DLM hates us, 62 down to 40 now, don't know what to do

When we first got FTTC we were getting 62mbps.
Then a week or so later, interleaving kicked in (we suspect) and it went down to about 54.

At this point we should have left heck alone, but no one likes seeing their speed drop by huge chunks so we start looking into trying to diagnose it. Starting with the obvious, reseat cables, restart the modem. Bad idea, DLM hates that, down to 52.

Since then we've had various things over the year or so we've had FTTC like a couple of times the power has tripped in the house, problems we could only troubleshoot via restarts etc. 51, 50, 49, 47....

Having reached 47 or so recently I thought well we have the HG612 modem with stats enabled (got it off eBay early on to save "risking" the hack of the BT provided one) I'll try to get some monitoring going on LAN2 so I can at least get some figures for someone to look at. Set static IP to 192.168.1.100 as suggested, attempt to contact 192.168.1.1, nada. Maybe it was preconfigured on a different subnet but with 256 subnets to choose from even if it's definitely on a class C subnet, I'll never find it.

"Try a 10+ second press of the reset button to reset the configuration"
*sigh* that was a stupid thing to do. It didn't help (could one of the BT updates have re-locked the modem?). Now the IP profile is 40mbps. Might as well have just got 40/10 instead of 80/20!!

I just daren't touch it any more. At this rate we'll be back to ADSL speeds. On a call to Plusnet they say they'll "reset the IP profile" but that doesn't appear to do anything. Once the DLM managed to actually increase it back by about 2mbps after a few weeks, but usually once it goes down it doesn't go back up again.
They can send an engineer out, but if the engineer doesn't find a fault they say we'll get stung for a call-out charge, which is expensive.

I have read about the trick of powering off for at least 30 minutes at a time to try and appease DLM's iron fist of doom, but just don't know if I dare touch it even while doing that any more.

Completely stumped. Any thoughts?

Leave the line alone! With the original supplied modem installed go to https://mega.co.nz/#F!LdJFDIJL!e_E1twsIg2kTet8mPjrb4w selected the B030SP08 directory and download the WebGui version to your PC.

From https://huaweihg612hacking.wordpress.com/ get the unlocking instructions for the HG612.

Reset the second modem to factory defaults.

Have a good read of the thread at: http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4398929-hua... It will give an insight into some issues I had.

Then with your PC and the previously hacked modem connected together, follow the instruction on how to load the firmware you have previously downloaded.

Check you can access the GUI and Telnet interfaces.

Once you are happy, power off the connected modem - do not disconnect the line for 10 to 20 seconds. And if you want the belt and braces approach, leave it off for 30 minutes.

Power up the new modem and let it fully boot, connect your router and wait a minute or two. Via te router, check you can access the modem GUI. Then connect the line and you should have access to the modem stats.

Thanks for the instructions, will take a look.

Currently the hacked modem is connected, but we believe BTagent was running on it and has updated and re-locked the modem. Don't know whether to just leave it untouched, find the original modem and unlock that one instead to keep line interruptions to a bare minimum...

Meanwhile we've been onto plusnet (well, my dad has while I've been researching online) and apparently:
- Our exchange is full. No one else can sign up to FTTC in town. That might affect overall speed since the exchange is at max capacity
- They're going to raise it as a fault and get the line reset at the exchange, apparently this won't involve an engineer visit to the house they'll just reset it there. We'll be told within a few days when they can do it.

Going to have to try and get some kind of stats running ASAP then when I get home, it seems to me that if they just go resetting it without fixing any potential line problems it'll drop back down again and they'll be more reluctant to come out a second time...

Edited by deleted (Wed 15-Jul-15 10:48:24)

the 30 min advise is to help prevent the DLM from taking action not to undo previous action.

The most likely reason for your speed drop is either crosstalk increase (so may not be DLM at all) or line instability in relation to errored seconds.

I seem to recall having the stats working when we first started out and seeing LOTS of errors and actually watching them constantly count up. Will obviously need to confirm!

That should be fine ... I can see why you are being cautious.

Just Power Off before you disconnect the line and wait 10-20 seconds. I believe by doing it that way the "Dying Gasp" message is sent and DLM will not react. There are some who don't believe the BT specs and claim it is false.

Give it the 30 minutes - just to be doubly cautious and ensure the modem is fully booted before connecting to the line.

If you can get to the GUI you can see the stats. If you install DSLStats you can leave it running to graph them too. Run them for a day and you may see specific bursts of noise which could be causing issues.

