests show I am then running at a slower speed.

If I switch the router off and then leave it for a while the connection speed on the router statistics increases although it is usually a couple of days before this shows on a speed test. Anyhow, I was wondering if I should turn the router off at night or leave it connected until the connection drops?

Also, I am going away for 2 days this week so would you suggest I turn the router off then? Forgot to say the router I am using is a Netgear DG834 and when I contacted support last week about the drop in speeds this was the reply I received.

Hi Christine

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

Your connection was suffering connectivity drops earlier in the week
which was causing your IP profile to lower.
Tests at the moment show the connection has held over the past day or so
and the profile appears to be recovering, it was at 2000 on the 17th and
has gone up to 3500 yesterday morning.
Provided it holds it's current sync rate for the next few days your
profile and speeds will continue to increase and recover in tandem.

All line tests are currently showing no fault condition - should the
speeds take a dip again, please let us know and we'll take another look

Kind Regards

Andrew - IDNet Support.

     

[Rik]

Hi Christine

I turn my router off only in three situations:

1) I know BT are going to be doing work on the line
2) There's thunder around
3) I'm going to be away

Does your router tend to lose the connection in the evening or at night? That would be a classic noise problem, in which case you may be able to improve the situation.

The delay in recovering speed is down to BT's profile system which takes 75 minutes to drop but 3-5 days to recover, as Andrew has alluded to.

When you go away, power the router down, then unplug it from the phone line (this prevents any lightning surges using the router as a path to earth, with fatal results for the router).

Come back to us on the timing of line drops, and we'll see what we can do to improve your connection.

[wonder woman]

Rik

Just had a look at some of the old logs and it appears that the connection seems to drop between mid afternoon to early evening (from 15.00 to 19.00).

As I said previously it seems to hold for about 2-3 days and then goes down. We have 2 phone lines into the house and this one has nothing else attached to it (other than the filter) as the sky box is hooked up to the other line.

Even when the speed drops it is still better than what we expected as originally we were told we would only get 2000 kb/s and are getting about 2500 kb/s and as high as 3400 kb/s. Despite these disconnections (which I was told would probably happen when I went onto ADSL max) very happy with ID Net so far.

[Rik]

Hi Christine

Do you have an NTE5 master socket, the kind where the bottom part of the faceplate can be removed? If so, what happens if you connect to the test socket which is revealed when you remove the faceplate? Is the signal more stable?

Are you running an extension lead to the router?

Have you got a MW radio? If so tune it 'off station' then walk around the area of the phoneline/router and see if the white noise increases at all.

You might do better with another router, eg a 2700. I made that transition from a Netgear, and gained 1000k on my profile. Alternatively, you could get your target noise margin increased to 3db, which will reduce speed by about 500k, but improve stability - it depends which is more important to you. If you can post your line stats (downstream attenuation, noise margin and sync speed) we can give you a better idea of what might work best. (Log into the Netgear interface and click on the show statistics button at the bottom of the page.)

[wonder woman]

Thanks Rik

Yes it is an NTE5 master socket. There is no extension lead running to the router.

Haven't connected to the test socket yet but will do so later. How long should I leave it connected to the test socket?

Only recently purchased the Netgear router so don't really want to buy another one yet unless absolutely neccessary. Tbh would prefer to have the stabilty more than speed as i don't do vast downloads. How do I get my target noise increased?

Line stats at present.

Connection Speed Downstream: 3008 Upstream: 448

Line Attenuation: Downstream 50db Upstream: 15.5 db

Noise Margin Downstream 9db Upstream 20db

[Rik]

Hi Christine

Give it 24 hours in the test socket. You're just looking to see if the noise problems (which cause the re-sync) are still present. TBH, they are likely to be, given your setup. Incidentally, you might want to think about using a filtered face plate, which will save you the need for a soap on a rope filter. Get hold of a copy of Routerstats and leave it running from, say, 15:00-0:00 (or even overnight). That will give you a good idea of how much noise you are picking up and when.

From the look of it, your target margin has already been raised, depending on when your last re-sync was. Your speed seems low for a 50db line, I get ~3500 on 56db, so it suggests noise to me. Getting BT to accept that may prove more difficult, however.

[wonder woman]

Rik

Thanks for your help and advice and will sort that out later. 

[Sebby]

I can only really everything Rik has said. The test socket is always the best indication of whether there's noise around and whether your extension wiring is picking up noise.

Let us know the outcome.