How many 'line tests' to fix a problem?

Hi-yall.. First post, and it's a grumpy one

I've an ongoing fault (about 6weeks or so) with my ISP (Demon) where I get disconnected (loss of synch) at random, yet regular, intervals during peak hours (8pm onwards).

The sole activity on their part seems to be blaming BT for a 'disconnected leg' (by says it's all fine) and getting me to unplug various kit so they can perform a 'line test'. I've probably done half a dozen so far..

This doesn't appear to be fixing things.

In the meantime I've swapped cabling, routers, plugged into the test socket, disconnected the house wiring, updated firmware and burnt up lots of time on the phone to their support centre.

Perhaps it's something to do with them 'upgrading' me to ADSL 2+ (using C&W kit, apparently) things were rock solid before that.

Anyway, my question to the world - what do they actually do during a 'line test'? What will it tell them? How can they go on from here and fix things?

Cheers for any advice..

G

What router are you using? Can you copy the line stats from it and post them here. http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

John.

Tis a Zyxel P660HW-T1 (the black one) firmware 3.40

Synch at 7500/7600kbps d/s and 900ish up

Line stats:
noise margin downstream: 11 db
output power upstream: 19 db
attenuation downstream: 31 db

noise margin upstream: 8 db
output power downstream: 12 db
attenuation upstream: 21 db

These are pretty consistent.

Out of interest (and to disprove a point) I blagged a Netgear DG834v2 for a week, updated the firmware(v3.01.38) and got similar stats:
Attenuation: 32db
Noise Margin:13db

I'm back on the Zyxel now as it's got the wireless, and doesn't lock up like the netgear.. :-/

The Master socket is a recent openreach splitter type, the modem is plugged straight into it.

The operation of the voice line seems to have no bearing on the problem, unlike similar ADSL 2+ complaints on here.

When it works, I'm getting okay speeds for a Max service (about 5200 down) though I'm less than a mile from the exchange (straight line) so would have thought better was possible.

both the routers you have tried have the TI AR7 chipset I think, so I would try something else like a Speedtouch for a second opinion.

Easier said than done, i was lucky to borrow a second router, I doubt that I'd be able to find another type so easily.

I've had confirmation from both Demon, and Zyxel tech support that the chipset isn't an issue, though I don't trust demon as far as I can spit, and Zyxel are naturally going to assure me their product is good.

If demon eventually try to blame my hardware than they can supply an alternative - I think that is fair.

In reply to a post by gilesp:

I've had confirmation from both Demon, and Zyxel tech support that the chipset isn't an issue, though I don't trust demon as far as I can spit, and Zyxel are naturally going to assure me their product is good.

My brother's with Demon and he started getting no end of trouble when they recently switched to C&W. He ditched his AR7-based DG834Gv3 and tried a Broadcom-based DG834GT. He runs for days on end without a problem now.

I did a comparison of the DG834 range against the Thomson and the ZyXEL recently.. might be of interest.
http://vwlowen.co.uk/misc/routers/compare.htm

John.

I'm really reluctant to spend more money on hardware at this stage, as I'm sorely tempted to move to another ISP, which may well negate this whole problem.

The website was interesting reading, though personally I've found the 660 to be quite good at holding a connection prior to C&W messing things up.. Uptime over 600hrs at a stretch

I am impressed by your 'Routerstats' application though. I'm currently trying to coax it into working with my Zyxel..

plenty of B grade routers on sale and Ebay secondhand speedtouches etc. Try the Bulldog forum to see what's favourite there (C&W bought them out). When buying a "wires only" service one needs to be prepared to experiment with the equipment to get the best match or interoperability with the exchange equipment.

You probably won't have much luck with the ZyXEL and RouterStats but RouterStats-Lite may work - although that does have an issue with some ZyXELs giving an Out Of memory error after a few hours. It's something I do have a fix for but need someone with some time to test a few betas

John.