"Limited or no connectivity" Part 2

Old thread locked so started a new one...

Well, the firmware on the router was old (version 1.something) so we've just followed Peter's advice and upgraded to 3.01.25. So far things seem to be good in that there are no drop outs so far. Sometimes she has managed to go far half a day without any dropouts before the upgrade so it may be a bit early to celebrate.

She has definately been upgraded to something. Here are the stats:

Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8128 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 27 db 8.5 db
Noise Margin 6 db 22 db

We'll see how things pan out over the next couple of days. Thanks for helpful suggestions, in particular from Peter.

diggydog

In reply to:

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Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8128 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 27 db 8.5 db
Noise Margin 6 db 22 db

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Those stats say DSLMax not LLU, I think.

Make sure power management is not turned on for the network adaptor and also to make sure that idle time-out is also set correctly in the router/modem. Ask you mom to send you a remote desktop invitation using Windows/MSN messenger or by going to start > programs > Remote assistance and inputting your email in to it. You can then log remotely into her PC and tweak the settings as needed remotely, I do this for my family and it does help make it easier for them to get some level of support.

Having had figures like that myself and having a difficult time holding up a connection over the last few months I am wondering about the 6db noise margin as my router was giving similar figures to yours and my trouble was it was not taking much interference to drop that 6db so much that the connection dropped although the router made a spirited attempt to hold a connection at 1db and that was happening at all hours of the day and if I had a connection for more than 20 minutes I considered myself lucky,and if there was anything I needed to do I used to have to watch what the noise margin was doing,and for example post or recieve emails when there was an upward trend :-) .So what I did to cure my problem was ask Plusnet to raise my noise margin level(SNR) you do lose a bit of speed as my router is now reporting

Downstream Rate :6368 Kbps
Upstream Rate : 832 Kbps
Downstream Margin : 13 db

but the important thing for me was reliability of the connection....... and since the threshold was raised nearly 2 weeks ago my connection has not dropped once.So although it may not suit your purposes it may be something to keep in mind as a possable last resort.

As an aside:and I know these things have a lot of variables to them so don't mean a lot...... I seem to be getting lightly better speeds than when I was syncing at 8128Kbps

here is my most recent(today) speed test result

01-10-2006 17:07:29 4430.5

and one from prior to my margin threshold being increased at a similar time of day(peak period)

12-09-2006 17:22:48 3934

So I did'nt lose quite as much as I thought I was going to and even have interleaving turned on.

But like I said my connection has not dropped since.So if things don't get sorted it maybe the answer to your problem.

Those stats say DSLMax not LLU, I think.

Isn't there such a thing as DSLMax with an LLU connection?

No. MaxDSL is the BT Product for rate adaptive up to 8Mbps ADSL service.

LLU which operates on ADSL (rather than ADSL2 or ADSL2+) also provides rate adaptive up to 8Mbps service but the upstream speed can go as high as ~600Kbps whereas MaxDSL is limited to ~449Kbps (unless you are on a Business product in which case it could be ~800Kbps).

Thanks, rsharma, I'll do that.

I think we'll see how it goes for a couple of days before changing anything else. If things are bad then we could try some of the other things. I might ask her to do a speed test to see how fast the connection is in the meantime.

Thanks again,

diggydog

These are my stats at the moment:

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 6784 kbps 448 kbps
Line Attenuation 44.0 db 23.5 db
Noise Margin 8.1 db 19.0 db



I get disconnections all the time, its driving me mad. Any suggestions?

FYI:

BT Max: upto 8Mbs downstream, up to 448Kbs upstream
BT Max Pro (original 20:1 contended product): up to 8Mbs downstream, up to 832Kbs upstream

LLU that PN use: Upto 8Mbs downstream, up to 800Kbs upstream
LLU ADSL2/2+ when available: LLU up to 24Mbs downstream, up to 800Kbs upstream

8192Kbs upstream, 448Kbs downstream means a very good BT Max connection.

Also the later firmware versions are better at holding sync when DS margin is very low and also are more accurate in showing line stats compared to previous ones.