Soon be joining has joined!

[Rik]

The 'jaw' on the connector will cut through the insulation, Weevil, and make the connection. It's best not to have any 'naked' wires hanging about.

[weevil]

Ok, I've snipped the exposed wires off and punched them in again.

I've just gone to the router to look at the stats

ADSL Link            Downstream   Upstream
Connection Speed    5504 kbps           448 kbps
Line Attenuation    44 db           11.5 db
Noise Margin    11 db           23 db

The connection speed has gone up a couple of hundred since i've re punched. When James (IDNet) initially got me to connect to the engineers socket, the speed was 5700, then 3600 when the faceplate was put back on.

Looking at it, the speed looks very similar to when tested on the engineers socket. Should that mean I get decent speed in a few days time?

Cheers Sebby and Rik for all the assistance

[Rik]

It should - but if things aren't as good as you would like, you could always remove the ring wire in a day or two. ATM, you noise margin is high, affected by the instability, and if you can maintain  stable connection for 14+ days, then you will gain 5-700k, repeated 14 days later.

[weevil]

So, my current IP profile is only 750. This will rise won't it in a few days?

[Rik]

As it stands, it will rise to 4.5Mbps.

[Sebby]

As Rik says, the profile should rise to 4,500k, but your line is going to need to stay stable. Hopefully the faceplate will help achieve that. You then might see the target SNRM drop, and in turn give you higher sync.

There's no benefit in removing the ring wire with a filtered faceplate, FWIW.

[Rik]

Though I'd always try the ringwire if the speeds were low for the attenuation.

[Sebby]

Fair enough.

[Rik]

It's called "if all else fails".

[Dangerjunkie]

The terminal blades cut through the insulation and touch the conductor inside. The insulation has then been pushed apart and it presses back against the blades which seal against it and prevent the air from getting to the exposed conductor which prevents corrosion. If you strip the joint is exposed to the air and will corrode. That's why you shouldn't

Cheers,
Paul.

[Rik]

Nicely explained, Paul. 

[weevil]

Thanks all for the words of wisdom

There are no exposed wires now and I am (was) getting exactly the same downstream figures as when I plugged directly into the engineers test socket (5504).

Checked this morning and the 5504 has dropped to 4544 - when I run the bt speedtest now it says I have a profile of 4000.

ADSL Link   Downstream   Upstream
Connection Speed   4544 kbps   448 kbps
Line Attenuation   43 db   11.5 db
Noise Margin   13 db   23 db

My profile last night was only 750, so it's good that it's jumped back up. The connection speed always seems to drop overnight. It did this before until settling down to be a consistent daily figure. Is this likely to happen again and why is the drop always overnight?

I'm tempted to stop messing about with things for a while and give it a chance to settle?

At the end of the day, if I end up with speed around 3.5-4, I'd be really happy - it's double what I thought I may get before moving to the property

[Steve]

Whilst your giving chance for things to settle have a look at the child board for the 2 wire router, it seems to work well on lines that have somewhat less than a full sync.

[Rik]

My profile last night was only 750, so it's good that it's jumped back up. The connection speed always seems to drop overnight. It did this before until settling down to be a consistent daily figure. Is this likely to happen again and why is the drop always overnight?

There's a maximum of noise on the line at night, Weevil, the least occurs in the morning. As a rule of thumb, re-sync at night for maximum stability, in the morning for maximum speed.

[weevil]

Ok. What's the best way to re-sync? Is it go into router diagnostics and disconnect, then re-connect?

[Rik]

Depends on the router. The one thing you don't want to do is unplug the router from the phone line. If the firmware gives you the option to disconnect/re-connect, use that. Otherwise kill the mains power, wait 20 seconds or so, then turn it back on.

[weevil]

The Netgear diagnostics let you connect/disconnect but it didn't make any difference. I cut the power and it's back to 5500 now.

So, basically do the same last thing at night and first thing in the morning?

[Dangerjunkie]

ADSL is really a medium wave radio signal that gets put on your phone line. I won't go into the technical details (about the sun charging up the upper atmosphere) but medium wave radio signals travel further at night (that's why you get interference from foreign radio stations in the evening.) The same foreign radio stations that interefere with your medium wave radio also interfere with the medium wave signal on your ADSL and you lose some speed.

So yes, it is normal, particularly in the summer.

Cheers,
Paul.

edit: typo

[Rik]

So, basically do the same last thing at night and first thing in the morning?

Or just power the router off at the end of the day...

[weevil]

The Netgear DG834 doesn't have a power button as such, so is just pulling out the plug ok?

[Rik]

That's fine. Also remember to power down and disconnect the phone line if there are thunderstorms about.

[weevil]

Thanks all

[weevil]

Just to confirm:-

As long as I don't disconnect the telephone line from the router, I am ok to power it down?

I just looked at my stats for the first time in a few days and my profile was 4500 but was only getting throughput of 2200. I've just powered down and powered back up and my throughput is now 4200.

Just wondered as nearly everywhere I look, 99% of people say not to switch the router off.

I know that you guys will undoubtedly be correct but just wanted to check. It's no problem powering it down as long as switching on and off won't affect the stability of profile.

[Simon]

When powering down, power off at the mains plug, don't just pull the AC connector out of the back of the router.  That way, it sends a last "dying gasp" to the network, which should tell it that you are deliberately powering down, and that there isn't a problem.  So long as you don't keep power cycling in a short period of time, it shouldn't affect your profile. 

[Sebby]

What Simon said.

Even if you do it the "wrong" way, so long as you don't do it, say, 10 times in an hour, you'll be fine anyway.