Repeated sync drops over 3 months or more.

Hello there, I'll keep my introduction brief. I go by ferret141 (although someone has taken it on Twitter and Youtube ) . I'm technically minded so feel free to be as technical as you want with me. I usually work with computer hardware but networks aren't unfamiliar to me. That' me, I would appreciate some help in the matter and hope to return the favour. Here goes:

I am subscriber of BE*s Unlimited package for perhaps 5yrs. Never a problem; synced at 17~18Mbps, Very happy. Until the last two years. Where this eventually dropped to 16 then 15. With intermitent instability. This eventually became worse and in the last 3 months has become terrible.

My connection would drop several times during the day. Sometimes going through extended periods of resyncing. Last night alone I sat through an hour of the router trying to re-sync. I wouldn't be surprised if it continued on through the night. I've called BE who've gone through their protocol which did help for a short amount time:
-their usual tests
-quiet line test through test socket
-ran router on test socket for a couple of days
-change filters
-change ADSL cable

Things I've done to try and help:
#Before I had problems#
-Eliminated all additional extensions and wiring
-Part of that was unwiring the extensions from the back of the master socket's A & B terminals (Yes I know I'm not meant to touch them but this was done when I didn't have problems [few years back] and was generally trying to optimise my line. Plus how hard is it to remove and replace wires on the back of the faceplate without messing up. The BT engineer who eventually came didn't make any comment about my handywork).
#During problems#
-Began using a faceplate filter similar to the one on ADSLnation. I wouldn't be surprised if it came out of the same factory in China/Taiwan.
-Relocated router onto the wall beside master socket


One day my phone died with the router plugged in. Take router out, phone works. Tried several filters, same. BE sent me a new router, TG582n, and I sent back my 'faulty' TG585v7. Stabalised it but soon was dropping sync too.

Contacted BE again regarding this they then sent a BT engineer who couldn't find a problem. So he switched me onto another pair just incase and updated my NTE5 socket to a new Openreach one. Still had problems. contacted BE who thenput me 24hr monitoring, week long monitoring and testing with which they setteled on a 12dB SNR downstream. Helped, but that was also short lived.

I started to do some research and came across the "high resistance fault" which in my eyes seems to be very similar to what's going on with me. More so because some of the periods of re-syncing coincide with the weather. But before I started screaming [censored] Mary I figuered it would best if I asked around and tapped into some experienced minds.



P.S. I do apologise if this seems a little incoherent. I just woke up =/

P.P.S. I have a Netgear DG834G v4 at my disposal to carry out tests if need be. Although it's on loan to my crazy friend who's flashed it with DGTeam firmware in an attempt to get his line stable on 1~2dB SNR. I call him crazy because he does things like undertake DIY which he has confidence and knowledge in but no skill or experience. Like plastering over his brother-in-law's tv antenna feed, moving his master socket from his front door to his room upstairs i.e. pull it out, drill, re-pin it to the wall, cut it and re-wire. Plus other stuff which should have it's own thread.

P.P.P.S. I've got Routerstats logging my connection today, Funnily enough now that I have it logging there's been no re-syncs. Although there are spikes of 100dB on my upstream SNR coinciding with the phone being in use.

Edited by deleted (Sun 08-Jan-12 22:37:27)

Post your Netgear DG834G Stats or run this link: http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bi...

could be a fault on the line or faulty filter or faulty router.

also try all or either of the following; they may help:

1. change the pppoa connection type (pppoa, vc-mux) to pppoe and llc. it does help in my case, even though it's the 'wrong' settings (i'm using a broadcom chipset based router, too).
2. check password.
3. try and get a router that has a broadcom chipset (tp-link 8960 or billion 7800). they seem to work better with adsl2+, for some reason. dunno what kind of chipset your netgear has.

Edited by deleted (Sun 08-Jan-12 16:22:27)

In reply to a post by ferret141:

Hello there, I'll keep my introduction brief. I go by ferret141 (although some [censored] has taken it on Twitter and Youtube > . I'm technically minded so feel free to be as technical as you want with me. I usually work with computer hardware but networks aren't unfamiliar to me. That' me, I would appreciate some help in the matter and hope to return the favour. Here goes:

I am subscriber of BE*s Unlimited package for perhaps 5yrs. Never a problem; synced at 17~18Mbps, Very happy. Until the last two years. Where this eventually dropped to 16 then 15. With intermitent instability. This eventually became worse and in the last 3 months has become terrible.

