Have to keep re-booting router with new ISP

[stduc]

Since changing ISP I have to keep re-booting my router to stay connected. What seems to happen is that it will be stable after a re-boot for a day or so and then disconnect and auto reconnect increasingly frequently until eventually it fails to reconnect. I re-boot the router and it re-connects immediately and the cycle starts again.

My ISP has checked the line and found nothing wrong.

I thought - I'll post the router stats and see if anyone has any ideas.

Click on the thumbnails for a proper look.

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Just before re-booting, router is disconnected from ISP.

[url=http://img15.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=08442_rs2_122_248lo.jpg][/LINK]
Just after re-booting. Connected to ISP.

[url=http://img165.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=08447_rs3_122_41lo.jpg][/LINK]
Some time later - still connected to ISP

Note the change in noise margins and line attenuation. It seems that eventually the upstream noise margin degrades to 0dB and the router gives up! But why?

 

[Crowtalks]

I work for a Telco which is an ISP and your Telco is full of it.

Your router is having to renegotiate it's connection speed down to to stay connected until it finally has to reboot because it loses connection and then starts the whole process over again. The noise margin increase on download indicates either bandwidth interference at the download frequency (which has @500 mhz midrange), or a possible loose connection somewhere, or a wet cable pair, or ...

The trouble could conceivable be a fluorescent light (if your router is set near one), or a phone, so eliminate all the devices connected to your jacks inside and see if it stabilizes, if not it could conceivably be a station wire trouble, but not likely so if you have wire care warranty, keep bugging the crap out of them until they get tired of having to see all the repeat reports.

 

[Crowtalks]

I didn't pay attention to the upstream margin. I just saw the insane numbers on your downstream, which indicates it can't calculate the margin, but the 0 margin on upstream (@125 mhz, isn't good either. Are you using the same plant, same pairs, same phone #, etc?

 

[stduc]

Crowtalks

Sorry but I am having trouble following you. Specifically.

I work for a Telco which is an ISP and your Telco is full of it.

and your Telco is full of it??? You lost me - sorry.

if not it could conceivably be a station wire trouble,

station wire? again - you've lost me.



There are no fluorescent lights nearby. The phone socket at the wall has a micro filter plugged in and the router & one phone plugged into that. The phone is an NTL VS205. The phone is hands free and there is approx 1 metre between the router & the phone base station. I can't really unplug the phone for too long though. The degradation occurs over several hours or days - it varies.

The router, phone socket, wires etc and phone have not changed since I moved from one ISP & BT to a combined phone/ISP and went over to LLU.

What I do understand though is you are telling me to keep complaining until its fixed.

 

[Crowtalks]

If your Telco plant hasn't changed and you just swapped providers, then the Telco may not be the bad guy. Seventy five percent of the time, when I have investigated complaints of this type, it is a problem with the Telco plant, usually a telephone cable issue...this was the reason for the comment about the Telco being full of it because most repairmen will give the trouble a cursory look and a single reading and say, "it's not my problem".

Station wiring, or the wiring in the house could have been the culprit, but again, if there has been no changes in the house, no phone equipment added just before the trouble started, then the physical plant, including the house wiring may not be at fault.

This then points to, possible faulty ISP equipment at the DSLAM of the ISP.

Ask the ISP to check their DSL equipment and their provisioning for your account. If the ISP checks their equipment and their software provisioning and claims that everything is copacetic, hound your Telco to do a Class A inspection of your line.

 

[Crowtalks]

You're in the UK?

Telco refer to the Telephone provider where your dial tone and physical telephone lines come from.

I'm assuming here that your ISP is different from your dial tone provider.

I work for an Incumbent Local Exchange Provider (ILEC), in other words, the local telephone company which is also an ISP. We have other ISP which can provide DSL service across our telephone physical plant.

This is the perspective I am coming from.

 

[stduc]

Thanks for the explanation. I believe I understand now. My Telco & ISP are now one & the same - they didn't used to be. I'll hound them on Tuesday - I'm too busy Monday and in no location I can hound them from.

As far as I am aware they simply moved my wires from BT's equipment to their equipment. I'll ask them to check their DSLAM & do a class A check.

BTW It's actually getting much worse at the moment - I'm down to around 400K from 6000!

 

[stduc]

Well - it's speeded up again - so I'm not sure whether to complain or not. I guess I'll leave it for now. But what on earth is going on? These are my recent test results.

Date Time Down Up
26/02/07 22:56 5541.95 Kbps 373.68 Kbps
26/02/07 18:48 6499.33 Kbps 373.61 Kbps
25/02/07 19:19 379.02 Kbps 376.19 Kbps
24/02/07 22:14 552.95 Kbps 375.61 Kbps
24/02/07 19:39 424.07 Kbps 366.42 Kbps
24/02/07 19:33 491.43 Kbps 369.17 Kbps
24/02/07 17:12 815.47 Kbps 356.77 Kbps
24/02/07 16:55 953.15 Kbps 376.03 Kbps
24/02/07 16:51 742.63 Kbps 370.55 Kbps
24/02/07 16:48 486.57 Kbps 374.52 Kbps
24/02/07 16:41 881.87 Kbps 374.96 Kbps
24/02/07 14:30 2739.98 Kbps 375.12 Kbps
22/02/07 12:41 6469.83 Kbps 374.37 Kbps
13/01/07 16:16 6491.14 Kbps 374.46 Kbps
12/01/07 23:38 6499.49 Kbps 374.79 Kbps


I have been known to be wrong.
The best way to thank someone who helps you is give them a star.

