I appreciate you are asking John, but...

DGTeam provides firmware for your router not for computers

I'm as sure as I can be... every ISP I know of can fix your target SNRM to a specific value, normally multiples of 3db. Whether or not they will might be ISP-dependant .

(The only exception I know of is if you're on BT's ADSL2+, which uses BT's own latest Digital Line Management and that's the spawn of the devil . Best avoided on noisy lines, some ISPs can take it over from BT and turn it off.)

I appreciate that it's difficult to give a single "best" figure, but it sounds as though 12db would be OK. You may get periods of more frequent disconnections when the line is noisy, but this should be offset by higher speeds when it's quieter. If stability is the priority, try 15db.

See what your ISP says when you explicitly raise the matter, nothing to lose.

I've found the adjustments to be only approximations so trial and error is the best way.

But, basically, the percentage number (n) is (Desired SNR x 100) / DSLAM SNR

Assuming the DSLAM was set to 6 dB:

12 dB is (12 x 100) / 6 = 200

9 dB is (9 x 100) / 6 = 150

John.

Yes, b4dger, I appreciate what you're getting at, as regards DGTeam. Indeed, I've been turning the DGTeam possibility over in my mind in the meantime. I simply don't know enough about what's in the DGTeam firmware and how it enables you to change the access to, and the performance of, the 834 router. But I can appreciate that, if I were to download the DGTeam software from my current machine, ie. my Windows machine, and effect the firmware change straight away, I'd presumably then have no trouble when dispensing with my Windows machine and switching to a Mac. But what I don't know is whether I could then exploit any of those firmware improvements via the Mac. Presumably, I could, since the router is supposed to be essentially machine-independent? Does DGTeam subsequently involve a GUI of any sort (if you see what I mean), along the lines of DMT, or is it solely a router firmware mod? As an aside, I suspect that if you were a Mac user and you tried to download the DGTeam file, you'd find it to be a zip or some other filetype that Macs don't recognise.

Edited by deleted (Thu 22-Jul-10 11:29:58)

Thanks, John, those percentage examples are useful.

I note also that the table in the kitz article shows Change in TSNR, not absolute TSNR. So, presumably the result you get depends on the SNR from which you start.

I'm terribly busy right now with other things but give me some time - maybe 24 hrs - and I'll experiment with the telnet commands and these SNR values on my DG834 and report back here with the results.

Yes the router will still have a GUI with DGTeam. Lots of info on their official site: http://dgteam.ilbello.com/


As I mentioned earlier - I thought you could also save the SNR tweak using DMT which would mean you wouldn't need to run DMT on your MAC?

Just seen your response, b4dger, just as I was about to log off.

It's been quite some time since my line got corrupted and my router re-sync'd, so my memory's a little vague on this but I'm certain that my DG634v4, with unmodified firmware, does not retain the original SNR when it resyncs. (After all, this is why I have to keep using the TSNR slider facility in DMT). In DMT, other than pressing Apply/Resync when using the SNR slider to set the TSNR to what I had it at before, I was long ago advised by others on this forum not to press any of the other buttons on that tab. Those other buttons are not Save buttons, anyway.

Must dash. Will report back a day or two from now.

I use the DGTeam Firmware on my DG834GT and find it very good for tweaking the SNRM and because it is firmware, you access it the normal way through your browser, and once you have set it to the correct percentage it will remember it during resyncs, so should be okay to use with a MAC, As far as I can see the updates only come in zip format, but there must be something for the MAC that can cope with those.

Right folks, I'm back with some results from experimenting with the telnet 'configure snr' command on my Netgear DG834v4.

I'm pleased to report that it all seems to work quite well. But it's important to understand that the figures provided in that table at kitz.co.uk give you the change in TSNR with respect to 6dB (6dB being the BTw default line SNR). So, to apply the correct figures to change the line's SNR, you have to be careful if you're not starting from 6dB (as in my case).

Here's what happened:-

My starting point was my line SNR being at 12.9dB.

Using the value 50 and slightly misunderstanding the kitz table, I was expecting the line SNR to go down to about 9dB. But instead the SNR went down to 3.4dB.

I then used value 200 and the SNR went to 12.9dB.

I then used value 150 and it went to 10.0dB.

Next, I used value 150 again and it went to 9.9dB.

Next, I used value 200 and it went to 12.9dB.

Next, I used value 200 again and it went to 12.8dB.

I then used value 150 and it went to 10.2dB.

I then used value 200 and it went to 12.8dB.

I started to think that an SNR above 12.9dB would be impossible but I then tried value 250 and it went to 15.6dB. (It had dawned on me at that point that the change was with respect to 6dB. Errr, doh!). This is a bit higher than I really wanted it, so finally I tried an in-between value of 230 and it went to 14.9dB.

I left it at that. The final download sync speed was 3776K bps, the speed at which my line normally safely runs. Incidentally, over time, that 14.9dB figure tends to creep down a bit; that's why my starting SNR on this occasion was 12.9dB.

So, it appears that the DG834v4 will accept values of N that are other than in steps of 50. Looking up my notes on DMT, I found that the preferable TSNR slider setting that I normally use is 230%! Good confirmation, I guess, of the corresponding GUI interface of DMT and of commandline telnetting.

I've never used an Apple Mac before and it may be some weeks or months before I actually get one, but I gather that telnetting on the Mac can be accessed via Applications\Utilities\Terminal. You can then type telnet followed by the router's address in the usual way and then enter the username and password. This presumably then gets you to the BusyBox commandline. From there, I imagine that there should be no reason why my DG834v4 should respond any differently to when connected to my Windows machine.

Anyway, I'm indebted to all of you who responded to my enquiry. Please comment further, if you think there's anything else of relevance that I should know.

Afterthought: Had I looked back at John's contributions in this topic, I'd have realised that he had specifically pointed out that the change was with respect to the DSLAM's SNR, ie. with respect to 6dB. Anyway, I know now.

Edited by deleted (Fri 23-Jul-10 15:56:35)

Yes, you're right, Voyager, as something else I did was to download from one of the DGTeam mirror sites, just to see what the file format was. It was, as you say (and not unexpectedly) in zip format. I've no idea whether a Mac can handle zips; Macs use something like Stuffit, don't they? But possibly Apple has provided current Macs with a way of converting from zip to the Mac format.

Unless I want to take specific advantage of DGTeam from the point of view of simply improving the firmware of my DG834v4, it rather looks as though DGTeam won't be necessary to allow me to occasionally change the SNR. With what I've now fathomed, it seems I'll be able to do it quite quickly through standard telnetting.

Clearly, if I had an inclination to upgrade the firmware with DGTeam, it'd be better for me to do it now, on my Windows machine, rather than leaving it till later with the Mac.