Once you have re-hacked it, and not connected to the phone line, you can disable the BT Agent if it is on. You need to make sure the hack you are applying is the one MHC links to. People sometimes think the SP10 is later, but it is 28SP10, whereas the correct one is 30SP08.

You can also reset the IP address of the modem to your router's subnet and a suitable number in the last position instead of the 100. The 100 I think was just to (hopefully) guarantee uniqueness.

I expect you know your router's LAN address. If that ends in 254 like mine, I suggest using 1 for the modem, and vice versa. Set the routers DHCP allocation range to exclude whatever you choose. Then connect modem LAN 2 to any spare Ethernet port on your router.

sadly the guy who did the new modded firmwares refused to disable btagent, apparently he had complaints the modded firmwares were not auto updating, I tried to explain those that use modded firmwares typically dont want them to auto update but he wouldnt have it.

So in telnet run these commands.

sh
killall -KILL start btagent

After these 2 commands btagent will remain down until a reboot of the hg612, but after a reboot they should be run again.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 15-Jul-15 13:39:57)

Thanks guys for the pointers, the original modem is now the interface enabled version, connected to the main network and can be contacted.

It's been up about 10 minutes and has already seen 452 CRC errors down / 0 up, 4 FEC errors down / 1 up, and 111 HEC errors down / 0 up. I don't know how bad that is, it sounds a lot for a few minutes BUT in the last few minutes while I've been typing this it's not counted any more errors. Anyway will see how it fares over time...

Just as a point of interest, could you post the stats from telnetting in, like these:-
Welcome Visiting Huawei Home Gateway
Copyright by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Login:admin
Password:
ATP>sh

BusyBox v1.9.1 (2014-01-21 16:44:38 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# xdslcmd info --show
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 2000
Last initialization procedure status:   0
Max:    Upstream rate = 13873 Kbps, Downstream rate = 56320 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 14040 Kbps, Downstream rate = 57676 Kbps
Bearer: 1, Upstream rate = 0 Kbps, Downstream rate = 0 Kbps
Link Power State:       L0
Mode:                   VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile:          Profile 17a
TPS-TC:                 PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis:                U:ON /D:ON
Line Status:            No Defect
Training Status:        Showtime
                Down            Up
SNR (dB):        6.1             6.1
Attn(dB):        19.8            0.0
Pwr(dBm):        13.5            7.4
                        VDSL2 framing
                        Bearer 0
MSGc:           -6              26
B:              243             237
M:              1               1
T:              0               61
R:              10              16
S:              0.1347          0.5391
L:              15084           3769
D:              8               1
I:              254             127
N:              254             254
Q:              8               0
V:              0               0
RxQueue:                45              0
TxQueue:                15              0
G.INP Framing:          18              0
G.INP lookback:         15              0
RRC bits:               0               24
                        Bearer 1
MSGc:           122             -6
B:              0               0
M:              2               0
T:              2               0
R:              16              0
S:              8.0000          0.0000
L:              32              0
D:              1               0
I:              32              0
N:              32              0
Q:              0               0
V:              0               0
RxQueue:                0               0
TxQueue:                0               0
G.INP Framing:          0               0
G.INP lookback:         0               0
RRC bits:               0               0
                        Counters
                        Bearer 0
OHF:            0               1650263
OHFErr:         0               0
RS:             401157968               1840428
RSCorr:         366             4
RSUnCorr:       0               0
                        Bearer 1
OHF:            844451          0
OHFErr:         0               0
RS:             6755112         0
RSCorr:         0               0
RSUnCorr:       0               0

                        Retransmit Counters
rtx_tx:         229794976               0
rtx_c:          1449            0
rtx_uc:         0               0

                        G.INP Counters
LEFTRS:         14              0
minEFTR:        57684           0
errFreeBits:    918990593               0

                        Bearer 0
HEC:            0               0
OCD:            0               0
LCD:            0               0
Total Cells:    1504421547              0
Data Cells:     2125205         0
Drop Cells:     0
Bit Errors:     0               0

                        Bearer 1
HEC:            0               0
OCD:            0               0
LCD:            0               0
Total Cells:    0               0
Data Cells:     0               0
Drop Cells:     0
Bit Errors:     0               0

ES:             0               3
SES:            0               0
UAS:            107             107
AS:             13564

