Help please broadband problems

happyhero

Hi I am tearing my hair out with this one, I'm reasonably tech savy but maybe I'm missing something with this one.

I am trying to fix my elderly mother and fathers internet problem, they are with Talktalk and do not have fibre.

There speed was always around 4.5/5 meg but recently suddenly dropped to a really slow 200k, so that many sites and emails struggle.

The connection is via cable not wifi and they are plugged into the Mater socket, in fact the test socket behind now even though it makes no difference.

I have tried changing the router to PC cable, the router to filter socket and the filter itself. I have reset hundreds of times by now. The only thing I did not change was the router as I had no other but now I do, a brand new one from Talktalk and still it does exactly the same thing.

I tried all different browsers with no change.

I have contacted Talktalk several times by now and they say the problem is within the property but I have my doubts about how sure of this they can be. The last couple of times they wanted me to unplug everything and just leave the router in the test socket for 48 hours. In the end I said just send me a new router and we had to pay £30 for it which we were not happy about but were getting desperate and would have done anything to get rid of the problem. Their fault diagnosis is absolute torture, and bear in mind they had me crawling on the floor to plug and unplug things, my father is 88, I'd like to see how that would work if I was not here to help. What would Talktalk ask him to do then?

Can anyone help with this, if everything has been changed by now what can it be, surely the problem is at the exchange?

To test speed I like http://www.speedtest.bbmax.co.uk/ but I have tried others in case.

Are there any tests I can do to prove anything?

Any help would really be appreciated.

enfield_freddy

can you take a pc or laptop to there house and check?


if still bad , you will have to check all wiring in the house , then ring talk talk , again , saying its a line fault.


however catch TT


OR will come out and declare no fault on line (its working) and you are back to square one.


how much left on there contract?


time to cancel , and go else ware , and get a FULLY working system


and send them there modem back !

I_have_spoken

I'd login to the ADSL modem/router and see if there's any diagnostic information. You should be looking for something like "SNR Margin Down/Up". Anything less than 10 indicates the line to exchange is mullered.

Do you have the ADSL filter plugged in and the modem plugged into that?

happyhero

enfield_freddy wrote: »

can you take a pc or laptop to there house and check?


if still bad , you will have to check all wiring in the house , then ring talk talk , again , saying its a line fault.


however catch TT


OR will come out and declare no fault on line (its working) and you are back to square one.


how much left on there contract?


time to cancel , and go else ware , and get a FULLY working system


and send them there modem back !

Thanks Enfield freddy.

What could be wrong on house wiring, I used to be an electrician but had nothing to do with telephone systems, but I checked all their cables and connections and I know the connection configuration to each socket? What could I look for?

Nothing left on contract as been with them beyond contract length.

happyhero

I_have_spoken wrote: »

I'd login to the ADSL modem/router and see if there's any diagnostic information. You should be looking for something like "SNR Margin Down/Up". Anything less than 10 indicates the line to exchange is mullered.

Do you have the ADSL filter plugged in and the modem plugged into that?

Cheers, yes to filter, but I will look for what you said.

happyhero

SN Margin db is 10 UP and 40.5 DOWN is that ok or not?

happyhero

I don't have a laptop but was thinking of borrowing one to prove its not the PC here but I do notice my phone is really slow on the net when connecting to the Wifi here (I can see a big difference compared to what it was like a few weeks back) so I think that sort of proves that the broadband is really slow here and its not the PC, do you agree?

enfield_freddy

when I say the wiring , OR are supposed to look out upto the socket , , but will charge if a wire is found faulty in YOUR house THERE side of the socket ,


any wiring running from the master to your windowsill or a hole in the wall


disconnecting the ft cover should remove all extensions , , check that no extra wires have been added behind cover plate


edit : disconnect ALL EXTENSIONS


talk talk = fix it or get lost


if you sign upto BT , PLUSNET etc and its faulty , OR will fix the line ,

I_have_spoken

SN Margin db is 10 UP and 40.5 DOWN is that ok or not?

Those are very good figures

Jimmy_roo

Do Your parents turn the router off often? Before exposing the test socket was there any telephone extensions in the Property?

What im thinking is an extension could have been causing a loop fault. whenever a call was made or received the line would drop. This would cause TalkTalks line management software to kick in and eventually lower the line speed to 256k (their lowest)

What i would do is expose the test socket plug in filter then router and call them on a mobile on 02034415550 to get a line test done, if that doesn't show anything ask in regards to the DLM.

bod1467

40.5dB down is very BAD for SNR Margin, unless they're on a really old ADSLMax connection (up to 8meg). This high value is throttling the speed.

What plan are they supposed to be on? (Up to 16 meg?)

Down SNR should be fairly similar to Up SNR.

ADSL2PlusForDummies. This PDF (link is to Dropbox) should help you narrow down where the problem lies.

It may well be that the line is/was noisy; this caused several disconnects so the TT line monitoring system upped the SNR margin to compensate. So check first whether the line is still noisy (Quiet Line Test); if it is report a line fault. Once any such fault is clear, get TT to reset the line profile.