Disconnects...

Danni · Nov 19, 2006, 15:56:10

This is more of a rant at Johny more than anything else, but hopefully you lot will have some suggestions.

Every evening from 6pm-2am we suffer multiple disconnects, sometimes as many as 10-20 an hour. I'm not allowed to move the router and modem (master socket is in the middle of the stairs, so it's not practical), disconnect anything (such as phones or sky boxes) or basically mess with any of the hardware. All I'm allowed to touch is software. He also refuses to ring IDNet during the times we're not having a problem.

Anyone got any suggestions on making the connection more stable without messing with hardware? Interleaving is already on.

maxping · Nov 19, 2006, 16:42:26

Is the connection rock solid before and after the times you have mentioned?

Danni · Nov 19, 2006, 16:48:55

Not rock solid, but there are a lot less disconnections- maybe 1 or 2 every few hours.

Bill · Nov 19, 2006, 16:49:41

Hit him over the head, then ring IDNet

maxping · Nov 19, 2006, 16:53:06

Bills right how are you going to sort the problem if you cannot touch the hardware ?
It may be a faulty filter , wire or a combination of things.

cavillas · Nov 19, 2006, 19:18:05

Mucking about with hardware is no longer a male thing. In fact males are more likely to muck hardware up then the females, female are precise and tend to see the larger picture. He should stop being a male chauvenist. Hardware doesn't mean "hard" it means to complex for the simple minds of some men.

Inactive · Nov 20, 2006, 00:43:15

Quote from: cavillas on Nov 19, 2006, 19:18:05
Hardware doesn't mean "hard" it means to complex for the simple minds of some men.

OUCH !!! ...

Rik · Nov 20, 2006, 15:13:21

Quote from: Danni on Nov 19, 2006, 15:56:10Anyone got any suggestions on making the connection more stable without messing with hardware? Interleaving is already on.

An indirect answer, but if you can persuade Danny to look at the master socket, is there a wire connected to terminal 3, often orange/white? If there is, it's the ring wire, totally unnecessary and often the cause of a lot of line noise being picked up (it acts as an aerial), hence the drops. Disconnecting it at the master and all extensions can work wonders.

Danni · Nov 20, 2006, 15:20:47

I'll have a look as soon as I find a screwdriver (Johny is currently in bed :p)

Rik · Nov 20, 2006, 15:23:04

Good for you.

Danni · Nov 20, 2006, 15:41:23

Well, I had a look and there are only two wires connected- an orange one and a white one. The green and black ones weren't connected to anything. I thought it best not to mess with them in case I broke something :p

Rik · Nov 20, 2006, 15:49:23

I take it they were on terminals 2 & 5? In which case you don't have a ring wire.

Danni · Nov 20, 2006, 16:21:11

I think so- my eyesight's a bit blurry at the moment (just my luck- the left side of my face is paralysed!).

Rik · Nov 20, 2006, 16:30:33

Sorry to hear that, hope it gets better soon.

(My eyesight is always blurry, but that's 'cos I'm very short-sighted...

)

cavillas · Nov 20, 2006, 17:35:05

Quote from: rikbean on Nov 20, 2006, 16:30:33
Sorry to hear that, hope it gets better soon.

(My eyesight is always blurry, but that's 'cos I'm very short-sighted... )

Or is that the drink again.

Rik · Nov 20, 2006, 17:37:27

If only! Would you believe I'm allergic to alcohol. Life just ain't fair...

Danni · Dec 02, 2006, 14:55:41

While Johny was sleeping (

) I changed the setup of modem and router. Basically, the wireless router is now just an access point, and the modem is in charge of the internet now. I think I've discovered part of the cause of the disconnects- our DS Margin is 2. Below are the rest of the stats for anyone techie

Modem Status
Connection Status Connected
Us Rate (Kbps) 448
Ds Rate (Kbps) 7776
US Margin 20
DS Margin 2
Trained Modulation GDMT
LOS Errors 0
DS Line Attenuation 45
US Line Attenuation 23
Peak Cell Rate 1056 cells per sec
CRC Rx Fast 0
CRC Tx Fast 0
CRC Rx Interleaved 513
CRC Tx Interleaved 30
Path Mode Interleaved

Since changing things Firefox is having major problems with browsing websites, but Konqueror doesn't have the same problems. We've changed the phone system from analogue cordless to DECT ones, which has helped a little, but we still have some static on the voice line. There is also the coincidence that Colin Burns (friend who lives a village nearer the exchange to us) is also having the same problems since coming onto IDNet Max (he was on Tiscali 2mb before). He's still on his 10 day training, but his problems are remarkably similar to ours. Knowing him, if he's still having problems after the 10 day training it will be me writing the email to IDNet from him...

Danni · Dec 02, 2006, 15:45:30

Okay, so my DS Margin has been between 0 and 2 for a bit now, but I just got this weird result- 2147483487

http://www.dannimatzk.co.uk/whoopsie.png

Nerval · Dec 02, 2006, 20:57:15

That's just the figure you get when it goes below zero. Your router won't tolerate that for too long without resynching at a lower speed.

Rik · Dec 03, 2006, 10:21:24

Quote from: Danni on Dec 02, 2006, 15:45:30
Okay, so my DS Margin has been between 0 and 2 for a bit now, but I just got this weird result- 2147483487
http://www.dannimatzk.co.uk/whoopsie.png

Hi Danni

As Nerval says, it indicates a negative figure. Unfortunately, routers didn't allow for negative figures, ie signed hex, so they interpret the number as a large positive, I think yours translates to -2db, but don't quote me on that.

I would suggest that you ask Miriam to get your target noise margin increased to 9db. That should ensure, assuming that was your worst figure, that you don't go negative again. You will lose some speed, but hopefully not enough to affect your BRAS profile, if you sync between 7392 & 7967, you will have a profile of 6500. At worst, you'd lose about 400kbps.

Nerval · Dec 03, 2006, 10:37:14

I just said that!

I wouldn't necessarily change the taget SNR though.
Mine goes negative every day as the evening draws on, but resyncs at a slightly lower speed on its own and causes no problems.
Unless you're disconnecting frequently, I'd just ignore it.

Rik · Dec 03, 2006, 10:43:48

Quote from: Nerval on Dec 03, 2006, 10:37:14
I just said that!

I was merely expanding on your answer.

As to whether to up the target noise margin, it's dependent on whether Danni finds the disconnections a nuisance. I did, so went for stability rather than speed. If Danni's lucky, she could get the stability with no speed loss at all.

Danni · Dec 03, 2006, 11:51:46

Following some emails with Simon yesterday, Johny finally disconnected everything from the line except the modem. So far, the DS Margin has been a solid 6 (with a sync at 8128) so it is something in the house somewhere. Now it's just figuring out what. First I think will be replacing the filters, as we're still using the ones BT gave us when we were on 512 a couple of years ago

Rik · Dec 03, 2006, 12:56:14

It's worth disconnecting the ring wire, terminal 3, at the master and any extensions, Danni. It acts like a big aerial to attract all sorts of noise. After that it's down to wiring topology and quality, plus your filters. I've found the best results with ADSL Nation's XF-1e.

Danni · Dec 03, 2006, 13:23:55

There were only 2 wires connected at the master socket when I checked last time, but I'll have a look at the extensions when my thumb hurts a bit less (my wireless card is broken but still works, and I cut my thumb trying to fix it!).