                        Bearer 0
INP:            47.00           0.00
INPRein:        0.00            0.00
delay:          0               0
PER:            0.00            8.25
OR:             0.01            31.01
AgR:            57735.03        14071.36

                        Bearer 1
INP:            2.00            0.00
INPRein:        2.00            0.00
delay:          0               0
PER:            16.06           0.01
OR:             63.75           0.01
AgR:            63.75   0.01

Bitswap:        9859/9859               68/68

#

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

sh
killall -KILL start btagent

Funny you should say that. I have Dslstats configured to run those commands automatically after a resync, but the output is slightly concerning:

killall -KILL start btagent

killall: start: no process killed
killall: btagent: no process killed

To me, it looks like "start" is superfluous

Sure. I've also just set up mydslwebstats.co.uk (username: ulv42)

Here's the telnet output

Bear in mind only been up 40 minutes

Welcome Visiting Huawei Home Gateway
Copyright by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Login:admin
Password:
ATP>sh


BusyBox v1.9.1 (2013-06-01 18:30:08 CST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# xdslcmd info --show
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 9017 Kbps, Downstream rate = 43820 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 8894 Kbps, Downstream rate = 39192 Kbps

Link Power State: L0
Mode: VDSL2 Annex B
VDSL2 Profile: Profile 17a
TPS-TC: PTM Mode(0x0)
Trellis: U:ON /D:ON
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 6.1 6.3
Attn(dB): 19.6 0.0
Pwr(dBm): 12.4 6.9
VDSL2 framing
Bearer 0
MSGc: 18 29
B: 51 238
M: 1 1
T: 64 13
R: 12 16
S: 0.0422 0.8546
L: 12128 2387
D: 767 1
I: 64 255
N: 64 255
Counters
Bearer 0
OHF: 896250 175061
OHFErr: 4 1
RS: 229346615 2787285
RSCorr: 2891 297
RSUnCorr: 452 0

Bearer 0
HEC: 111 0
OCD: 7 0
LCD: 7 0
Total Cells: 183156038 0
Data Cells: 872245 0
Drop Cells: 0
Bit Errors: 0 0

ES: 1 1
SES: 0 0
UAS: 26 26
AS: 2431

Bearer 0
INP: 3.00 0.00
INPRein: 0.00 0.00
delay: 8 0
PER: 2.71 13.94
OR: 70.78 20.08
AgR: 39262.63 8914.08

Bitswap: 1630/1631 121/122

I wonder if the guy actually removed it. It used to be in the GUI, but I can't see it any more, and no trace in the config.

In any case, the worst that is likely to happen is losing the GUI, like many of us did a while back. The telnet access remained.And we can always reflash it, until the unlocked next one comes along.

Reflashing may not be a good idea though. The change may be useful.

Thanks for the confirmation and reassurance, it reconnected at 39 which will do Now logging at mydslwebstats as ulv42 and shall see how it goes. Now that we're no longer running blind I feel like we might get somewhere!

Right. No G.INP, some interleaving but not drastic, 8ms added to latency.

Interleaving at that level will have dropped your connection speed by 8-11Mbps. See mine, we happen to have the same attenuation.

Ended up leaving the agent alone whether it's running or not - the current firmware was dated from last year so not too worried that it's going to update any time soon.

Just spotted the very poor upstream.

Interesting, yeah I see with yours. It's close to what we had originally which was 62 (long time ago!) and has dropped to 40 over the course of a year - it ran at 50 for quite a while and then recently has deteriorated to 40.

Do you think this is fairly normal then? It was a bit of a concern with it going down so much recently. Perhaps the various restarts it's had have just brought it in line with reality, would love to be back in the 50s though.

Is it? I thought the upstream was doing ok, also has interleaving off

Glad to see you sorted out the modem firmware - was it that difficult?

If you want comments on stats or graphs, post the text here and host screen shots on photobucket (or similar) and you will get some feedback.

Not difficult at all. Was just fearful of the big scary DLM chopping another 5 off the speed But you're right, it wasn't a problem doing it properly.

The telnet output is pasted as a reply to RobertoS here http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4420540-dlm...
Screenshots of the graphs? Will obviously have to leave that one for a bit, only been up an hour so far.

Just mentioning your username on MyDslWebStats should be enough for folk to see your graphs.

Also mentioned elsewhere in the thread (is it best to start a new thread? I don't want to spam the forums) but username there is ulv42

Thanks!

yeah syntax might not be 100%, I just copied and pasted it in ages ago when someone supplied the command and it does work when btagent is running.

