What's wrong with SKY?

Every night this week I lose my internet connection around 8, 9 or 10pm. I open the router page (http://192.168.0.1/start.htm) and click on connection status and find that I am disconnected. When I click on connect, the negotiation box changes to LCP is coming up (or something like that) and mostly, that is as far as I get. Occasionally, it shows that I am then connected but there is no data transfer whatsoever. I would then click on the SKY Test button, and for some strange reason, that invariably changes the connection status from connected to disconnected (probably forcing the system to come clean and admit I have no internet connection). I do not believe that this situation is because of heavy traffic as it stays like this up till the time I go to bed ( 1 to 2 am)

This is most unsatisfactory. I've emailed this problem to Sky BB but have still to receive anything other than their automated reply.

If this happens every night, I will have to change ISPs.

its likely its your noise margin

Thanks for the reply batdog. I'll keep an eye on that tonight when they cut me off. At the moment it's 6.6 db for downstream and 12.5 db upstream.

What range should my noise levels be before my connection cuts out? And more importantly, what can I do about it? I guess when I get cut off, I'd need to plug the router into my main BT socket to see if I can get my connection back, no?

if the noise margin falls below 6 you will probably lose connection
the noise margin falls at night due to atmospheric conditions and electric lights and tvs being used
use the netgear hack or dmt to keep your noide margin above 6
if you set to to 10 now you shoulkd be fine at night

Batdog, this sounds very interesting, but I have no knowledge of this netgear hack. Please direct me to the right place. Will this also explain about how to keep my noise at 10?

http://dg834gt.mognuts.com/NetgearRouterUtility.html

try 10db snr and see how you go

It will ask you for router logins when you do and will then resync it usually goes 1db higher than you req then see what it is late at night

Thanks Technode_.

I've got the page up now and I'm not too sure what to do.

Do I just reset the noise margin (currently 7) to 10? What is this 10db snr you refer to please?

yes set the target noise margin to 10
this is also called snr its the same thing

OK.
Done that.

Whoppee!!. My noise level is now 11.2 db and 12 db

Thanks guys. I'd never manage it without your help. I hope my connection stays up tonight. It's far better to post my problems here than approaching SKY.

11.2db here now too... stable as anything and still synced at max speed.

Now wondering what kinda speeds Id Gte on ADSL2+ !! 22mb/s would be sweet