New user asking about Orange Broadband and Netgear Router

Right where to start.

I used to be a BT broadband customer, never had much trouble with the internet, when with BT, but costs where to high so I changed Broadband provider to Orange, as my Blackberry is orange and the package I have is cheaper than BT for the speeds I was receiving.

I have been a orange broadband customer for approx 8 months, at first I had no problems with my internet, but over the last few months( I have the Computer broadband from hell), I could pull my hair out and as you sometimes do, I have wanted to throw my computer out of the window.

My platform is XP, wired, I run AVG free internet virus software and have the usual gizmos to keep my computer running as smoothly as I can make it.

I have been in touch with orange as I was wondering if my router was faulty, ( I am quite new to all this tec stuff but I do try and understand it).

The problem being I was getting internet access at different speeds through the day, and my green lights where flashing as they should be then it started, I was getting online no probs, and then I could be searching on websites of doing my usual thing, I would then get periods of 2/5/10/15 minutes where the green lights on my router where solid, my computer freezes until I get the flashing green lights back, cannot even do a speestest to see that the problem is.
The speed test I have done through the last week, are not that bad

1801 Kbps 371 Kbps lowest
5137 Kbps 373 Kbps highest

After speaking to orange 2 /3 months ago, all they could suggest is that my firewall was the problem as my speeds where ok - I in my wisdom removed my firewall, tested still no difference removed antivirus soft wear still no difference.

It got so bad last week that I rang orange again and the have supplied my with a new router, I thought I had resolved the problem as day time speeds where not bad I had one or two slow times but I put that down to exchange use.

This evening however, from maybe 9pm till this post 2pm I have got periods of 20 mins that I have solid green lights, I can jump up and down move my mouse and my computer is still frozen until I get my green lights flashing again and hay presto I can work and do what I want and then it goes again.

I have done all the uninstalling of firefox and goole chrome, and I have clean out cookies and several other things including uninstall some software, none of this has mad any difference.

What I have been keeping a eye on is my Task manager, I am not sure how it really works but here goes.

On the networking Local area con I have Realtek RTL81 for operation- when there are solid green lights on my router I get in Local Area Connection 0% and a solid green line, when I have got green flashing light it goes up and down.

On the preformance table CPU usage I have even with solid green lights a graph showing red and green lines going up and own.

On the preformance Page file usage history I have a solid yellow line when I have solid green lights on my router, when I have flashing green lights this yellow line move up and down depend on usage.

I not sure what else I can say, it is a bit long winded, but I are doing my nut here.

Oh one other thing - II thought I might replace is my Ethernet cable as it is quite old as the one orange or BT supplied was not long enough. (is it worth a try) If so what is the best Ethernet cable to buy?

Can anyone HELP out there please thanks, I do not want orange going into my computer, as they always seem to muck up something else.

Edited by deleted (Thu 24-Nov-11 03:04:24)

Orange package is

speed upto 20mg
unlimited no extra cost for downloading
12 month contract

I am 2.24 kilometres from my exchange

Edited by deleted (Thu 24-Nov-11 02:56:22)

Which Netgear router?

By joining Orange you have effectively gone back to BT cuz BT Wholesale now supplies Orange's BB.

Since beginning Nov. we have been bugged by this issue: http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/freeserve/f/4065230... . It's been clear and rock solid for a week for me but others are still reporting it.

Perhaps your solid green Internet light is an indication of this, as you may remain synced but unauthenticated. Can you get into the Web interface of your router when this occurs? Does the Sync speed remain reasonable? What are your router stats? Is there any indications of "LCP Dpwn" in the log?

Nowt to do with Firewalls!

On another tack try killing your Browser and starting it again.

Which Netgear router is N150 Wirelkess ADSL2+Modem Router


Can you get into the Web interface of your router when this occurs? No I cannot get into anything screen freezes, and cannot use computer as that freezes as well until the flashing lights come back on.

On another tack try killing your Browser and starting it again.
Tried this in both Firefox and Chrome, have also turned of router and left it for 10/20 mins no difference have turned everything off, and reboot computer nothing still the same.

Thanks for replying

Can I cancel contract if I am not getting what they say?

Doubt it!

From what you say it now sounds like it's the PC not the BB. The solid greens could indicate that the router is not being asked to do anything by the PC. However doesn't the wireless flash at all? Mine does all the time, even when I have no wireless devices on.

Can't you even do CTRL-ALT-DEL when this happens?

In reply to a post by Felizdia:

Orange package is

speed upto 20mg
unlimited no extra cost for downloading
12 month contract

I am 2.24 kilometres from my exchange

Hi, My Orange WBC 20 Mbps connection was good until 04/11/2011, I then started to get intermittent connection dropping, when it first happened I could not believe it, I had such good stable service on Orange LLU and at first on the WBC 20 Mbps service.

I think BT is carrying out intensive work on their 21CN WBC networks and at times they unplug customers from one MSAN (Multi-service access Node) and overload another MSAN which causes all this instability until they rectify it by putting it all back to normal. Right now my connection is back to normal until the next time they work on the network.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSAN

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_21CN

My problems stemmed from about the same date and lasted till 18 Nov.

In reply to a post by E7er:

at times they unplug customers from one MSAN (Multi-service access Node) and overload another MSAN

I don't think my issue occurred at local exchange but at some remote authentication server, like that national incident in Oct due to a fire in Brum. Did your logs show "LCP Down"? I remember, you had "The Broadband Link is Currently Not Available".

Edited by XRaySpeX (Thu 24-Nov-11 12:29:21)

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

My problems stemmed from about the same date and lasted till 18 Nov.

In reply to a post by E7er:

at times they unplug customers from one MSAN (Multi-service access Node) and overload another MSAN

I don't think my issue occurred at local exchange but at some remote authentication server, like that national incident in Oct due to a fire in Brum. Did your logs show "LCP Down"? I remember, you had "The Broadband Link is Currently Not Available".

Oh, so there was a fire in Brum in October, I did not know there was a fire in Brum that affected the telephone networks, which would explain my situation the reason for all this disruption and unstable broadband service.

When my connection fails on my 2Wire 2700HGV router, the [Internet] connection neon goes from green to red, indicating the connection has dropped out and the [Broadband] sync green neon starts flashing, indicating it is trying to re-sync the lost connection. At present everything is back to normal and running just fine.

When my broadband failed I switched over to dial-up, I have just had my Orange phone bill, it cost me £2.50 for 30 minutes of dial-up.

3rd Oct. Sorry, it wasn't a fire but a "power issue": http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/general/f/4049660-b... . I got same "LCP Down" events.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

3rd Oct. Sorry, it wasn't a fire but a "power issue": http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/general/f/4049660-b... . I got same "LCP Down" events.

Maybe the cause is 21CN and is an ongoing situation�

In late 2009, British ISP Andrews & Arnold is still reporting severe issues with 21CN, citing multi-hour outages due to single points of failure, and opining that 21CN is still not "fit for purpose" due to this and numerous other problems.