Poor IP profile

Virgin Media ADSL+ ‘Upto’ 8Meg. Via BT line.
Retired: Electrical, Electronics and Industrial Software, Control and Instrumentation Design Engineer.

When I’m at home I use the internet daily and for quite long periods at a time. There have been times when I’ve coaxed the IP Profile up to 4,500Kbps, and on a couple of occasions even 5,000Kbps as measured by the BT Test site.
Being retired I quite frequently go away for a while, say for two weeks, and on my return find that my IP profile has drooped to somewhere in the order of 125 – 500Kbps.
Totally disconnecting my router from both power and ‘phone line for an hour or so, and reconnecting so that the ADSL has to start from scratch usually improves the speed up to about 500Kbps and then over the next few days disconnecting the router’s power for a few seconds to re-boot it usually kicks the speed up.
Sadly these last couple of months this hasn’t worked, and the best I can get is 500Kbps; Virgin’s status site says that all is well with their system… I’m wondering if anyone else in the Yorkshire, Humberside or Lincolnshire area is having the same problem.

Popa.

Hi Popa,

Very weird. The only thing that normally knocks down the IP profile is a lot of disconnections over a very short time.

I assume the router is kept on line and in sync while you are away.

If not it may be lack of use, and some setting of the DSLAM in the exchange which is causing it.

Mike.

______________________________________________________________________________
Mike (Semi-retired Radio & Electronics Engineer)
VirginMedia ADSLmax, up to 8Mb.

In reply to a post by Popa_Mintin:

Virgin Media ADSL+ ‘Upto’ 8Meg. Via BT line.
Retired: Electrical, Electronics and Industrial Software, Control and Instrumentation Design Engineer.

When I’m at home I use the internet daily and for quite long periods at a time. There have been times when I’ve coaxed the IP Profile up to 4,500Kbps, and on a couple of occasions even 5,000Kbps as measured by the BT Test site.
Being retired I quite frequently go away for a while, say for two weeks, and on my return find that my IP profile has drooped to somewhere in the order of 125 – 500Kbps.

do you really mean your IP profile, or the sync speed as reported by your modem.

Mike

Mike, Yes I mean the IP profile as reported by the BT test site. My last attempt at a measurement was so slow that the test results failed to be reported: -

BT test report 04.07.09 15.49 to 16.00 (10 minutes plus after the throughput report !) the tbbMeter was off.

"Your configured download throughput speed for this service is 135 k."

No further results supplied.

My last tbbSpeed test gave these results an hour or so prior to the BT test above: -

Date 04/07/09 14:25:20
Speed Down 119.26 Kbps ( 0.1 Mbps )
Speed Up 115.92 Kbps ( 0.1 Mbps )
Port 8095
Server speedtest1.thinkbroadband.com

Popa.

I assume the router is kept on line and in sync while you are away.

Yes, the router Does remain powered and connected to the 'phone line whilst I'm away. I can't vouch for the Sync, I'm not here.

I didn't mention, it's a wireless router and the PC is switched off whilst I'm away, usually the Wireless, ADSL and Internet indicators are still illuminated when I return.

Popa.

Edited by Popa_Mintin (Sun 05-Jul-09 02:24:02)

What make/model router is it? If you check the logs on it, you may find it logs losses of sync and the sync speed for each reconnection, etc (not all routers do). Obviously, it must be losing sync at some point while you're away for the IP profile to drop like that.

What make/model router is it?

NETGEAR Wireless ADSL2+ Modem Router model DG834G

(Copy and paste)
Logs

Current time: 2009-07-05 09:42:03

Sat, 2000-01-01 00:00:37 - Initialize LCP.
Sat, 2000-01-01 00:00:37 - LCP is allowed to come up.
Sat, 2000-01-01 00:00:40 - CHAP authentication success
Sat, 2000-01-01 00:00:49 - Send out NTP request to time-g.netgear.com
Sat, 2000-01-01 00:02:12 - Send out NTP request to time-h.netgear.com
Sun, 2009-07-05 09:35:01 - Receive NTP Reply from time-h.netgear.com
Sun, 2009-07-05 09:39:28 - Administrator login successful - IP:192.168.0.2 (end copy) This is just the router's IP address of course.

This is the entire log as it stands at the moment. Maybe removing the power and (or) the 'phone line empties the log, except for some pre-entered entries. I remove the router's power for a few seconds (approximately 10) to see if a re-boot gets a better connection, until recently this has usually worked for the better. I did this prior to reading your reply this morning.

(copy and paste)
Include in Log

Attempted access to blocked sites
Connections to the Web-based interface of this Router
Router operation (start up, get time etc)
Known DoS attacks and Port Scans
(end copy)

Popa.

PS: Looks like the router's working on GMT.

Edited by Popa_Mintin (Sun 05-Jul-09 11:11:40)

Unfortunately, one of the only downsides of Netgear routers is that their logging sucks compares to some other routers - isn't very detailed, and doesn't differentiate between sync drops and ppp drops, let alone mention the sync speed . Certainly rebooting a router by whatever means will clear the log.

Does your IP profile ever drop that low when you're not away? The obvious suspicion is that there is some interference in your area that is causing your SNR to drop suddenly, maybe even only for a few seconds, and therefore causing your IP profile to drop. Unfortunately, it's hard to track down these kind of problems unless it happens often enough and while you're around to check.

In reply to a post by Popa_Mintin:

I assume the router is kept on line and in sync while you are away.

Yes, the router Does remain powered and connected to the 'phone line whilst I'm away. I can't vouch for the Sync, I'm not here.

I didn't mention, it's a wireless router and the PC is switched off whilst I'm away, usually the Wireless, ADSL and Internet indicators are still illuminated when I return.

Popa.

could you post your line stats and sync speed from your router
Attenuation up/down
Signalto noise up/down
the URL below should connect straight to them
http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?next_file=stattbl.htm

also if you could post the distance you are from the exchange
URL distance checker
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/distance.php


Mike

In reply to a post by Popa_Mintin:

Virgin Media ADSL+ ‘Upto’ 8Meg. Via BT line.
Retired: Electrical, Electronics and Industrial Software, Control and Instrumentation Design Engineer.

When I’m at home I use the internet daily and for quite long periods at a time. There have been times when I’ve coaxed the IP Profile up to 4,500Kbps, and on a couple of occasions even 5,000Kbps as measured by the BT Test site.
Being retired I quite frequently go away for a while, say for two weeks, and on my return find that my IP profile has drooped to somewhere in the order of 125 – 500Kbps.
Totally disconnecting my router from both power and ‘phone line for an hour or so, and reconnecting so that the ADSL has to start from scratch usually improves the speed up to about 500Kbps and then over the next few days disconnecting the router’s power for a few seconds to re-boot it usually kicks the speed up.
Sadly these last couple of months this hasn’t worked, and the best I can get is 500Kbps; Virgin’s status site says that all is well with their system… I’m wondering if anyone else in the Yorkshire, Humberside or Lincolnshire area is having the same problem.

Popa.

Ok… up-date:
I called the Virgin help line (VHL) this morning and discovered some basic errors in my original understanding of resetting the ADSL connection.
According to VHL: -
The minimum time for the disconnection is 90 minutes. (Not just an hour.)
The disconnection can be made several times in a day, over as much as a 4 day period.
Just re-booting the (wireless) router is not enough, a full disconnection is required, both power to the router and disconnection from the ‘phone line.
This is most unlikely to work over a week-end so only try on a weekday.

My IP profile has not been above 135k since 3rd July 09 so… I’m going to try that. (again)

Popa.

Edited by Popa_Mintin (Mon 06-Jul-09 11:01:39)