Could I have a diagnosis please on stats

[David]

Groan,I have been rooting around so to speak and Im stuck on the  stats I have just got from my router Netgear 834G.plugged into faceplate filter,Could someone let me know what this indicate,in plain english

connection speed down 6848
connection speed up       448
attenuation          down 44db
                           up    11.5db
noise magin            down    0db
                               up   25db

I have tried by reading past post to try and give me an example of these figure and try and work them out,been reading kitz etc still none the wiser.

Can anyone  deduce anything amiss here.
       

[Simon]

I don't see how you can have a zero noise margin, but I'm not the best one to comment, David.  Your connection speeds looks great though! 

[Lance]

simon is right to pick up on the zero noise margin. It shows that you are on the brink of a resync caused by more noise being around this time of night. The fact the you are plugged into a filtered face plate shows the noise is most likely external to your house's wiring.

I would expect you to resync soon which will give you a lower sync, but hopefully a noise margin of 6.

[Sebby]

You can have a zero noise margin, and they are especially common on the AR7-based Netgears. They seem to be able to hold sync when the noise margin goes negative, too, even though that's technically impossible.

Otherwise, the stats look good; the sync is good for the attenuation.

My advice would be this: if you're not suffering from re-syncs, don't worry. If you are, consider changing the router to something that doesn't have an AR7 chipset. That could be the new Netgear DG834G v4 or the SpeedTouch 585v6, for example. Both should give a more solid set of stats. But like I say, there's no need if you don't have any problems at the moment.

[David]

Thanks.don't seem to have problem apart form the  old chestnut fluctuating speed at time of taking the stats and considering it was late  down 1716.58  up 0.3 taken at 23.26 which might be me but seems on the slow side no other pcs.running.

I am assuming that the stats are related to signal being sent to my pc and not a reflection of actual speeds my pc would run at as the bear little or no relation to each other in this respect.

Have only had a couple if disconnections I will take another look.
As you know I am trying to get to grips with all this stuff and reading various sites to try and bone up on this.

Would a modem be a better option.just a little disappointed at the seemingly low speeds and the up speed seems a little slow,but this is only me and I am not that up on this

Thanks guys

                                                                                             

[Rik]

A modem would probably be worse, if anything, David.

Your sync speed is fine for your attenuation, so what you need to do is get a BT speed test and see what your profile is.

http://test.speedtester.bt.com:50301/

[David]

Morning Rik trying daily but still get the same error message,one cant recognize my telephone number on the data base.
I as you know have been happily waiting and wouldn't take any notice its just it slows enough for me to notice it and I know we have spoken about contention, but the times seem odd to me as I would expect a slowdown at busy times  but this does not appear to be the case,knowing me I have it wrong.

I did modify the original posts but I was looking at previous issue concerning speed,only to try and give myself a yardstick although of course all case are different but I was seeking to get a norm if you like and to compare stats but it proved rather fruitless.

The profile which I did try to find out more I assume is only related to Bt  so to try and give me a guide I ran speed test several times over 4 different sites and although speed results varied they gave a good indication of an average if that makes sense

[Rik]

Have a word with support, David, they may be able to see the profile from their side. It's difficult to judge what's going on without knowing the profile, as that determines your throughput ceiling. Once we know that, we have something to measure against.

[David]

Will do Rik.in your opinion does it seem to be ok,or put it another way if this applied in your case would you be concerned?

[Rik]

The router stats look fine, David, roughly twice the speed I get. OTOH, on a 3000 profile, I get consistent speeds at almost any time of day, c.2700k.

[David]

Thanks Rik,cheques in the post.(don't charge extra for this  method do you)

[Rik]

No, though i usually prefer cash in non-sequential notes.

[David]

Just sending over 50 million rand.

Have just spoken with James and my profile (set at their end rather than Bt) is set at 6mg and went through the points which I have semi covered I will carry out some diagnostic checks here first which will include testing with the modem to see if this makes any difference.

