problem uploading

I have been having severe problems with my broadband service for the last couple of months. I am with talk talk, I have found that sites often take ages to download, or fail to download at all. The talktalk help centre have not surprisingly been ofn any help!

It wasn't until today that I realized that when I do a speed test on - www.speedtest.net - that my download speed seems to be quite good, but the upload doesn't seem to show any result.

Does anyone have any idea how I can solve this problem?

Thanks!

In reply to:

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I have been having severe problems with my broadband service for the last couple of months. I am with talk talk

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What does the speedtester here or http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/ do ? Firewalls can block one direction of a speed test and not the other - are you using one ?

Can you access the upstream and downstream modem speeds, attenuation and SNR margin and post them, usually under "ADSL status" or similar on the router web pages.

Also a visit to http://www.speedguide.net/analyzer.php? to check your MTU and RWIN values might show something up.

Check the MTU setting on your PC and router. Normal UK ADSL uses (I think.....) an MTU of 1458. Some connections (like BeThere.co.uk) use 1500.

http://www.dslreports.com/drtcp

Edited by smaugy (Wed 26-Dec-07 10:52:04)

Thanks Yarwell for your reply. I'm not at home at the moment, but I'll let you know the results of those speed tests when I get back.

(Can you access the upstream and downstream modem speeds, attenuation and SNR margin and post them, usually under "ADSL status" or similar on the router web pages.)

I'm afraid I'm not that computer litterate, so I'm not too sure what any of that means! Is it possible to explain it to me in layman's terms please?!

In reply to:

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Normal UK ADSL uses (I think.....) an MTU of 1458.

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BT Wholesale support the ethernet standard 1500 MTU.

what do you connect with (hardware)

I forgot to reply about the firewall. I've tried turning off the windows firewall, but that made no difference. I don't know if the router has a firewall, but I've tried my broadband with my other router, and had the same problem. Is it possible I have another firewall somewhere, and if so, how do I find this out?

Thanks.

TT recommends a MTU setting of 1432 but in some cases it should be set to 1400. Specific checking as described on the www.kitz.co.uk website is best.

Ok, I'm home now, and I've just ran a test on both http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk and www.speedtest.net, and the download speed was 5477kbps and 7019 respectively. On http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk it says "preparing upload test", but that's as far as it gets. On www.speedtest.net it says "testing upload", but again, it doesn't get any further.

Regarding hardware, both my friend and I use an Acer laptop, which is connected wirelessly to a BT Voyager 2200 router. The problem doesn't correct itself if we use the router provided by talktalk. Furthermore, my router and laptop works fine at my friend's house who also has the same talktalk deal, although in a different area. I've tried changing my MTU value on the router to many different value, as advised by the talktalk advisors, but to no avail.

Therefore, do people think that the problem lies with the talktalk broadband, and therefore there is nothing we can do about it, (other than change service provider) or is it more likely there's something we can do our end to make it work again?

Thanks for your advice.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html - try both port options. Talk Talk might be throttling your upload or may have a congestion problem. Anyone running P2P apps or Skype at your end ? any software firewall ?

Hi Phil, thanks a lot for finding the time to help with my problem this boxing day!

When you say both port options, does that mean both laptops? In which case we've now done that, and it's come up the same results.

Neither of us use p2p programmes, and even though we both have skype on our computer, this program is not open on either computer.

If the reason is due to Talk Talk throttling our uploads or due to a congestion problem, do you know what, if anything, we can do about it?

Thanks.

Edited by neilsolaris (Wed 26-Dec-07 16:48:56)

I've just phoned yes another talktalk advisor from India, and he tried to claim, after doing a speed test, that an upload value of zero is quite normal. Am I correct in saying that this is complete rubbish?! Thanks again for any replies.

It's rubbish, but perhaps you would do better not to rely on the trickery of testers, but instead try uploading a file, maybe to PhotoBucket. That will give you a far more accurate result.

