What would be the symptoms of a dodgy filter?

aliasojo

espresso wrote: »

This is either due to a line problem (cracking line) or your ISP has capped your speed. If you are syncing at this speed you can't get a higher download speed than that.

If, for arguments sake, Pipex had capped me, this still wouldn't cause the crackling or the dropped connections when during phone use though. So in theory, I could have 2 separate issues perhaps.

aliasojo

tonyhague wrote: »

.... are they up for being 'bought a drink' to look the other way?

Knowing my luck, no. :rolleyes:


*please send all donations to the 'save aliasojo from jail' fund.........*

espresso

aliasojo wrote: »

If, for arguments sake, Pipex had capped me, this still wouldn't cause the crackling or the dropped connections when during phone use though. So in theory, I could have 2 separate issues perhaps.

Your symptoms do sound like a line fault. ADSL can even work when one leg of the line is disconnected due to the high frequencies, whereas telephony won't. If your line is cracking intermittently, you should report it as a line fault to BT and then when it's fixed your ADSL speed should recover.

DatabaseError

Hopefully this post is not too subtle.

the crackling is a voice fault and should be reported as such. BT Retail, in fixing the voice fault would probably also fix the broadband issue, Bt wholesale deal with broadband issues, but your crackly line suggests that the broadband problem may just be a symptom of your voice fault.

aliasojo

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Bt are phoning me back tomorrow so I think I'll tell them it's a voice fault.

Does that sound about right?

They'll still need to come out though as they've already said there's nothing wrong with the line.

aliasojo

Thought I'd update. Still got ongoing problems. Bt are still insisting there is no problem but my line is cracking still and my bb connection has dropped even further to 489 kbs downstream.

If I go to different ISP websites to check what speed my line can support, they all say 512kb! I have print outs from my router page showing previous downstream as 8096 and if my neighbours do the same check, they are all told their line can support around 6MB.

BT are working on the exchange at the moment so they have to be the cause of all this but they wont accept that and I'm hitting my head off a brick wall.

Anyone any idea if there is anyone higher up in BT I could contact other than the usual call centre/fault peeps?

Linbox

aliasojo wrote: »

BT are working on the exchange at the moment so they have to be the cause of all this but they wont accept that and I'm hitting my head off a brick wall.

Anyone any idea if there is anyone higher up in BT I could contact other than the usual call centre/fault peeps?

BT are well known for saying that there is no fault on the line. All they check is from the exchange to the connection on the post, not into the main block. What you need is an engineer to call. If you have eliminated all possible faults after the main block there must be a fault on the line.

Linbox

aliasojo

Update:

Line was still very erratic and yesterday morning it was crackling very badly. Bt engineer came out yesterday afternoon and line was as clear as a bell at that point. :rolleyes:

Thankfully, a BT service chap had phoned the night before and he heard the crackling and made a point of noting this so the engineer knew it was an issue.

Anyway, the engineer said all the lines in this area had had new connectors fitted at around the same time as I first started having problems and he suspected it might be a bad or loose connection even although the tests he did in the house showed nothing and the problem wasn't evident at that point either.

He went off to wherever these connections were and checked the wires that related to my house. They were loose and came away in his hand so he cut me off, redid the connections and so far...all is well.

However, both my Netgear and Belkin wireless routers no longer work now, the adsl light is off on both and no amount of rebooting/resetting has changed that. I firmly suspect that the loose connection has possibly caused surges on the phone line and this has affected them. The BT chap couldn't say if this was possible or not. I have electrical surge protection all over the house but I have never bothered plugging in the phone line to one before. A quick search on the net tells me telephone line surges are possible and that some modern routers can be sensitive to this so that may have been what has happened, I think?

They must have been affected by something, it seems too co-incidental that they both should develop the same fault at the same time.

I'm now connecting with an old SpeedTouch modem at 6.5mbps so the bb seems fine now and the line seems clear with no crackles.

I'll just need to go buy a new wireless router now.....I want an 'N' or 'N1' but dont know which to buy......Belkin or Netgear?




Oh, and I also have a new 'proper' BT main socket now.

espresso

aliasojo wrote: »

However, both my Netgear and Belkin wireless routers no longer work now, the adsl light is off on both and no amount of rebooting/resetting has changed that.................

If you have reset these routers to factory default settings, did you then reconfigure them with your ISP login details. I don't see how a line fault could damage both of these routers as only one of them would have been connected to the line.

aliasojo

It does seem strange admittedly but I'm at a loss to come up with another theory.

Both routers were connected at different times during this whole saga. The Netgear went down first then I had to unplug it and use the Belkin, which worked for a day then did the same.

I can't access either of them now to input the ISP details. ADSL lights are off on both and I can't access the router screens to change anything.