Oh yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, that should be enough for anyone to see your graphs

Yes it does. I'm unsure whether "start" is needed, maybe I'll test it one day

OK well it's nearly 24 hours anyway...

http://www.mydslwebstats.co.uk/Container.htm
User: ulv42

Based on a good read of kitz.co.uk's guides this actually looks like a pretty happy connection so far, assuming other days will look the same? Well under the threshold of 288 ES (or some say 144) required for 'green' status, good on the MTBE, no resyncs. Can't see why it's as low as it is with attenuation of 19.6 which judging by others should indeed have us at about 50 even with interleaving... and by my understanding, 60 or so if we didn't.

I'd have thought if it stays like this a while, DLM might raise the profile and heaven forbid maybe even get rid of the interleaving. Unless I'm completely missing the point. Which makes me wonder why it's been stuck in the 40s for so long, unless the other modem was faulty of course

Can you post the results of the following shell command please?

xdslcmd info --pbParams

no need to run that separately if DSL stats is running. It is already imported.

Yes it is low for the attenuation level - when considered alone. If there is a lot of noise - external, atmospheric and cross talk, then it will drop and that is almost certainly what has happened to yours.

My line is "quiet" and with 16.5 dB attenuation I am up at just over 77Mbps and at one time around around 78Mbps.

Sure can

# xdslcmd info --pbParams
xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Last initialization procedure status: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 8943 Kbps, Downstream rate = 43832 Kbps
Bearer: 0, Upstream rate = 8894 Kbps, Downstream rate = 39192 Kbps

Discovery Phase (Initial) Band Plan
US: (6,31) (882,1193) (1984,2770)
DS: (33,857) (1218,1959) (2795,4083)
Medley Phase (Final) Band Plan
US: (6,31) (882,1193) (1984,2770)
DS: (41,857) (1218,1959) (2795,4020)
VDSL Port Details Upstream Downstream
Attainable Net Data Rate: 8943 kbps 43832 kbps
Actual Aggregate Tx Power: 6.9 dBm 12.4 dBm
====================================================================================
VDSL Band Status U0 U1 U2 U3 U4 D1 D2 D3
Line Attenuation(dB): 1.4 28.6 44.4 N/A N/A 14.2 36.6 58.7
Signal Attenuation(dB): 1.4 28.4 44.3 N/A N/A 19.1 36.4 58.8
SNR Margin(dB): 6.0 6.2 6.4 N/A N/A 6.2 6.1 6.1
TX Power(dBm): -3.6 -15.7 6.5 N/A N/A 8.8 7.5 6.4

Alright, thanks for looking.

I take it there isn't really anything we can do then, just hope it doesn't fall much further!

Your line confuses me.

Your Hlog is by all accounts, very good: it has very few gaps and the signal doesn't seem to attenuate very much.

Yet, you're getting a sync speed very close to me (23dB attenuation) but if you look at my Hlog (AlecR), you'll see it isn't good at all: I've got lots of tones missing.

So something is definitely going on on your line I would say. Have you tried the test socket?

Edited by deleted (Thu 16-Jul-15 18:04:41)

In reply to a post by Cloudane:

VDSL Band Status	 U0	 U1	 U2	 U3	 U4	 D1	 D2	 D3
  Line Attenuation(dB):	 1.4	 28.6	 44.4	  N/A	  N/A	 14.2	 36.6	 58.7	
Signal Attenuation(dB):	 1.4	 28.4	 44.3	  N/A	  N/A	 19.1	 36.4	 58.8	
	SNR Margin(dB):	 6.0	 6.2	 6.4	  N/A	  N/A	 6.2	 6.1	 6.1	
	TX Power(dBm):	-3.6	-15.7	 6.5	  N/A	  N/A	 8.8	 7.5	 6.4

Your attenuation is very high.

