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Intermittent Connection Trouble.

Not sure why they have told you this what actually happens if the fault is between the BT main box in your house and the exchange then BT engineer fixes this for no charge. If the fault is End Use equipment anything after the BT main socket in your home there is a charge of £70. This is one reason all ISPs try to get customers to recheck their wiring, filters and other items that might cause interferance to ADSL.
The plot thickens. Unfortunately, I do not know what the BT guy did at our house a year ago. Whatever he did has worked for a year until the latest return to poor service. All will be revealed when we go to VISPA I think. The advantage with VISPA for me, is that they are up the road from us so I can (almost) bang on the door if needs be. That makes the extra £5 a month worth it for now. Thanks.
 
I can almost 100% garentee u that its not a BT fault, it seems to me more a problem with the router or the ISP's DNS servers.

Can't be a DNS issue if navigating to a web page using the IP address doesn't work either.



I did wonder if it might be too large an MTU, as that could stop webpages loading (and modems often configure a smaller MTU - 1450), however it doesn't fully fit the issues :shrug: . Might be worth a try reducing it but I doubt it would help.
 
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This is one reason all ISPs try to get customers to recheck their wiring, filters and other items that might cause interferance to ADSL.

Doesn't the ISP get charged if no fault is found, or it is a problem with the ISP.
 
Have you checked and compared the router's line stats when you are and when you are not having a problem. Loads of CRC errors, varring/increased attenuation, or a large drop in SNR may be signs of a line problem. (although SNR will drop and attenuation increase slightly for an increase of sync speed if you are on max)
 
Have you checked and compared the router's line stats when you are and when you are not having a problem. Loads of CRC errors, varring/increased attenuation, or a large drop in SNR may be signs of a line problem. (although SNR will drop and attenuation increase slightly for an increase of sync speed if you are on max)
Sorry Mel, that goes over my head. When I can't load webpages or download mail, the router status always says it is connected, the status lights confirm this and servers can be pinged but not downloded from. I'm afraid that is far as my expertise allows me to go. If you can recommend a utility that does this, I'll be pleased to download it and give it a try and then post results here.
 
The next time I have a problem connecting to websites I'll try connecting via their IP address in the browser. Pinging an IP address works OK at all times. I'll feed back what happens.

Thanks.



I'm wondering if you are getting connected to the BT Wholesale page because of an ISP authentication issue and it is not coming up in your browser, because of your PC's network settings.

Can anyone remember if you get a response from pinging an IP address when this happens, I haven't seen the Wholesale page for well over a year, but I think this might have been the case?
 
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I'm wondering if you are getting connected to the BT Wholesale page because of an ISP authentication issue and it is not coming up in your browser, because of your PC's network settings.

Can anyone remember if you get a response from pinging an IP address when this happens, I haven't seen the Wholesale page for well over a year, but I think this might have been the case?
ADSL4LESS asked me to type in BT wholesale's test page IP address during one of the "no server found" interludes. The result? "server not found".
 
if you still get IP traffic when you have the outage then do a tracert to your ISP's DNS servers and post that.
 
Sorry Mel, that goes over my head. When I can't load webpages or download mail, the router status always says it is connected, the status lights confirm this and servers can be pinged but not downloded from. I'm afraid that is far as my expertise allows me to go. If you can recommend a utility that does this, I'll be pleased to download it and give it a try and then post results here.


What is the model number of your Netgear router / routers?

It depends on model (and also firmware revision). On my DG834G there is a "Show Statistics" button on the router status page, although more detailed stats can be obtained from that router.

It might also be worth checking the router's log file for errors when you can't access webpages, and also making a note of the "Gateway IP address" (if you can find it) so you can check if you've been connected to a BT server instead of your ISP's gateway.
 
What is the model number of your Netgear router / routers?

It depends on model (and also firmware revision). On my DG834G there is a "Show Statistics" button on the router status page, although more detailed stats can be obtained from that router.

It might also be worth checking the router's log file for errors when you can't access webpages, and also making a note of the "Gateway IP address" (if you can find it) so you can check if you've been connected to a BT server instead of your ISP's gateway.
I have a DG834GT but the new one I'm using now is a DG834PN. It's a bigger box, has internal antenae, but apart from that I do not know the differences. The firm ware is V1.03.25. Gateway IP Address is 217.72.167.132.

