Stable on PPPoE, unstable on PPPoA, what to do?

Hoping I can get some advice to solve this.

My only problem with this is that it seems to increase latency on Xbox Live.

As some of you may know I had my socket replaced with an NTE5 in August in the hope of getting a bit more speed/stability out of the line.

Openreach came, fitted the socket and tested the line (I was at work at the time but one of my folks were here and the engineer said the line was 'pure')

For the last 3 and a bit years I'd run a Netgear DG834G v4 running stock firmware on the line and a few weeks before the socket was replaced I'd replaced the microfilter with an ADSL Nation pro one and also one of their twisted pair RJ-11 leads.

All my PC kit (including the router PSU) is connected to a surge protector but the filter is directly connected to the phone socket.

After the Openreach visit I was getting over 3 meg which is better than anything I'd had before.

This was all fine until around February, I bought a couple of homeplug adapters to link my xbox to the 'net to do a bit of gaming (the router is in the hallway under the computer desk and the xbox is in the sitting room under my TV just above a freesat PVR)

connected the adapters and ethernet leads, tested the xbox connection and all worked ok.

I activated a gold subscription scratch card I'd had waiting and set about doing a bit of gaming as I'd boght Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12.

I'd also enabled cloud storage as we have a networked xbox at work which myself and colleagues often use on lunchbreaks as we bring our own games in.

Part way through a round one everning it dropped out and returned me to the title screen as connection had been lost with xbox live and also the server based storage.

I went to the PC and checked and found it had indeed resynched.

It was unfortunate but I thought 'oh well these things happen'

Tried again the following afternoon and it did it again, again it had resynched.

On the Monday rang Zen from work and told them what had happened, they ran some checks and said 'Since the beginning of February your connection has been reconnecting up to 10 times a day, can you try a different router?'

I have a BT 2700 HGV which I bought but I don't like using permanently as I know BT can and do update the software remotely.

I put it on the connection and left it for about 24 hours and then rang Zen who said they'd only seen one reconnection in the early hours of the morning.

Left it another couple of days and it had been constantly connected apart from when I'd put my original filter and cable back to test it which of course causes a reconnection.

Rang Zen and they confirmed it had been pretty much rock solid.

Decided to look for a new broadcom based router and found the Zoom Telephonics X7 which also had IPv6 support.

Ordered it and it arrived.

Connected it and the auto detection failed so ended up mainly configuring it but it took some persuading to connect at all, a few power cycles were required but it did eventually connect,

I left it alone and went and had my evening meal, came back a little later to use the PC and found browsing the web sluggish.

I checked the router and found lots of intrusion detection messages.

Switched it off for an hour and went to watch some TV then came back, switched it back on and found I could browse the web.

ran a Shields Up scan and found that while most ports were closed it was responding that they were closed whereas my previous Netgear didn't respond to probes at all.

I left it and came home the next night and again the web was unusable, checked again and found the router was being slammed by probes.

At this point I decided to send it back as could find no detail on stealthing the ports.

Went to PC World and picked up a DGN2200 v1.
Plugged it in and ran the autodetection and to my surprise it picked up the connection as PPPoE, I thought this was wrong so did a maanual config but it wouldn't connect as PPPoA.
I reset it and left it as PPPoE for a day or so but was told on this forum it would cause issues with speed.
After recongiguring it and a few power cycles it connected as PPPoA but then found it was losing PPP on a regular basis so went back to Zen although I knew there were some maintainence outages.
They suggested replacing the filter and RJ-11 cable before they would call Openreach because of the 240 quid charge if no fault was found.
Without touching the router's software I replaced the twisted pair cable and AN filter with the ones that came with the Netgear.
checked the router's interface and sync speed had dropped from 3904 to 3000 Kbps.
Ran a TBB test (I forgot to log in) and throughput was 120 Kbps.
tried a power cycle but that didn't work, it took a few attempts to run a BT speedtest but that confirmed that it was 120 Kbps and was showing as Red.
I thought I should try a factory reset just in case, did this and allowed it to detect as PPPoE, sync went back up to 3808 Kbps and throughput up to 3161 Kbps.

A ping or tracert shows that latency has increased to 19 or 20 ms (from 13 ms) and when I was watching a full screen video on XBL it was buffering which it didn't do before but the connection has been solid for the past 2.5 days.

Apologies for the long post but wanted to give you a full history.

I think there's something not quite right here but if BT come out I know they'll say there's no fault and slap me with a 240 quid charge.

Is there something I need to report to Zen or ask them to do.

I'd really like the lower latency back if I can.

Router stats are the key, rather than blindly trying various combinations, which your post gives the impression you are doing.

XBox Live video, using what app? Live has lots of video on it, of widely varying bit rates, so some will be wanting closer to a 5 Meg connection.

