Bad line or Bad router?

Ever since I first had broadband (a 512K pipex service) my line has been prone to dropping, it will be fine for days or even weeks then suddenly and with no apparent pattern it will drop and cause a resync, this persisted over all the different types of adsl service including LLU with several different ISPs.

I have tried several different modems, the latest being a Fritz 7390 with was chosen in part due to the promise of fibre, (the 7390 is running on the current os release) now I am on an 80/20 FTTC service, the drops persist, same status message about a lack of DSL Synchronization as we used to see associated with the drops on adsl. Ive had Openjoke out several times and they all claim the line is fine, and yet it doesn't seem to want to hold sync for more than a few days, and sometimes reconnects several times in a day - or even a few times in an hour

The situation remains that my service will operate for days without a hitch, then suddenly there are these drop and reconnects, in the last week I have lost count of the number of reconnects that have shown up on my BQM which is also showing spikes of packet loss.

Ive now started to doubt my own equipment as I have noticed the router seems to be doing a full restart during *some* of these drops, seeing that another light apart from the "power/dsl" light flashing while it seeks connection, when this happens I am seeing the loss of the system event logs, so now I am wondering if the fritz is also "on the fritz"! - or is the drop causing some strange hiccup in the router?

I have long held that the line drop issue must lay between here and the cabinet as prior to fibre I had an E side swap and moved from BTw to LLU and back again - no change in the problem, The 25 feet of overhead outside of here is just about 15 years old (installed when I moved in). on a good day I see 75 megs, but its hard to get a feel for where my real level is as the service isn't consistently connected due to this issue.

When fibre was installed I had some issues with the HG612 not connecting (Kelly did the install so that may give you a clue) the 612 has worked with the Fritz behind it in router mode, but the drops were still there, and TBH I dislike having a modem in line that I cant even query the status on - much less find any meaningful stats (I'm reluctant to unlock it (assuming this generation can be) as I'm sure openjoke would try to blame that. I have noticed a lot of activity in the cabinet recently and this has coincided with an upsurge in my problems,

Any suggestions? I'm pulling out my hair here, I think that having put up with this for more than 10 years I deserve some resolution to this. Its not too much to ask surely? It seems beyond BT to work out what is happening - I get the feeling that they have an attitude of "well it mostly works - be thankful for that"

Interestingly I have just noticed that the maximum DSLAM throughput reported by the Fritz has dropped from 80000 to 74000. no change in the upstream, and I was at the cabinet when the kellys guy was doing the connection he showed me then 80k on his equipment, why would that have dropped?

Hi

A line drop for noise or other reasons should never cause the modem/router to reboot, it should remain up and running, and once the line has resync'd, it just reconnects to the ISP and carries on.

Now as you are connected via an external modem (HG612) then your Fritz rebooting will not cause your line sync to drop, yes your internet will drop and pings will not be responded to while the router reboots, but if you could query the modem, it would not have dropped sync. Of course if you used the Fritz direct on the line for ADSL and it rebooted, it would then cause a line resync as well because the modem in the Fritz would also restart.

The line speed may not have dropped, perhaps the Fritz is mis-reporting? However you might have had more people signing up to FTTC and are experiencing crosstalk that you did not have before, so that is unrelated to the rebooting Fritz.

You can unlock the HG612 and query the line stats (Google HG612 unlokc), or buy a VDSL and router combined like the Billion 8800AXL.

Regards

Phil

Hi warweezil,

Does this occur with the same computer? I had a similar symptoms which, with the invaluable help of this forum, eventually got tracked down to a suspect network card. The full story is here http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/multiuser/t/4302327... In that instance, rather than tear down the laptop, putting an unmanaged switch between router and network card provided and still provides a very satisfactory solution.

I should perhaps add that the problem was worse with my previous router, a Linksys WAG354G, as a re-sync would often occur due to the interruption. The Netgear DGND4000 certainly seems better at holding sync.

Cheers

Mike

Edited by Mygri (Mon 30-Mar-15 12:01:48)

Originally the 612 failed to connect after the service was connected on xmas eve - as there was no prospect of help from the Kellys cowboy I set up the Fritz as the sole unit. In early January becoming annoyed with the drops I tried the 612 in front of the Fritz, the drops were still there, and remember the drops have always been there . It simply cannot be a network card or similar issue, it has persisted across several machines and several different operating systems, Windows Linux and Mac os* - probably close on a dozen machines with the projects I have built, and includes my current iMac both wired and on WiFi. I reverted to the Fritz as a stand alone to simplify matters. Generally I'm on 5 Ghz wifi - another reason for choosing the Fritz with 2 macs in the house.

The problem was there from the start of service on ADSL, with my original speedsteam3060 PCI modem, the Speedtouch 585v6 a whole clutch of HGV 2700s (all part of a bulk purchase - many of which have gone on to serve faultlessly on friends and families lines elsewhere,) and on course with the Fritz 7390. I got the fritz in part because of its logging facility generally it works like this...
With the logging on the Fritzbox I see each event begins with
"DSL not responding (No DSL synchronization)". This is followed by
"Internet connection cleared"
Then "DSL is available" (DSL synchronization exists with xxxxx/xxxxx kbit/s) \then This is usually followed by several "PPPoE error: Timeout."
Finally we arrive at "Internet connection established successfully."

The fault has persisted on 512k 1 meg 2 meg ADSL max, BTw ADSL2+ and TalkTalk wholesale LLU.

There may be a router fault now, but there is an underlying issue of that I am sure. While composing this the router has just restarted again losing all the log for the previous 24 hours, there have been a couplke of drops in that time as shown on my BQM.

Why is UK broadband such hard work?

Edited by warweezil (Mon 30-Mar-15 19:24:18)

I plugged in the 612 last night but couldn't get a connection through the fritz in router mode. I tried again today as I am home with flu. Still nothing - the line test on the Fritz kept coming back with ipv4 not connected as the only config fail.

I put in a call to support who looked at my stats and told me that I wasn't connected and that no connection or attempt at connection had been logged for some time, this with the 612 showing 3 green lights at the time.

So now I have to face the pantomime of an SFI visit despite the fact that I have never met one yet that seems to be anymore than a bog standard engineer and being charged for a "special" anything to implies an engineer with advanced knowledge / enhanced training. My ISP are going to ask Openjoke for a D side swap, its the only thing that has never been changed, and BT seem very reluctant to do it.

My ISP can see on some records I have been raising the line drop issue since at least 2004, I put up with it on 512k Pipex as I wasn't sure if there was an internal issue here but after removing all extension wiring and changing router I started to get annoyed about it, and have been getting angrier ever since.

There is a problem and its time it was looked at properly and finxed once and for all.

In reply to a post by warweezil:

Why is UK broadband such hard work?

Possible because most of it is supplied via twisted pair metal cables which were never intended to be used in this way. Metal gas and water pipes get repaced by plastic ones. Some day the metal phone lines will get replaced. I live in the hope that this will happen in the next fortnight to the one coming to my house.