My connection would drop several times during the day. Sometimes going through extended periods of resyncing. Last night alone I sat through an hour of the router trying to re-sync. I wouldn't be surprised if it continued on through the night. I've called BE who've gone through their protocol which did help for a short amount time:
-their usual tests
-quiet line test through test socket
-ran router on test socket for a couple of days
-change filters
-change ADSL cable

Things I've done to try and help:
#Before I had problems#
-Eliminated all additional extensions and wiring
-Part of that was unwiring the extensions from the back of the master socket's A & B terminals (Yes I know I'm not meant to touch them but this was done when I didn't have problems [few years back] and was generally trying to optimise my line. Plus how hard is it to remove and replace wires on the back of the faceplate without messing up. The BT engineer who eventually came didn't make any comment about my handywork).
#During problems#
-Began using a faceplate filter similar to the one on ADSLnation. I wouldn't be surprised if it came out of the same factory in China/Taiwan.
-Relocated router onto the wall beside master socket


One day my phone died with the router plugged in. Take router out, phone works. Tried several filters, same. BE sent me a new router, TG582n, and I sent back my 'faulty' TG585v7. Stabalised it but soon was dropping sync too.

Contacted BE again regarding this they then sent a BT engineer who couldn't find a problem. So he switched me onto another pair just incase and updated my NTE5 socket to a new Openreach one. Still had problems. contacted BE who thenput me 24hr monitoring, week long monitoring and testing with which they setteled on a 12dB SNR downstream. Helped, but that was also short lived.

I started to do some research and came across the "high resistance fault" which in my eyes seems to be very similar to what's going on with me. More so because some of the periods of re-syncing coincide with the weather. But before I started screaming [censored] Mary I figuered it would best if I asked around and tapped into some experienced minds.



P.S. I do apologise if this seems a little incoherent. I just woke up =/

P.P.S. I have a Netgear DG834G v4 at my disposal to carry out tests if need be. Although it's on loan to my crazy friend who's flashed it with DGTeam firmware in an attempt to get his line stable on 1~2dB SNR. I call him crazy because he does things like undertake DIY which he has confidence and knowledge in but no skill or experience. Like plastering over his brother-in-law's tv antenna feed, moving his master socket from his front door to his room upstairs i.e. pull it out, drill, re-pin it to the wall, cut it and re-wire. Plus other stuff which should have it's own thread.

P.P.P.S. I've got Routerstats logging my connection today, Funnily enough now that I have it logging there's been no re-syncs. Although there are spikes of 100dB on my upstream SNR coinciding with the phone being in use.

If sync is being lost at a 12db margin then there is definitely a fault, if you have changed routers,filters, and the adsl cable that connects to the router, then that rules out adsl equipment your end, Your phone is it a corded one?
Best thing to do is if you able to do would be to preform a quiet line test immediately after the router looses sync if you can hear noise crackling hissing wiring ect then the fault is 90% a voice fault,
I would also keep doing quiet tests randomly to see if noise can be heard, if you are able to establish noise on the line, then that's some evidence of a HR fault,

But to rule out the ADSL side of things if this noise can also be heard with the ADSL disconnected then report it as a voice fault to you telephony provider.

Do you know which part of the pair the Bt openreach engineer swaped,( D' side or E' side ) or both?

Then there is the Equipment at the exchange Line card. tie pair cables and even the Port on the Be dslam that could need changing , how long have you been trying to get this resolved with be support ?

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 08-Jan-12 17:26:43)

I'll be brief. It does read as if you do possibly have an HR fault.

I will suggest that you talk to Be support and ask if they could perform CIDT (Copper Integrated Demand Testing) [1][2] on your line.

[1] https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/updates/briefi...
[2] https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/updates/briefi...

