Noob question alert..

Sorry, searching for what i wanted to know is difficult. About a squillion results turn up.. lol.

Changed to vivaciti surfwise and my BT2700HGV router shows these stats on the details page:

DSL Line (Wire Pair): Line 1 (inner pair)
Protocol: G.DMT2+ Annex A
Downstream Rate: 7980 kbps
Upstream Rate: 905 kbps
Channel: Interleaved
Current Noise Margin: 8.6 dB (Downstream) 11.6 dB (Upstream)
Current Attenuation: 38.3 dB (Downstream) 16.5 dB (Upstream)
Current Output Power: 20.6 dBm (Downstream) 12.6 dBm (Upstream)
DSLAM Vendor Information: Country: {0xB5} Vendor: {IFTN} Specific: {0xB971}
PVC Info: 0/38

From what I've been reading the att is high but the noise margin is low? What difference do they make.

Also on the stats page I get this:
Bytes Packets Errors
Transmit: 14747328 106478 1013
Receive: 133105589 130785 0

Isn;t that a lot of errors? And what might cause that?

I really apologise for asking silly questions. my forte is installing/fixing computers. I'm afraid I don't yet know much about networking etc.

1013 errors if that was in one second it would be a lot, but if over a 24 hour period then its not many.

The noise margin is sacrified to give you your downstream rate, i.e. the ISP sets a target figure of 6,9, 12 or 15 and then the modem negotiates a speed that gets the noise margin closest to this figure. So it all looks sensible, I presume you are thinking a low noise margin is bad, which is not really the case. You should only worry if it is the 8dB during daylight and drops to only 1 or 2dB when its dark.

Thanks for your reply MrSaffron. =)

Your attenuation not particularly high. Think more like 50+ dB. You are still in the range to exceed ADSL(1) speeds, even up to 10 Meg.

The section the OP is referring to is IP traffic errors and not DSL link errors though - so potentially not a DSL problem. The 2700 has a specific section showing DSL link errors.

DSL Link Errors

Collected for 47Days11:59:53
Since Current Current Time Since
Reset 24-hr int. 15-min int. Last Event
ATM
Last Event
Cell Header Errors 23024 34 0 0:17:55
Loss of cell Delineation 16147 3 0 0:47:30

DSL
Link Retrains: 4 0 0 46Days11:53:56
DSL Training Errors: 11 0 0 46Days11:53:40
Training Timeouts: 0 0 0 0:00:00
Loss of Framing Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
Loss of Signal Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
Loss of Power Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
Loss of Margin Failures: 0 0 0 0:00:00
Cum. Seconds w/Errors: 5638 21 0 0:17:55
Cum. Sec. w/Severe Errors: 308 0 0 22:33:41
Corrected Blocks: 5208695 9427 25 0:00:19
Uncorrectable Blocks: 23755 39 0 0:17:55
DSL Unavailable Seconds: 339 0 0 46Days11:53:21