The DGN2200 have you tried updating the firmware? Similar with the other routers, it can make a difference.

Thanks for your reply Andrew, as always it is appreciated.

I'll definitely try the routerstats but its just odd it seems to be steady on one and not the other?

The xbox video I was watching was not in an app as such, it was the video about the steering wheel.

Router is running the latest firmware for the European market, 1.0.0.36

SNR is bobbing between 6.2 and 7.4 and attenuation is steady at 63.0.

If I need to run a comparison under the two diffferent modes how long should it be run for to support a case that there's a BT problem?


I find it very annoying that I pay a decent ISP who in turn pay BT to provide this link and who no doubt have the diagnositc kit to check and fix this kind of stuff but I have to do the diagnostics for them and can be slapped with a 240 quid charge if the engineer that turns up is having a bad day/can't be bothered to do anything remotely like hard work.

If it's an issue with a choice of router and matching it with the exchange kit (the 2700 indicated it a TSTC chipset which I believe used to be Texas Instruments) is there a list of approved routers that BT have tested to work well with ADSL?

Edited by techguy (Sat 07-Apr-12 19:56:35)

Not odd at all,

Different chipsets perform differently on different lines.

Aha your 63dB line, i.e. could be 64dB or could be 85dB. At line lengths like this finding the best router is crucial, and calling out Openreach is not going to help, as 3 Meg is well above what they would expect anyway.

While matching manufacturer of chipset may help, its more of a case of finding what works best on your line, as the noise environment makes almost every line unique.

I've just tested what I've found to be in the past a latency sensitive game, Soul Calibur 4 and it played ok.

I have noticed that streaming from servers in the states causes buffering which is understandable due to submarine cables hence the rise of CDNs, I think the video I was watching was streaming from MS in the states and/or it was HD res as other apps such as iPlayer play ok.

Two things have happened since I last posted:

Sync has incrased to 3872 and I now have a red internet light on the router although connectivity and DNS resolution is ok.

I'm going to leave well alone I think and see what happens.

As soon as FTTP comes down in price I think I'll go for it though.

if the 2700 is hacked to take a non-BT password it is probably not going to auto-update either.

If it worked and gave you a stable connection that's the router for you. It also tells you what the attenuation is over 63.5 dB

To stop the 2700 autoupdating the DNS is given false IP addresses for the update servers, it's fairly well documented on the net.

I try and leave that one as a fall back.

I've set the router to ADSL rather than multimode and will see what happens with that.

It looks like BT's DLM has added interleaving, hopefully this will be removed if the line stabilises.

Managed to getthe router to work on PPPoA.

I've been thinking.

After having a discussion on another forum about powerline adapters producing shortwave interference, I started to wonder:

I ordered them in the early part of February and one was plugged into a power socket right next to the NTE5 and the problems started occurring in February.

I've now removed them and am returning them but am beginning to think after doing a bit of reading on the independent test reports on ofcom's site that it could have been those that caused the broadband issues.

Lots of unclear mis-information from both sides on the HomePlug units.

Some say they wipe out ADSL, but enough people using them to suggest not a major issue. Did you do any tests before coming to this conclusion?

Remember anything from your plasma tv or mobile phone charger can in theory cause ADSL interference , are you going to return them also?

My mobile phone charger is kept well away from my ADSL as is my LCD TV and the Samsung LED panel I use with my PC is on top of a desk along wih its PSU well away from the NTE5 and router which is under my desk.

I did not remove the adapters due to the ADSL issue but because of the discussion I had on another forum regarding shortwave interference along with things I had read about the potential for interference with aicraft systems, as quite a few of those come over here I'd rather not take the risk, whether the issue is proven or not and no I'm not from the tinfoil hat brigade that believes that mobiles and wi-fi are dangerous.

The inital information I received regarding frequent reauthentications starting in Februrary may well have been my router being on its way out but the addition of the adapters was the only change I had made to my setup since the Openreach engineer came last August.

I'll admit it maybe simply coincidence and that although I have been doing software technical support formally for nearly 10 years and support informally since I was a teenager that I do not understand the vagueries of ADSL.

I also don't work from home I can't really monitor the connection round the clock as it would appear some on here can which is why I have follwoed advice and changed the router and the equpment I have added in the first instance at least.

The questions I asked were not sarcastic in any way and I will not respond in such a way as you have, I have reiterated my earlier question regarding routerstats below

How many days of records would BT consider as evidence of a problem if it did indeed show erratic jumps in Noise Margin and dropouts? (attenuation was 60.5 on the old DG834G v4, 63 on this in PPPoE and 62 on ATM which it is now working on).

Again thank you for any helpful replies but if all you wish to offer is sarcasm, please don't waste either of our time.