How to tell if ISP provider is causing lost connection

Your supplier has such software which monitors how often the connection drops. Call them and ask them to take a look.

The best you can do yourself is log in to the router's interface at http://192.168.1.254 and take a look at the connection uptime on it, this will tell you whether the router is losing the remote connection or not. If not it's something local.

Win10 does not make a router go down.

What the OP needs to do is figure out if it is happening as certain times of day (e.g. middle of night) or after a certain time of inactivity.

You are responsible for wiring in your house, the first diags an ISP will do is to ask you to unscrew master socket and plug router direct into inner socket.

You can get software on your PC to monitor your BB (Beagle and NetWorx) but they may prevent the problem occuring.

If you ask your ISP for connection logs they will re-train your line and lower your speed until it stops dropping.

You mention you are on BT Infinity, do you have the Home Hub router they supply? If so then log in to the router (in your web browser enter bthomehub.home, you will need the password on the plastic card on the back of the modem).

Go to the Troubleshooting page and click on the Event Log tab. You'll find your connection log there.

andromedean wrote: »

My router keeps dropping the Internet connection for say 5-10 minutes several times a day. Is there any easy way to distinguish between a fault in the router, my telephone line and the ISP provider which is BT infinity.

What I was thinking of is a piece of software which logs when I'm connected and disconnected. Is it logged somewhere on my computer if it is switched on? My neighbour who has also got the same contract could do the same and we could compare.logs.

I wrote a batch script to do this. It pings your router and a couple of websites, logging when disconnections occur and whether it's you're local network connection that has failed or your internet connection.

Just create a plain text file with the .BAT extension and paste the code below. You'll need to set the IP address of your router in the "User-changeable variables" section in the first few lines. (And you can also change the default log file name/location and the web servers used in the test if you like.)

Just double-click the .BAT file to run it, and leave it running.

@Echo off
cls


REM User-changeable variables
REM ----------------------------
set PingSite1=google.com
set PingSite2=google.co.uk
set MyRouter=192.168.1.254
set LogFile="C:\PingTestLog.txt"


REM Test defaults
REM -------------
rem Following time in milliseconds (e.g. 20000 = 20s)
set PingTimeout=20000
rem Following time in seconds (e.g. 20 = 20s)
set ConnectedWaitTime=20
set DisconnectedWaitTime=2


REM Human language messages
REM -------------------------
set StartMsg=Ping test started @
set LANDownMsg=LAN is down.
set LANUpMsg=LAN is up.
set WANDownMsg=ADSL connection is down.
set WANUpMsg=ADSL is online.
set LastDisconnectMsg=Previously disconnected at


REM Show initial connection status
REM ------------------------------
set NumFailed=0
set EverDisconnected=0
set LastDisconnectTime=0

ping -n 1 -w %PingTimeout% %PingSite1% | find "TTL=" >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
    set NumFailed=1
)
ping -n 1 -w %PingTimeout% %PingSite2% | find "TTL=" >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
    set /a NumFailed=NumFailed+1
)
ping -n 1 -w %PingTimeout% %MyRouter% | find "TTL=" >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
   echo %LANDownMsg%
   echo %LANDownMsg% >> %LogFile%
) else (
   echo %LANUpMsg%
   echo %LANUpMsg% >> %LogFile%
)

if %NumFailed%==2 (
  echo %WANDownMsg%
  echo %WANDownMsg% >> %LogFile%
  set EverDisconnected=1
  set LastDisconnectTime=%TIME% %DATE%
  REM following line contains control char to make a beep
  echo  
) else (
  echo %WANUpMsg%
  echo %WANUpMsg% >> %LogFile%
  REM following line contains control char to make a beep
  echo  
  echo  
)
echo.
echo. >> %LogFile%

REM Show start time
REM ---------------
echo %StartMsg%
echo %StartMsg% >> %LogFile%
time/t
echo %TIME% %DATE% >> %LogFile%
echo.
echo. >> %LogFile%
echo ------------------------
echo ------------------------ >> %LogFile%
echo.
echo. >> %LogFile%



REM Run test
:START
set NumFailed=0
set LANFailed=0


ping -n 1 -w %PingTimeout% %PingSite1% | find "TTL=" >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
    set NumFailed=1
)
ping -n 1 -w %PingTimeout% %PingSite2% | find "TTL=" >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
    set /a NumFailed=NumFailed+1
)
ping -n 1 -w %PingTimeout% %MyRouter% | find "TTL=" >nul
if errorlevel 1 (
   set LANFailed=1
)



if %NumFailed%==2 (
    REM following line contains control char to make a beep
    echo  

    if %LANFailed%==1 (
       echo %LANDownMsg%
       echo %LANDownMsg% >> %LogFile%
    ) else (
       echo %LANUpMsg%
       echo %LANUpMsg% >> %LogFile%
    )

    echo %WANDownMsg% @
    time/t
    date/t
    echo.

    echo %WANDownMsg% @ >> %LogFile%
    echo %TIME% %DATE% >> %LogFile%
    echo. >> %LogFile%


    :STILLBROKEN
    ping -n 1 -w %PingTimeout% %PingSite1% | find "TTL=" >nul
    if errorlevel 1 (
        echo.
        echo %WANDownMsg%
        set EverDisconnected=1
        set LastDisconnectTime=%TIME% %DATE%
    timeout /t %DisconnectedWaitTime% /nobreak
        GOTO STILLBROKEN
    )

    REM If not broken, double-check to be sure
    timeout /t %DisconnectedWaitTime% /nobreak
    ping -n 1 -w %PingTimeout% %PingSite2% | find "TTL=" >nul
    if errorlevel 1 (
        echo.
        echo %WANDownMsg%
    timeout /t %DisconnectedWaitTime% /nobreak
        GOTO STILLBROKEN
    )


    echo %WANUpMsg% @
    echo %WANUpMsg% @ >> %LogFile%
    REM following line contains control char to make a beep
    echo  
    echo  
    time/t
    date/t
    echo %TIME% %DATE% >> %LogFile%

    echo.
    echo. >> %LogFile%
    echo ------------------------ >> %LogFile%
    echo. >> %LogFile%

)
echo.
echo %WANUpMsg%
if %EverDisconnected%==1 (
    echo %LastDisconnectMsg% %LastDisconnectTime%
)
timeout /t %ConnectedWaitTime% /nobreak
GOTO START