I have tested with security off and makes no difference so can rule this out.one thing,probably nothing whilst I was looking through the settings on the router I did note that always block pages is ticked although non are listed so

James has said if I cant get things to improve he can get bt to check but this takes time. which I dont mind but I have to diagnose this end would the router be your first port of call ?

[Rik]

Hi David

Are you connecting wirelessly now? I thought you had a cabled connection to the router? If the latter, security won't affect speed one way or another. Try the modem by all means, but I don't think the router will be the primary cause of your problems, though it might add to them. Remember not to disconnect too frequently, as the BT equipment can see this as instability.

[David]

Thanks Rik.I have been wireless from day 1 and for a brief times the speeds were reporting back very fast.I have done most things I think to try and trace this.even ran a full virus check,just eliminating things.
The router is never turned off so there should be no signs of this.I did reboot it in the first week or so but that was because had page cannot be displayed but I didn't think anything because it was early on in the settling down period and had no other disconnections.

If I cant discover a problem here James has said to get back to him and he will twist an arm here and there.well not in this words..

Ok here we go wheres the valium

[David]

Just a thought Rik would connecting the Ethernet cable help rather than the modem as I'm not keen  on the first option either

[Rik]

Using ethernet eliminate two possible causes of slowdown, David. First, the chance that someone nearby is on the same channel and causing interference, second, that the encryption is having an impact on throughput (this shouldn't be the case, but elimination is always a good idea).

[David]

bit of a dumb question,just about to connect Ethernet cable do I remove the router modem plug first?

[Rik]

It depends what you mean by that, David. There's no need to power down, just hot plug the ethernet cable into the computer then router.

[David]

I dont want to get too optimistic Rik,but I am hopeful have carried out speedtests on 3 difffernent sites and the results are amazing



All been tested twice and all big changes from what I have been seeing  Talk broadband
Down 5459
up     378.26

BMax  Down 5587
         Up 380

And the router has come to life,but to be fair I would nt have noticed as it is in another room usually and Wendy would not take any notice.

Any assumptions? I note that for the first time the upstream has increased having run over different sites,I am confident that there is a marked increase.looks to have doubled

Also used the Tiscali speedtester and that too showed 5.7

[Rik]

The speeds look right for your profile, David, so if the only difference is changing from wireless to ethernet it suggests that there's some sort of problem with the former.

[David]

Don t get technical,you know I'm under medication.do you mean it is the wireless connectivity which is the problem ie I need a new router.

[Rik]

Correct me if I'm wrong, David, but these good results were obtained when using a cabled connection rather than a wireless one?

If so, it would imply that the speed problems are resulting from your use of wireless. This could be down to interference, poor signal, a faulty router or a faulty wireless adaptor in the PC (or a combination of these things). What signal strength and speed did you see at the PC?

[David]

Hi Rik,I have run even more tests over other sites and they all concur.
It has been wireless since day one and speeds never great lucky to get 2mg
After connecting to Ethernet cable (even in extension) the speeds have doubled near enough.
The connection to the receiver has always shown excellent.
As this router  came off Ebay and is the 834G this looks like it could have been the culprit all along.
There is nothing in the wireless route,ie the space from the router to the pc is approx 20 foot with one wall in the path but reception  as I say is excellent.

No radios or electrical equipment is in its way and no mobile phones are ever used in the home.my niehgbour is a very old lady who has no pc related stuff and that goes for near enough anyone close to me.I live close to a nature reserve so no housing there.hope this covers your points

[David]

Just one more thing Rik the adapters are new they did not come with the router so can rule these out these were brand new in box

[Rik]

Not necessarily, David. Is the router an N model (sorry, I can't remember). Sometimes, it comes down to one manufacturers wireless kit not working with another's.

[David]

Not sure what an N model is Rik 

Netgear DG834G v3

Adaptors WG111 v2
any help to you

[Rik]

It would be an 834N or 834PN, David. As you're using all Netgear, there shouldn't be a compatibility problem. One issue might just be that you have a USB1.1 interface, which could slow things down a bit, but I would have though that unlikely.

