Sudden slowdown

Hi all,

I’ve been having recurring broadband issues for the past couple of months, and I’m hoping someone can help me troubleshoot.

The problem mainly occurs when I’m gaming. I’ll get disconnected mid-game, and web pages become extremely slow to load. When I run a speed test during these times, both upload and download speeds drop to below 1Mbps. Sometimes rebooting the router (often multiple times) helps, but other times the connection just slowly recovers after 30 minutes or so.

This tends to happen multiple times in an evening. I don’t game that often—maybe two or three times a month—but it seems to happen almost every time I do.

My PC is connected via Ethernet, and when I test the connection on my phone (Wi-Fi), I see the same slowdown, so it seems to be a line issue. BT sent an engineer last year who replaced the socket, but the problem has returned. BT support haven’t been much help recently—they just run a 24-hour line check and then nothing happens.

Any advice on how to narrow this down or push for a proper fix?

Thanks in advance.

FTTP or FTTC/ADSL? These 2 are very different beasts, particularly for a problem like yours. It would be helpful to state explicitly which,

Assuming FTTC/ADSL the first place I would look is interference on the line, so you need to get you line stats from the router when everything is working fine and again when you have a problem and post them here.

from what you have said i believe you are on Adsl/vdsl.

What is normally your line speed?
where is the router set up?
Are you using the bt hub?

I beleive its FTTC, the router plugs into the phone socket. Router is next to the phone socket and my pc is wired in to the router. No phone connected.

I normally get 36Mbps down and 9Mbps up. I am using the BT smart hub 2.

This is the noise from the router right now:

Noise margin:22.1 / 17.4
Line attenuation:7.2 / 8.9
Signal attenuation:7.2 / 9.9

Does it happen every time you game ?

Also if you can, probably via your phone, get the line stats when you have slow speeds

this should help to see where the problem is .. There so many reasons for your slow down. The phone suggesting that its not device dependent is a nice big clue but we need more info when it slows for everyone to help

Yes it does seem to happen whenever im gaming. It will occur every 1 to 2 hours. I dont use my pc that often so unsure if it occurs all the time. Although thinking about it, we stream nearly everyday (on the smart tv) and thats always fine.

Thanks, I will wait for it to happen again and record the line stats as you and dfscale have suggested.

Which router are you using?

Bt smart hub 2

As dfscale said (which i missed first thing this morning - sorry dfscale) we need to see if the line stats change when the OP has the slow downs.

my two guesses atm is cabling(interference ) and a duff router or a combo of both ...... but lets see.

A nice short line, and the line is well within limits.

‘Just changed the socket’ smacks of someone unable to fault a service properly to me .

Any noise on the line ?