Beardedwonder,

I really suggest that you clean up the inside of that backplate and re-attach the central layer to the backplate before any further engineer visit. Apologies to you for the argument in this thread. Its probably something you've been told to do and if its questioned by any engineers that are despatched that'll have to be your excuse!

Are you doing this deliberately?

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/freeserve/t/4158336...

Clean up what?

The dust looks like the usual you get when fitting the socket to the wall. If it was insect and cobweb then I'd expect to see more on other flat surfaces, e.g. top of the gree section and the contact areas which look pretty good really.

I suggest a look inside some the external boxes when engineers have them open to see the amount of wildlife that makes home in them.

General advice is NOT to remove faceplate from wall to this extent due to the risk of being charged if you break something, but I have NEVER seen someone getting charged for having a dirty back box to the master socket. In the case of water ingress from damp possibly, but no sign of that in the socket.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Clean up what?

The dust looks like the usual you get when fitting the socket to the wall. If it was insect and cobweb then I'd expect to see more on other flat surfaces, e.g. top of the gree section and the contact areas which look pretty good really.

I suggest a look inside some the external boxes when engineers have them open to see the amount of wildlife that makes home in them.

General advice is NOT to remove faceplate from wall to this extent due to the risk of being charged if you break something, but I have NEVER seen someone getting charged for having a dirty back box to the master socket. In the case of water ingress from damp possibly, but no sign of that in the socket.

Agreed on the fact of removing the faceplate from the wall to this extent, as I have seen someone get charged. My point is that on first glance if there is dust there, then there is a way for more to get in i.e; some form of exposure to external elements.

Maybe I am being over-critical, I just wanted to save the OP from a potentially costly experience!

End user is allowed to remove the face plate which leaves a nice hole for the entry of dust, so dust presence is not defacto evidence of tampering.

If BT ever tried that, rather than people think they might, then I would ensure the issue was taken up with CEO

For all you know that dust is present from when socket was put on the wall, and having seen inside a few sockets in my lifetime that would be my conclusion.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

End user is allowed to remove the face plate which leaves a nice hole for the entry of dust, so dust presence is not defacto evidence of tampering.

If BT ever tried that, rather than people think they might, then I would ensure the issue was taken up with CEO

For all you know that dust is present from when socket was put on the wall, and having seen inside a few sockets in my lifetime that would be my conclusion.

Thats a fair enough point, I just have my own experiences in having worked for an ADSL provider previously...

In reply to a post by Kaytfoh:

...I just have my own experiences in having worked for an ADSL provider previously...

Phew! Thought I'd misidentified a NTE5 for a minute or two there

In reply to a post by 4M2:

In reply to a post by Kaytfoh:

...I just have my own experiences in having worked for an ADSL provider previously...

Phew! Thought I'd misidentified a NTE5 for a minute or two there

lol, to be fair my eyes shouldn't have been looking at the inner plate hanging down from a backplate like that, hence the confusion

In reply to a post by Kaytfoh:

In reply to a post by 4M2:

In reply to a post by Kaytfoh:

...I just have my own experiences in having worked for an ADSL provider previously...

Phew! Thought I'd misidentified a NTE5 for a minute or two there

lol, to be fair my eyes shouldn't have been looking at the inner plate hanging down from a backplate like that, hence the confusion

No problem - it's an old type, note the brass threaded holes that take the threaded screws for holding the faceplate in position. More modern NTE5's use self taping screws for attaching the faceplate. It can be a problem fitting filtered faceplates to old NTE5's with the supplied self taping screws or if one doesn't have threaded screws that are long enough.

Agreed the OP shouldn't really have tampered with the NTE5 but what's done is done

In reply to a post by 4M2:

In reply to a post by Kaytfoh:

In reply to a post by 4M2:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

Phew! Thought I'd misidentified a NTE5 for a minute or two there

lol, to be fair my eyes shouldn't have been looking at the inner plate hanging down from a backplate like that, hence the confusion

No problem - it's an old type, note the brass threaded holes that take the threaded screws for holding the faceplate in position. More modern NTE5's use self taping screws for attaching the faceplate. It can be a problem fitting filtered faceplates to old NTE5's with the supplied self taping screws or if one doesn't have threaded screws that are long enough.

Agreed the OP shouldn't really have tampered with the NTE5 but what's done is done

Even if that is a more modern socket than I first realised on a quick glimpse of it, there still is potential for that to be upgraded to an NTE5a or an SSFP which should offer better common mode noise protection than the old standard NTE5.