HELP !

Hi,

Desperately need help and IDNET & BT don't seem interested.

Short preamble/history:

Came back from holiday last thursday to find router synched at less than 2000kbps when it had been constant at about 4000kbs down (ish) for months on adsl2+

Spoke to IDNET who requested a BT Speedtest which I gave them. They spoke to BT who subsequently (on Friday) reset the line causing sync to return to about 4000kbps.

Major Problem:

Came to work on Tuesday after long weekend to find router sync at about 2000kbps again and internet unusable as effective downstream speed seemed to have reduced to virtually nil, although upload seemingly unaffected.

Spoke to IDNET who couldn't see a problem and suggested we swap the router. Fortunately we have second one (a dg834gv5 which is poo - another story). This made no difference. IDNET refererred the problem to BT.

At about 4pm that afternoon the speed returned to normal ie 4000kbps sync and decent throughput.

Came in following morning (wed) to find identical problem - 2000Kbps sync and almost no download throughput. Spoke to IDNET again who said BT had responded within their 20 hour SLA by requesting a speedtest..!
Told IDNET this was nearly impossible due to unusable connection, however managed after a lot of messing to get a partial speedtest report whic indicated a d/l speed of 33Kbps. This went back to BT who 'tested' and found no problems.

at about 4pm(ish) the speed returned to normal, again...

IDNET suggest all I can do is take a punt on a BT engineer. I'm a bit skeptical about them not finding anything and charging us for it though.

Thursday morning - exactly the same thing. Route had been connected at about 3900Kbps until sometime in the early hours when it dropped and reconnected at 2000Kbps(ish) with no effective download speed.

Any ideas folks?

NB:
I'm connected directly to the test socket.
I've swapped the router
I've checked with only 1 PC hard connected to the router (ie no other PCs doing anything untoward
My IDNET usage report shows massive drop for last few days so no untoward processes hogging bandwidth.

Stats: (best I can manage from a dg834

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 1863 kbps 1103 kbps
Line Attenuation 50.0 db 27.0 db
Noise Margin 6.90 db 5.5 db


[UPDATE:
Rebooted router at about 2.30pm and speed has increased enough to use internet with dollop of patience.
Rebooted at about 3.40pm and downlaod speed almost normal..

- What can be happening (overnight?) that is effectively stopping all downloads, but then slowly returns to normal during the afternoon?
- Feels as if I am being throttled to zero during business hours..?

/UPDATE]


Cheers in advance,

Danny


[edited numbers for accuracy]

Edited by deleted (Fri 02-Sep-11 15:47:06)

If you're resyncing, then noise is probably the culprit - something to do with your equipment, the line or the exchange. What profile do you get from a BT test when the sync is down to 2M? Is the router protected by a UPS, have you tried running Routerstats to see what is happening and how regular the timing is?

Just d/l and configured Routerstats.

See what comes up over the weekend...

BT Speedtest gave IP Profile as 1611Kbps when sync at 2000Kbps. Download speed achived was 33Kbps

Doubt router is to blame as we've tried 2 different ones (dg834gv3 and dg834gv5) both have same problems.

The v3 is a bit long in the tooth for ADSL2+. I've had a similar problem, where the line would drop from 4M to 2M for no apparent reason, but in my case it lasted for a week or two at a time, then just went back to normal. I'm convinced it was external noise and, as BT were working in the area, I suspect they tripped over something. Your pattern, though, is repetitive and suggests some kind of cyclical noise. If you're satisfied that it's not your equipment, then really you have to take the risk on an engineer. That said, 33k d/l throughput is highly unlikely to be caused by BT congestion or profile, so I'd do a bit more digging myself before requesting the engineer.

Our connection was fine over the weekend (NB outside of normal business hours) and then, surprise surprise, slowed to near zero first thing on Monday morning (no disconnects during the previous night though - presumably as we're using a more stable dg834v5 at the moment).

I strongly believe that something is causing us to be effectively throttled down during core business hours (ie Mon-Fri early AM to mid PM), although presumably BT ought to have spotted this by now if it was the case.

We are reluctantly getting a BT engineer out though I have little faith in their abilities and fully expect to still have a problem and be £95 poorer afterwards.

What this has taught me is that IDNET support (or at least one particular member of their staff) really don't seem interested/bothered. I don't expect them to magically be able to fix every problem, but I DO expect them to at least sound like they give a ****.

From your description it is highly likely that you have a source of interference in a business close to yours. Something electrical that gets switched on every morning and doesn't get used at the weekend.

Have you a delivery depot etc close by.
What starts at the time your connection drops speed?

Even listening audibly may give you a hint as you may hear something starting up. Could be a central heating boiler/pump, but is a bit early in the year unless someone has got it to switch on from 1st Sep!

Could be something new or something that has started to go faulty and is now interacting with your line.

Best of luck finding it.

I can see that noise etc could be detrimentally affecting our sync speed.

Surely though we should be getting a level of download speed appropriate for that sync speed?

We are getting nowhere near the download expected for a sync of 2Mbps (at least not before about 4pm anyway)

In my paranoia, I am starting to wonder if somehow we are being throttled to nothing during business hours. A few months ago we downgraded from an overly expensive business service with SLA to a 'normal' service (albeit way overpriced compared to my O2 connection at home)...

Post deleted by AlanIngus

Hi

I've checked your case and can see that we've booked an engineer for you for tomorrow. So long as the slowness is still apparaent when he visits then there should not be a risk of BT trying to charge you for the visit.
Simon

Thanks Simon. I got a slightly different opinion about the chances of being charged from one of your colleagues.

Hope you're right, fingers crossed.