Help, Lost connection

[atariboy]

After 2 years of trouble free broadband having upgraded to a 2 meg connection last april, I have suddenly started experiencing terrible problems with my adsl connection recently and it has been steadily increasing over the last three weeks. Basically, sometimes I can get a connection and sometimes I can’t. If I power my PC up, I can quite happily use the internet for several hours with no problem at all. But if I then power the machine down or log off XP Pro and come back after a short while, the connection is lost. Sometimes it comes back after 5 minutes and sometimes it doesn’t come back until the next day. I am using a Netgear D834GT wireless router and the adsl light always shows a healthy green even when the connection is down. When the connection is down, I can still ping or access the router but running setup wizard in finds no connection and the adsl settings show no ip addresses. But if I switch off and a gbuit later then sometimes the connection is there and sometimes it isnt.

To try and ascertain where the problem lies, I have swopped out everything that I can thing off but with no luck. I have swapped the PC to another, tried three laptops, and tried hard-wired access and wireless access. I have replaced the router (to another DG834GT). I changed the network cable, modem cable and power lead. I have changed the splitters, disconnected all the phones in the house, reinitialised the router and upgraded to the latest firmware but the fault is still there. I am now 100% confident that there is no fault with any of the equipment within the house as all of the duplicate equipment I tested with works fine when the connection is functioning ok.
I spoke to Netgear tech support who has confirmed that everything is in order with the router(s) and that it must be a line problem. On Wednesday, I logged a call with f2s who agreed with Netgear and raised a call with BT Wholesale and I am still waiting for a call back.
Last night, I disconnected the router from the telephone point in the study where my PC is and connected the spare router to the telephone point in the living room and plugged a laptop in to it. I powered up and had instant internet access. I then disconnected the router in the living room and reconnected the router in the study, tested but no link. Thinking that it must be the telephone point in the study that is the problem I then double-checked by disconnecting the router in the study and reconnecting the spare router to the point in the living room…tried to access the internet via the laptop again but nothing whatsoever. Surely this must mean that there is a problem at the exchange or with my line.

Any comments of advice would be very much appreciated.

Kevin

[akita_inu]

If f2s have reported it to BT then you should be able to see the fault on the BT website - you can input your telephone number & it will tell you whether a fault's been logged & where they think it is. Basically, if f2s has reported it to BT there's not a lot you can do other than chase them I'm afraid ... :

[atariboy]

ok thanks....so do you agree that it sounds like a line problem and I should wait for BT's response...my daughter is driving me mad because she can't get her homework done

[tfineberg]

I had a similar problem having upgraded to 2Mb. Apparently your house's main line socket needs to be less than 2 Km from the exchange without obtaining an unsatisfactorily high noise ratio. If this happens, the connection will keep falling over. Mine did. BT had to come in and confirm the fact.

In the end I downgraded back to 1Mb and eventually things started to return to normal. Its slower than 2Mb but just fast enough.

I can't understand why, if F2S test your line BEFORE allowing the upgrade in the first place, they went ahead and processed it anyway.

[atariboy]

yes but I have had a 2 meg link for over 10 months now and never had a problem until 3 weeks ago....as far as I know, I am only a couple of hundered metres from my exchange

[landman]

Hi there, I had a series of similar problems after joining F2S last June. What I found was that the microfilter was at fault. I had both my wifi router & a sky box plugged in to the same socket. ADSL Nation advised me that Sky boxes are very "noisy" & I purchased one of there plug in microfilters. Now I have no problems & have phone. Sky Box & wifi router with VoIP all off one socket & no hassles. Best £10 I ever spent.

Landman

[atariboy]

Thanks for the info, but i had changed all my filters including the one that my skybox was attached to. Anyway, I had a call from F"S tech support and apparently BT had reseated one of the cards at the exchange and for the last 24 hours everything has been perfect, in fact it all seems to be alot quicker now.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions Guys