When connected wirelessly, what connection speed and signal strength does Windows show (hover the mouse over the connection icon in the system tray)?

[David]

54mbps exactly the same as when connected

[Rik]

By 'when connected' do you mean that you had wireless active when you used the cable connection? The icon for that should have shown 100Mbps as the connection speed. How about the signal strength?

[David]

signal strength is 54
speed I have 5 green bars showing
had a look  in properties and just shows receiving etc
There is no numeric speed indicator I can find



What I am looking at
speed 54 mbps
signal strength Excellent
status connected

[Rik]

The speed of the wireless link is 54Mbps, with a signal strength of 5, which, from memory, should be labelled good or excellent?

Try doing a wireless speed test, if the result is lower than that which you got using the cable, briefly turn off encryption in the router and try again. If the result improves, the encryption is the problem and we need to work out why.

[David]

carried out this and the reading on a wireless is the same strength and same speed

[Rik]

Sorry, what I'm saying is run some speed tests again as per reply #19, if they don't produce figures as fast as then, try turning off encryption and run them again.

[David]

Sorry Rik misunderstood.

When I went wireless carried out 3 tests all showed a drop of nearly half and the upstream also fell back

The router is situated about a foot away from the adapter here as well

[Sebby]

Could you try changing the wireless channel, David? Try 1, 6 and 11.

[David]

will do sebby

[Sebby]

It certainly seems that the wireless is behaving strangely, so it'll be interesting to see if changing channels helps.

[David]

thanks sebby its on 11 at present shows good bit lost in how to change channel,never done this before

[Sebby]

On Netgears, I believe you login to the router (192.168.0.1), click Wireless Settings on the left-hand menu, then you should see a drop-down list to change the channel. Finally, hit apply at the bottom.

[David]

Thanks again for that have tried all three channels and all show the same 54 ,and excellent

[Sebby]

Sorry, I should've said to run a speed test too!

[David]

just done that sebby on 6 going wireless halves the speed the same as with 11

[Sebby]

I'm baffled. I can't believe that wireless with such a strong connection would cause your throughput to drop so significantly.

[David]

Thanks sebby,at least I have the speed I thought should have been there.and managed to at least isolate the issue.
I am well out of my depth but a new router may cure it.

[Rik]

Have you tried running the speed tests with encryption turned off at the router, David?

[David]

No am in router at moment how do I carry this out? sorry

[Rik]

If you're logged into the router, David, go to the third heading under Settings (Wireless). On that page look for security options, and disable encryption. I can't remember whether that's a checkbox, or you select none from a drop-down list.

[David]

Has been disabled all the time Rik just double checked and I never did use encryption

[Rik]

Check your attached devices list then - it could be someone is piggy-backing the connection (though I doubt it).

[David]

This has 2 ip addresses both the same Rik 192 168 02 and another line which ends with 03

[Rik]

Do you have two machines live at present, David?

[David]

Not at present Rik just this one

[Rik]

Sounds odd, then, David, unless you have the cable still connected. The first machine connecting should get the 0.2, address, then 0.3 etc. If only one machine is live, and it's not got both a wireless and ethernet connection, it would tend to suggest that someone else has connected to your router.

[David]

sorry Rik I had reconnected.carried out again and have just one number now sorry

[Rik]

NP. Well, that's everything ruled out but the hardware. Is there anyone you could borrow another router from? Assuming that both wireless adaptors produce similar speeds, then the router is the next candidate for elimination.

[David]

Have done that Rik have no way or borrowing a router so a trip to pc world looks likely.I have even checked antenna on the side of the router it was a little loose but its fine now.I have plugged the ethernet back in now.
Last point before I sign the cheque will the current adaptors work with an 802 router or should I stick with the 54

pc world has one for £41 which isn't bad

[Rik]

Hi David

802 is only part of the standard. 802.11g is what you have, and that's 54Mbps. 802.11b is 11Mbps, but if anyone is selling a router which is only 11b compatible, it's very old stock.

