Error msg with BB fault checker

I've spent half an hour going through the diagnostic steps, but it won't let me submit the fault. It says there's an error, please try later.

I've had to answer a lot of questions about connection drops, of which I was completely oblivious (PN records claim I've had two a day for the past week).

However, that is not my key issue. Since approx lunchtime, I've not been able to get download speeds in excess of about 0.18Mbps (compared to >3Mbps usually). Upload is normal.

Full reboot of both router & laptop hasn't fixed it - including leaving the router off for longer than the recommended half hour. I'm running wired (ethernet) plugged straight into the test socket.

New microfilter straight out of the cellophane hasn't fixed it. The only thing I haven't been able to check is the router itself, as I haven't a spare.

Think I'm entitled to a new one from PN anyway, for the price only of P&P, as have never claimed my free one under my latest contract.

Tina

It seems like despite the error message, I have apparently successfully submitted the fault - four times now!

Thought I could save a bit of time by going ahead and claiming my "free" router, so I could test without risking a possibly abortive & expensive engineer visit, but couldn't find a way to do this online.

Is this one that can only be done by phone? I went through the steps of "product change", opting to keep all the same, thinking I'd eventually be prompted for the H/W, but I wasn't.

What are the router stats?

Here we go.

There appear to be a huge number of CRC and HEC errors for just a couple of hours uptime. Does this point to it probably being the router? The attenuation has always been quite high (it's a long line), but I don't think this has worsened - it usually works OK in spite of it.

Link Information

Uptime: 0 days, 2:16:54

DSL Type: G.992.3 annex A

Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 956 / 4,784

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 959 / 4,536

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/MB]: 7.66 / 17.30

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.5 / 17.0

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 28.5 / 49.0

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 5.5 / 7.0

Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / IFTN

Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 52 / 0

Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Link (Remote): 0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 20 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0

CRC Errors (Up/Down): 45 / 265,085

HEC Errors (Up/Down): 10 / 85,030

The errors are not helping for sure but not sure they are the full story. Usually these errors are down to wiring/telephone line rather than a dying router

There's absolutely nothing complicated at my end, in the way of wiring. I have only the single master socket - no extensions - and only the router and phone are plugged into it (via the filter). Occasionally the BB has been known to drop when I'm using the phone, but I'm oblivious of the 2+ drops per day PN claim I've had in the past week. I can only assume they must be very momentary, and reconnect without a problem, as I've had no noticeable disruption to service.

My gut reaction to the "two drops a day" claim was: "No I haven't!" But I suppose "didn't notice" isn't proof it didn't happen. I'm a bit surprised I wouldn't have noticed such frequent disconnects, though. I was surprised to be told it's dropped at all in the last week, let alone more than twice a day.

T.

You could monitor the connection with RouterStats-Lite and see when, how often the disconnections happen,

http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm#routerst...

If you do phone PN CS for a new router it's worth asking if it starts a new contract period (it shouldn't as you didn't take the router offer previously) but strange things can happen to contracts when you ask an ISP for a freebie (bar the PN applied p&p).

Thanks, have installed that, and will leave it running overnight.

I've had a weird thing in the past - can't remember the exact details - whereby the line PN thought they were monitoring was not mine! So if it turns out PN are logging "disconnects" that are not matched by my own monitoring, that in itself would tell us something.

I have left the graphs to autoscale - I don't know how long it will take them to adjust, because at the moment, my speeds are so low that a scale of 0 to 8000 Kbps is inappropriate, and my graph is indistinguishable from the zero line (though clearly I'm still connected). I'm assuming that once it's collected enough samples, autoscale will compensate for this.

Have also noted your words of caution about inadvertently triggering a new contract. I'll be as specific as I can that I'm only wanting to claim a previously unclaimed router from the existing contract. But coincidentally, it has less than a month left to run, so if it did somehow go wrong, it's not going to make a huge amount of difference, that I can see. It has to start a new one soon in any case.

T.

Edit: Alas, it doesn't work. It's not just a scaling problem; it's consistently showing my download speed as "zero", regardles how I set the axes. Basically, my PN-supplied router is not supported. It's a Thomson Speedtouch TG585 v8. Only Vs. 6 & 7 are expressly listed as supported by Routerstats-Lite, BUT I'd hoped they might be similar enough it would accept it anyway. At first glance, all seemed OK, because it doesn't come up with an error to say it can't read the speed data. The help files suggest it should, if that were the problem, to enable you to distinguish between a genuine zero reading, and a null or failed return.

But, as abysmal as my speeds are, I'm sure they're not zero. It doesn't look as if it's ever going to report anything but zero.

T.

Edited by TLM (Sun 17-Nov-13 00:04:14)

It's quite a while since I used RS-Lite but as far as I know/have read on forums it should work when you use the 585 v7 set up for the v8.

If there are supposed to be a few drops in connection I wonder if the IP Address is also changing frequently?

http://www.whatsmyip.org/

The tbb BQM works best with a Static IP addy but I've used it with a Dynamic IP addy which is fine until it changes which usually happens with a loss of connection or a router reboot etc etc and then you have to set up a new one anyway it should indicate when the first loss of connection happened after settng the BQM up.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping

We've got you logged fault ticket, I've just made a tweak to your profile as it was set way to low.

Let us know if that makes a difference.