 

[Crowtalks]

I still think you have physical plant issues with LLU or they have a corrupted port in the DSLAM.

One loose or dirty connector anywhere between the Central Office and your flat can screw with your DSL connection.

 

[stduc]

Just outside there is a small grey box that the phone wire from the house goes into. These are then connected to a sort of junction board and another wire then descends into the concrete.

Would it be a good idea if I cleaned these terminals and the wires up? Carefully, naturally and taking care to re-assemble as originally found.

I have been known to be wrong.
The best way to thank someone who helps you is give them a star.

 

[Crowtalks]

It sure wouldn't hurt...

 

[pudda]

I also work for an ISP as a data/tech and the first thing I would mention is the signal margin, or actually the Signal to Noise Ratio Margin- the difference between what can get to you and what does get to you. At our service a SNRMargin of 31 is almost perfect, and at 6 the modem and DSLAM cannot hear each other causing a retrain, or restart, at the modem. Distance from the SOP is a determining factor to this also, as is the DMT or 'language' programmed between the modem and DSLAM.
As Crowtalks said, this can be a DSLAM issue, moreover an out-of-time issue on the dsl trunkline. But usually it can be found in the premise filtering, or lack of it. Anything plugged into a phone line needs a filter to keep the phone frequency from interfering with the dsl frequency EXCEPT the dsl modem. This includes satellite dish receivers that have a modem in them, answering machines, fax machines, dial-up modems, caller-ID boxes, and yes, phones themselves. Just because they are not in use does not keep them from interfering with the dsl signal.
Before you call your ISP try running a simple test. Have nothing connected to your phone line except the modem, and unplug all computers from it. Leave it this way for an hour and then go back in and look at the log file to see if it is still this bad. If so your premise is probably OK and the diagnosis by your ISP will be speeded up and as in my case, greatly appreciated. They don't like dsl troubles either!
Hope this helps you with your troubles...

The test continues...

 

[stduc]

Thank's for that pudda

I've had no response to my emails to my ISP but the connection does appear to be improving. As it happens I was away for the weekend. So no PC's connected - well physically connected but powered off (No mains supply either, I pull the power cord when I am away) 1 phone and modem/router were still connected and powered up though. This is the router log for the entire weekend to date.

Sun, 2007-03-18 00:24:24 - TCP Packet - Source:210.118.137.71,6000 Destination:89.243.216.253,3389 - [RemDeskTop rule match]
Sun, 2007-03-18 23:28:07 - LCP down.
Sun, 2007-03-18 23:28:22 - Initialize LCP.
Sun, 2007-03-18 23:28:22 - LCP is allowed to come up.
Sun, 2007-03-18 23:28:23 - CHAP authentication success
Sun, 2007-03-18 23:28:23 - Loss of synchronization :1
Sun, 2007-03-18 23:33:03 - LCP down.
Sun, 2007-03-18 23:33:26 - Initialize LCP.
Sun, 2007-03-18 23:33:26 - LCP is allowed to come up.
Sun, 2007-03-18 23:33:26 - CHAP authentication success
Sun, 2007-03-18 23:33:53 - Loss of synchronization :2

So nothing for Saturday. One packet blocked (I'm curious - but hey - what can you deduce from 1 packet?)

Router stats went from

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8123 kbps 446 kbps
Line Attenuation 17 db 3.5 db
Noise Margin 17 db 25 db

to

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8123 kbps 446 kbps
Line Attenuation 17 db 3.5 db
Noise Margin 2147483646 db 25 db

What is it with the 2147483646 db?

I haven't found the time to clean and re-do those wires yet.

I suspect they are working on the exchange or something periodically. I am approx 3/4 of a Km from the exchange.

It has certainly been more stable of late and I have only had to re-boot the router twice in the last couple of weeks.

I keep loosing caller ID as well.

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[pudda]

Most modems report back a null when the line is open, yours reports an unreal number. It is just the same as not having a phone cable plugged in.

The test continues...

 

[stduc]

OK - & then it takes a re-boot to reset it >:-<

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[Crowtalks]

Most likely, the reason you have to reboot is that the modem can renegotiate the speed down to reaquire a signal, but most of them, once they have reached a speed too low to operate, can't reaquire a higher speed.

Thus, the need for the reboot.

 

[fs483]

Quote : The phone socket at the wall has a micro filter plugged in and the router & one phone plugged into that.

Ok, not sure how it works in the UK but you are NOT supposed to plug the router into the micro filter. The micro filter is supposed to be used only with any other telephone device EXCEPT the router/modem. Unless you are speaking of a filter that has a splitter integrated which has one side filtered and the other non filtered. In North America, we have both types but in a residential environment, we general don't have the filter/splitter combo. The combo units are generally supplied with a commercial service.

 

[stduc]

It's a splitter. You can't go wrong with it as it has two sockets. One RJ45 (router) and one RJ11 (phone). I have 2 & have tried both. No difference.

However.

As time passes the connection is becoming more stable so I am assuming they are working on something. But do they tell me, or respond to my emails - no!

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]

 

[stduc]

It's a nice sunny day today - so I opened up the box on the wall outside. One look & I decided it was above my head. So I just cleaned out the cobwebs and closed it up again. .

real speeds continue to rise & fall apparently at random - but connection itself has been stable the last couple of weeks. Fingers crossed.

[navy]When I married "Miss Right" I didn't realise her first name was 'always'. LOL[/navy]