As an alternative to PCW, you might like to order this Netgear from DSL Source. More or less the same price, it's the v4 version which doesn't use the AR7 chipset and early reports indicate it's likely to give better performance as a result.

[David]

Rik you have spent a lot of time on this today,and although I know what your reply will be I really do appreciate it all,
Sincere thanks I'm off shopping online and at least we found that speed which has eluded me all this time and that is a big plus.

Have ordered a large lorryload of past the sell by date Easter Eggs they will need to be signed for.

gratitudes includes sebby  thanks guys

[Rik]

Glad to help, David, I just hope the router change solves it as I don't want to spend too much of your money for you.

[David]

Could you try changing the wireless channel, David? Try 1, 6 and 11.

  thanks sebby your a gent

[David]

Glad to help, David, I just hope the router change solves it as I don't want to spend too much of your money for you.

Wendy will be glad I'm off this for 5 mins and I get to look for a new monitor while Im in there,so something s are karma, well thats my excuse

[Rik]

Ah, now, if you want monitor recommendations, I can spend you lots and lots of money. 

[David]

feel free I have been looking and W want to get me something nice for my birthday and this one is 6 months old now but not the best so send them over preferably widescreen 

[Sebby]

[Rik]

Take a look at this, David, but sit down before you do.

I use one of these, and it's the best monitor I've ever owned (the brand is widely used in the graphics industry).

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=390086

[Rik]

After you've recovered, you might like to look at either of these:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=608174
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=647803

[David]

Think Id prefer her catching me ogling an art book than this,as she just said.love has its limits 

[Rik]

And love the monitor you surely would.

[David]

I'm just looking online for a divorce lawyer lol

That is one son of a monitor Rik

[Sebby]

I'm just looking online for a divorce lawyer lol

Are you planning on marrying the monitor?

[Rik]

 

They are great monitors, David, but hard to justify for most people. My excuse is that I spent my working life sitting in front of calibrated monitors and can't get along with anything else. Luckily, Sue is keen on photography and has seen how closely I can match print and screen.

[David]

If I answered that sebby I would be signing my own death warrant Im in the process of removing a WG111 adapter from a very sensitive part of my anatomy.......were did I put that vasaline,


Of course I love my wife very much but life throws these little temptations now and again,(might get away with it in the plastic) she never checks that and I could always say i picked it up cheap at a boot sale and what a bargain it was for £3.50,no have to go back to the drawing board on this one

Rik your the envoy of Satan     

[Rik]

 

More the envoy of Eizo, David. I nearly got my nephew to buy one too... I hope your WG111 feels better soon.  8)

[MoHux]

 ........... but he couldn't get it in his pram!! 

[David]

 

[David]

After you've recovered, you might like to look at either of these:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=608174
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=647803

You just made my wife sigh Rik,been ages since I did that but guess this is or could be coming my way 

she thinks she has saved £600,but took her eye off the ball,she will work it out by the time the olympics are here

[Rik]

It's why I present the Eizo first, David. It makes everything else look a bargain.  A 24" w/s is a great monitor though, as the native res is 1920 x 1200. That gives you a lot of extra depth on the screen, and the width to fit email to one side of the browser, say.

[David]

                    she agreed  arise sir Rik

Edit: Smily  markup  sorted

[Rik]

Sebby beat me to the markup. Which one have you gone for, David - I just want to prepare my excuses. 

[David]

Hav nt mad my mind up but she says ,as long as its what you want .......music to my ears,and sure beats the hell out of a pair of socks and a promise

[Rik]

I like "as long as it's what you want", it covers so many possibilities. 

[Inactive]

Hav nt mad my mind up but she says ,as long as its what you want .......music to my ears,and sure beats the hell out of a pair of socks and a promise

It should last longer as well.. 

[David]

yes but for once its in my favour,marriage is give and take and its my turn to take  I take this  and I give her the night off




Edit: Smiley markup sorted.