What would you do?

Hi all,

Apologies for starting another topic in a different area but i wanted the advice of any broadband user not just the entanet ones.

You'll see in these topics HERE and HERE that i've had a problem with large amounts of packetloss on my line.

Long story short, i've had 2 engineers out and they have found nothing, when the second one came i even showed him the packetloss as it was happening... nothing could be done nor was a fault found. I am now at the stage where BT are not helpful in the slightest and Enta say i should purchase a new router....

I've provided endless WinMTR test results indicating packetloss on every hop.
I've had 2 engineers out and i'll possibly have to pay for £166 for one.
I've bought a new microfilter
I have 2 routers in the house which work (DG834g and a DG834) problem happens with both.

Now the real question is.

Do I....

1. Buy a new router (thinking DG834GT) and take my chances with Entanet if the problem still persists.

2. Borrow a friends router and test it that way.

3. Give 2 fingers to entanet and switch to BT therefore removing middleman and getting a new router in the process. BUT I lose the refund that was talked about when the problem was found to be their side.

What would you do?

Thanks a lot for reading and i would be grateful of any advice you'd want to give!

I would do a BER test and look at ATM cell loss stats for the modem / router. The problem may not be on your line but elsewhere.

The BT Voyager routers do a BER test and are cheap on Ebay, no need to unlock just test the DSL link without a PPP session.

1. Switching to BT does not remove the middlemen, in fact it makes things like this worse, why? BT Total still has to talk to the same people at BT Wholesale, and BT Total support is generally less tech savvy than Entanet resellers.

One interesting oddity I've seen is that when you changed your wiring around you got a sync under 8128Kbps, which is surprising for a 10dB attenuation line

Have you ran the ADSL without a phone in the microfilter using the test socket for 48 hours and seen if the packet loss has improved? If so then it may point to a noise source locally.

Basically its persist with Entanet, has a lift and shift being done? If so then changing ISP probably will not help either.

I don't understand whats going on with the test socket, when i remove the faceplate and use it the connection seems even worse, i'm not sure if its down to lower noise margin on the downstream (drops to 6 - 8) in the test socket.

I'm not sure if i will be able to do that test MrSaffron due to that fact the phones will be down and i'm not the only person living here.

I blew my top at entanet and they gave me a new account other than my ads24 one to connect to and the packetloss persisted which apparently ruled entanet out as the cause.

BER Test? Not sure what that is I found a neat little program called routerstats which monitors all the statistics from my router. One thing i have noticed when the packetloss starts the ATM errors on the Rx line (downstream?) go crazy like 1 or 2 errors a second... the number just spirals then when the packetloss goes this number doesn't budge at all.

Will my router be at fault? The only thing i've not changed is the cable from the microfilter into the back of the router.

Thank you very much for the replies, but its hard for an end user to force a company to actually solve these issues.

BER test = Bit Error Rate test - runs for say 20 seconds and measures error rate on ADSL line. Voyager 210 or similar router will do it. Tells you if its the ADSL at fault, or higher up.

BER test = Bit Error Rate test - runs for say 20 seconds and measures error rate on ADSL line. Voyager 210 or similar router will do it. Tells you if its the ADSL at fault, or higher up.

Problem is its not on all the time, the packetloss comes in huge waves and its totally random. BT engineer was here and i showed him the packetloss as it was happening on WinMTR but the guy was like 'not my problem mate' etc etc

Without buying one of these routers is there any chance i could actually run it on pc? downloadable?


I did what you suggested MrSaffron and i've unplugged the phones and the only thing that is connected is the router via microfilter in the bt test socket behind the master socket. Packetloss is still ongoing though

Edited by jinx187 (Fri 21-Aug-09 21:25:44)

its a low level thing in the router so no you can't download it to run on a PC, unless you download a different firmware for your router that does it.

The packet loss may be nothing to do with the line, the first TCP/IP hop after your router is I think at the ISP.

If there are ATM errors then its the line, the BER test would show if its the ADSL signal or something above that causing it.

[ATM Stats]
[Upstream/TX]
Good Cell Cnt: 52477
Idle Cell Cnt: 1378073

Tx Packets Dropped Count: 0
Tx Bad Packets Count: 345

[Downstream/RX)]
Good Cell Cnt: 126457
Idle Cell Cnt: 25827652
Bad Hec Cell Cnt: 0
Overflow Dropped Cell Cnt: 0
Rx Packets Dropped Count: 0
Rx Bad Packets Count: 0



[SAR AAL5 Stats]
Tx PDU's: 2762180
Rx PDU's: 2442711
Tx Total Bytes: 284266916
Rx Total Bytes: 953058635
Tx Total Error Counts: 0
Rx Total Error Counts: 11035

Like i said iys fine for hours then it goes mental. And the Rx errors go up at 60+ a min

Edited by jinx187 (Fri 21-Aug-09 21:41:29)

In reply to a post by jinx187:

1. Buy a new router (thinking DG834GT) and take my chances with Entanet if the problem still persists.

2. Borrow a friends router and test it that way.

3. Give 2 fingers to entanet and switch to BT therefore removing middleman and getting a new router in the process. BUT I lose the refund that was talked about when the problem was found to be their side.

What would you do?

2. You have too much Netgear in what you have tried and are thinking of, so borrow a non Netgear.

I have not followed too closely, just scanned. Have you ruled out wireless as the cause of packet loss?

Finally, your problem could be too good a signal.