I'm not sure if this pastes correctly below from the router status page.

Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 1050058 999656 0 4781 4833 27:17:18
LAN 10M/100M 82956 100262 0 652 141 27:19:42
WLAN 11M/54M/108M 895577 983545 0 4341 4844 27:19:39

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 576 kbps 288 kbps
Line Attenuation 63.5 db 31.5 db
Noise Margin 15.6 db 21.0 db

Thanks.
 
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Here's the same data from when I had an interuption to service-

Connection Status

Connection Time 00:01:49
Connecting to Server Connected
Negotiation Success
Authentication Success
Getting IP Addresses 195.248.106.246
Getting Network Mask 255.255.255.255


System Up Time 03:28:33
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 230 360 0 102 592 00:02:09
LAN 10M/100M 10923 12095 0 446 138 03:28:31
WLAN 11M/54M/108M 55973 58481 0 1509 486 03:28:28

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 576 kbps 288 kbps
Line Attenuation 63.5 db 31.5 db
Noise Margin 15.1 db 21.0 db

Gateway IP Address 217.72.167.132
Domain Name Server 4.2.2.2
Domain Name Server 4.2.2.3

Rebooted Router, Applied Password, functions again. Today we had over 27 hours trouble free then 2 interuptions within 10 minutes. This is really annoying. Ho hum.
 
I think both the DG834GT and DG834PN both use Broadcom's adsl chipset which is supposed to be one of the best, so either should be a good choice for longer lines. The PN has the latest MIMO wireless technology for better range.

I seem to recall reading that disabling the broadcast of SSID can cause loss of wireless connections on some Netgear models. (providing you use WPA-PSK encryption with a key that is both random and a reasonable length the wirelesss connection will be perfectly secure - so hiding SSID isn't important)


The noise margin hasn't fallen, so it doesn't look like a line fault. However the WAN uptime shows you'd just reconnected 2 minutes earlier.

Looks to me that it is either an ISP problem or it might be a problem at the exchange.

However re-entering the password should not be necessary.
 
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I think both the DG834GT and DG834PN both use Broadcom's adsl chipset which is supposed to be one of the best, so either should be a good choice for longer lines. The PN has the latest MIMO wireless technology for better range.

I seem to recall reading that disabling the broadcast of SSID can cause loss of wireless connections on some Netgear models. (providing you use WPA-PSK encryption with a key that is both random and a reasonable length the wirelesss connection will be perfectly secure - so hiding SSID isn't important)


The noise margin hasn't fallen, so it doesn't look like a line fault. However the WAN uptime shows you'd just reconnected 2 minutes earlier.

Looks to me that it is either an ISP problem or it might be a problem at the exchange.

However re-entering the password should not be necessary.

Hi Mel, many thanks for the advice and ongoing interest in my little troubles ;) My PC is connected to the Router by LAN cable so that is not an issue. Actually, apart from not a very good range the wireless connection is reliable even with a very weak signal upstairs. (As an aside, I get a far better reception from an ACER laptop with a no-name integrated wireless card than I do with Netgears "super G" PCI cards in desktop machines). I am using WPA-PSK encryption and I have an access list enabled so no connection wirelessly without my approval/knowledge. That bit seems faultless.

Your conclusion regarding ISP or exchange trouble is my conclusion too. I migrate to VISPA in about 7 days time. We will then see if it is a ISP problem or not. I'm quite confident that VISPA will kick BT Wholesale's butt if it is an exchange fault.

I really do have to re-apply the Password for the ISP before the fault will clear.
 
Now with added VISPA...........

Well, here we are connected through VISPA. We were connected for about 20 minutes before the exact same thing happened. VISPA Tech support say it is solely down to our distance from the exchange and we're lucky we have a connection at all. So, I'm back where I was two years ago. That is exactly what ADSL4LESS told us way back in January 05. But who do you believe? We've had good service the last 11 months to December 06. How come?

I'm truly p*ssed off, we've wasted about 90 quid on another router we don't need and we're now paying 20 quid a month for the same thing we were paying 15 quid for until today.

How much is satellite I wonder? Ho hum.
 
Big up to VISPA!!!!!

Well, tonight the tech guy from VISPA came to our house. What a service! Hopefully we are on the way to sorting our troubles. We cannot move house, but VISPA will move heaven and earth to make sure we get as good a service as possible. 5*.

Well done VISPA.
 
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