It is impossible to say what the reason for your problem is until you do the tests you have been asked to provide. You should have posted your stats (line rate, attenuation and s/n margin).

(It is impossible to say what the reason for your problem is until you do the tests you have been asked to provide. You should have posted your stats (line rate, attenuation and s/n margin))

I'll try my hardest to find out this infomation - the only thing standing in my way is my lack of computer knowledge! Does this information relate to my router, and can I find it out by looking at the router settings?

Thanks for your help.

the thinkbroadband speed tester has tick box options for what port it uses for the test - port 80 and something else (from memory). Try both and see if they are the same.

Skype may install itself as a service and not need to be "open" to consume bandwidth.

Put 'cmd' in the Run box of Start
type 'netstat' at the C:/> prompt

this shows up connections to the outside world. If you do it with the browser etc closed there shouldn't be many connections.

see http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.htm#anchor11 for how to find stats - as said earlier it'll be on router status / ADSL or similar page

Ok, I think I may have got the results of the tests - let me know if I have got the wrong ones and I'll try again.

Line Rate - 8127kbps downstream, 444 kbps upstream

Line attentuation - 24.5dB downstream, 10.5dB upstream

Noise margin - 18.9dB downstream, 26.8dB upstream

I've typed netstat into the command box, and it's come up with the following result

TCP acer-c6bac00326:12192 voyager.home.5431 TIME WAIT

TCP acer-c6bac00326:41148 voyager.home.5431 TIME WAIT

I can't say I understand any of that, but I'm guessing it is to do with my router? Should it not be there?

I have just attempted to do a think broadband speed test, with both boxes ticked, and it hasn't been succesful. Here is what it came up with.

Downloading 131070 bytes (0.12 MB) of data...
Uploading 131070 bytes (0.12 MB) of data...
** An error has occurred while testing **
A connection error occurred while testing. Please try again later.

Speed test stopped.

I'll try later as suggested, although I suspect maybe the error is connected to the problem I'm having.

that's good, Talk Talk LLU with plenty of spare SNR margin.

When you say "that's good", do you mean it's good because that is not the cause of the connection problem?

port 5431 is used by something called uPnP which allows your PC to open ports on the router. You could disable uPnP on the router as an experiment but I doubt it is causing the problem.

there is nothing to suggest the line statistics are a problem in any way.

Thanks Phil for looking into it.

Does that suggest then that my connection problem is due to the broadband provided by talk talk, and not to do with my computer/router/setup?

Thanks.

we haven't identified anything at your end as yet.

Not sure if you have a software firewall ?

I have a windows firewall, and my operating system is windows xp. I've tried disabling this firewall to see if it makes any difference, but it didn't.

I reinstalled my computer since the problems started (thinking that the problems might be due to a virus or something), and I haven't knowingly installed any firewall since. Therefore I don't think I have any other firewalls, but is there a way I can check just to be absolutely sure?

Thanks.

if you haven't installed anything line an "Internet security suite" or a specific firewall you are probably without an outbound firewall that might cause the problem.

2 years ago I had an upload race with a T-T user, they could never upload a 4M file without it failing (timeout).

Try the Talk-Talk forum, someone may notice it and take an interest.

The next thing I'd recommend for the OP is to alter the connection mode from ADSL2+ to g.dmt. This is done on the MT882 service pages. Also you can try disabling upstream bit swap.

Thanks Etee for your suggestion. I'm going to try to find out how to do that today!

In order to change the connection mode, do I need to go into the router settings (192.168.1.1)? I have a bt voyager 2110 router, so if anyone here is able to instruct me on how to change from ADSL2+ to g.dmt I'd be very grateful.

Thanks.

Just to say, I've managed to change the line mode on my router now, although it hasn't solved the problem - thanks for suggesting it though, as least we/ve elliminated that possibility!

I'm now waiting for talk talk to complete the line test, I'm just hoping it comes up with a fault.