In reply to a post by tommy45:

If sync is being lost at a 12db margin then there is definitely a fault, if you have changed routers,filters, and the adsl cable that connects to the router, then that rules out adsl equipment your end, Your phone is it a corded one?
Best thing to do is if you able to do would be to preform a quiet line test immediately after the router looses sync if you can hear noise crackling hissing wiring ect then the fault is 90% a voice fault,
I would also keep doing quiet tests randomly to see if noise can be heard, if you are able to establish noise on the line, then that's some evidence of a HR fault,

But to rule out the ADSL side of things if this noise can also be heard with the ADSL disconnected then report it as a voice fault to you telephony provider.

Do you know which part of the pair the Bt openreach engineer swaped,( D' side or E' side ) or both?

Then there is the Equipment at the exchange Line card. tie pair cables and even the Port on the Be dslam that could need changing , how long have you been trying to get this resolved with be support ?

I have a cordless phone however I have two corded phones that I use when carrying out the quiet line tests.

I'll be sure to carry random quiet line tests and after I lose sync.

In the words of the engineer "I've switched your lione from one pair to another".

I've been in "active" contact with BE for two months. This is due to the fact that I've been so busy with university work that I've put up with it. Also when I've called them the fault hasn't shown up on thier line tests so they up the SNR, stabalise it and I'm just happy I can continue working until it drops again. But of course I'm trying to get it completely fixed now.

I gave them a call after my opening post and they did detect a fault and have raised to Openreach for further testing.

Edited by deleted (Sun 08-Jan-12 20:54:34)

TBH the standard line test facility that most isp's use Via openreach very rarely will show a fault ,if indeed that is /was the only test available to BE, And from my experience of their 24hr line monitoring tests they did not show a disconnect that my router did so i think they are pretty much pointless maybe not for BE/ISP But are for the customer if they are not that reliable

But you could ring them and insist that they run this new testing CIDT or whatever it is called as it supposed to detect (90%) effective HR faults ,if that is the issue here, HR faults are usually the cause of ADSL drop outs,

It'll take a bit to wrestle out my mate. He's just gone and messed with his MTU and RWIN and is now running on a 0.7 SNR.

But in the mean time here's the stats collected from my TG582n:

Text

1 23 45 67 89 1011 1213 1415 1617

Uptime:                                         0 days, 6:37:28 DSL Type:                                        ITU-T G.992.5Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:                1.010 / 13.029 Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [GB/MB]:        3,99 / 51,72Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]:                    12,3 / 19,1 Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:                 15,1 / 27,0SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:                        10,1 / 12,0 System Vendor ID (Local/Remote):                 TMMB / ----Chipset Vendor ID (Local/Remote):                BDCM / BDCM Loss of Framing (Local/Remote):                   270 / 0Loss of Signal (Local/Remote):                    113 / 0 Loss of Power (Local/Remote):                       0 / 0Loss of Link (Remote):                                - Error Seconds (Local/Remote):                   3.905 / 610FEC Errors (Up/Down):                               0 / 52.211 CRC Errors (Up/Down):                             683 / 84HEC Errors (Up/Down):                             779 / 2.062

Then why introduce a red herring (amongst many)? Keep to the point!

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Then why introduce a red herring (amongst many)? Keep to the point!

Although I did say it was at my disposal I did mention it wasn't at my immediate disposal.

Nevertheless I do apologise if I wasn't clear in the beginning regarding the availabilty of my DG834

Contacted BE. Who raised it with Openreach who claimed to have fixed it. Problem reoccured.

Contacted BE again. Who found a fault again and raised it with Openreach. I'm now being moved to new equipment at the exchange.

I've tried pushing for a CIDT to be performed but they keep wanting to follow protocol.

FYI I've had a similar issue with my line and BE*. Your router stats are very simar to what I had with a TG585v7 i.e. hundreds of disconnects in a short time. Since switching to a TG582n I have not had a disconnect for a week so my issue seems to have been a faulty router. Interestingly I had a 'crackle' on the line when the ADSL disconnected when doing a quiet line test, I thought it was a line fault but turns out it was being generated by the router.

Hope your issues are sorted by being switched to new kit at the exchange.

New exchange equipment on my line has made my line stable. 3 day uptime since they installed it. I think there were fewer than 10 errors too.

But not all is well since they changed the equipment. It's given rise to a network problem. Every half hour or more all the computers (including wireless devices) can't see the internet anymore. Yet they can still access the router. Give it 30secs-1min and things are back to normal. I'll be making a new thread for this problem.