Compare to mine

VDSL Band Status	U0	U1	U2	U3	U4	D1	D2	D3
  Line Attenuation(dB):	2.2	11.9	18.5	N/A	N/A	6.7	15.8	26.3
Signal Attenuation(dB):	2.2	11.0	17.4	N/A	N/A	8.9	15.7	26.3
        SNR Margin(dB):	14.8	15.2	15.1	N/A	N/A	6.6	6.6	6.6
         TX Power(dBm):	-16.3	-31.3	-1.9	N/A	N/A	9.2	7.8	7.1

Edited by deleted (Thu 16-Jul-15 19:38:12)

Mine's even worse

VDSL Band Status U0 U1 U2 U3 U4 D1 D2 D3
Line Attenuation(dB): 9.0 42.6 66.1 N/A N/A 18.1 52.1 90.3
Signal Attenuation(dB): 9.0 42.4 N/A N/A N/A 28.2 51.8 N/A
SNR Margin(dB): 5.8 6.2 N/A N/A N/A 5.9 5.9 N/A
TX Power(dBm): 0.3 0.1 -4.5 N/A N/A 9.9 7.9 N/A

In reply to a post by arobertson545:

Your line confuses me.

Your Hlog is by all accounts, very good: it has very few gaps and the signal doesn't seem to attenuate very much.

Yet, you're getting a sync speed very close to me (23dB attenuation) but if you look at my Hlog (AlecR), you'll see it isn't good at all: I've got lots of tones missing.

So something is definitely going on on your line I would say. Have you tried the test socket?

You and me both

Haven't tried the test socket. I wasn't sure if that was a thing with the FTTC socket, will have to look into it but the modem is plugged into the master socket with not much coming off it

What would I be looking for? As obviously it won't be practical to leave it on the test socket while waiting a few weeks for DLM to do a thing (need the phone!)

you dont want to fiddle now.

Keep collecting the stats, the issue may be something that comes and goes infrequently.

If it remains green on the DLM hopefully within 2-3 weeks it will ease off.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by Cloudane:

VDSL Band Status	 U0	 U1	 U2	 U3	 U4	 D1	 D2	 D3
  Line Attenuation(dB):	 1.4	 28.6	 44.4	  N/A	  N/A	 14.2	 36.6	 58.7	
Signal Attenuation(dB):	 1.4	 28.4	 44.3	  N/A	  N/A	 19.1	 36.4	 58.8	
	SNR Margin(dB):	 6.0	 6.2	 6.4	  N/A	  N/A	 6.2	 6.1	 6.1	
	TX Power(dBm):	-3.6	-15.7	 6.5	  N/A	  N/A	 8.8	 7.5	 6.4

Your attenuation is very high.

Compare to mine

VDSL Band Status	U0	U1	U2	U3	U4	D1	D2	D3
  Line Attenuation(dB):	2.2	11.9	18.5	N/A	N/A	6.7	15.8	26.3
Signal Attenuation(dB):	2.2	11.0	17.4	N/A	N/A	8.9	15.7	26.3
        SNR Margin(dB):	14.8	15.2	15.1	N/A	N/A	6.6	6.6	6.6
         TX Power(dBm):	-16.3	-31.3	-1.9	N/A	N/A	9.2	7.8	7.1

Hmm it said 19.1 I think on the Web interface? Not sure what U0 U1 etc are.

I would forget DLM for the moment and concentrate on finding what is responsible for your high attenuation.

Can you describe how your phone line comes into the house - from a pole or underground, and what happens to it to get to the modem connection?

In reply to a post by Cloudane:

Hmm it said 19.1 I think on the Web interface? Not sure what U0 U1 etc are.

They are actually the 6 or 7 channels that your connection is divided into. Each channel has it's own attenuation and the 19.1 represents a calculated value based on the combination of the attenuation for all of the D1-D3 channels.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

I would forget DLM for the moment and concentrate on finding what is responsible for your high attenuation.

Can you describe how your phone line comes into the house - from a pole or underground, and what happens to it to get to the modem connection?

Not quite got the hang of the attenuation myself, the averaged figure I see is 19.6. Not sure how normal that is for the distance to cabinet - by road it's 385m if the cable takes a direct route. FWIW BT's checker for speed says:
FTTC Range A (Clean) 64.4 45.3 18.5 11.9 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 54.8 30.6 18 7.9 -- Available
(figures down high/low, up high/low)
Clearly the initial 62 was pretty lucky.

Phone line comes from a pole, goes down the wall (parallel to an old cable that was previously used for an extension but is disconnected at both ends. I did consider that if it was still connected at the master end it'd act like an antenna) then straight through the wall directly to a master socket. The modem is plugged into that using the cable it came with and is sat directly next to the socket.

I will say that the faceplate sticks out very slightly at the bottom due to a small tie wrap that was used but I took it off when it was first fitted and it didn't appear to be causing any seating problems.

Edited by deleted (Fri 17-Jul-15 21:30:28)