Intermittent sync problem

bjbyorkshire

Yay, a micro filter, couldn't remember the name. We don't need them as our socket has 2 slots side by side. It was fitter a few years ago when I had to have a Bt engineer to a line fault. From memory I don't think I was charged for this. I can be proactive indeed forceful on the phone but I really just didn't want to force the box to open for them to say I have damaged BT equipment. I am now going to wait until Monday and will let you know what the outcome, if anything is. I need someone to sort it one way or the other and if it is wiring then it is beyond my powers. I can get fairly assertive if the occasion merits it but have to let Talk Talk at least try to rectify the problem first before I go into shouting mode.

Thanks for the help so far.

nutfield

I have been having a constant series of faults over the last couple of months with my talktalk service. At the moment I am having problems with "dropout" or "intermittent sync". If you look at this problem on Google, the posts all relate to talktalk. Is this just coincidence or is there a problem with talktalk generally?

Johnmcl7

So your master socket is the filtered socket? If so I don't believe there's a test socket behind it as there's no need to isolate the house wiring since the filtered socket will already do that for you although I haven't seen a BT version of the side by side sockets you've described.

John

Johnmcl7

nutfield wrote: »

I have been having a constant series of faults over the last couple of months with my talktalk service. At the moment I am having problems with "dropout" or "intermittent sync". If you look at this problem on Google, the posts all relate to talktalk. Is this just coincidence or is there a problem with talktalk generally?

While I would say Talktalk generally have terrible service, I doubt they're any different in terms of the actual cause of faults than any other companies. ADSL services use existing telephone cabling and problems with ADSL service can be a wide variety of causes from faults at the Exchange and cabinet to problems within the house wiring such as a faulty microfilter, faulty wiring or a defective device. This makes it a nightmare to troubleshoot at times particularly when dealing with non-technical people and it's compounded by the fact that level 1 tech support is often terrible.

I've quite often helped people sort out their ADSL problems as they've spent hours with tech support and got nowhere. I do the usual checks and if I find nothing, I speak to the ISP and even though I've checked everything I can at the house side I still find some ISP's exceptionally difficult to deal with. In one case the ISP actually told me he didn't believe I'd actually checked what I had and was my friend happy to pay £180 for my incompetence?! BT engineer came round, found a fault on the line outwith the house and sorted it.

In many cases if these people didn't have an IT friend to help, I think it would take much longer to get sorted and there would be a lot of posts in the meantime asking for help on forums. So although I think Talktalk are generally terrible, I don't think the cause of the problems are likely the same unless they are router issues. I have had a couple of ADSL failures over the last few years and both times it's been an issue outwith the house, when I phoned the ISP I told them what I'd checked and they proceeded to booking a BT engineer as long as I was ok picking up the cost if it was within the house.

John

nutfield

Thanks for the response John. I have had 2 visits from talktalk engineers. One put a new faceplate but wired it up incorrectly - so no phone calls for a week! The second one put it right but said there was a fault on the line. The BT man checked it and found it OK, and the Broadband was OK when he left. But I am still having problems with "dropout" - intermittent sync. Looking at the internet this problem seems largely associated with talktalk and the HG633 router in particular

bjbyorkshire

Morning, I just checked and mine is a HG633 router also. New to me on 8th November. My problem started around 3 weeks later.

I was chatting to someone on the phone yesterday and noticed that there was a crackling sound on the line when I touched the curly flex from the handset. Each time I moved the bit nearest to the handset it made a crackle. The Indian call centre chap heard and logged that he could hear crackling on my line. So.... I unplugged the upstairs phone and plugged it in downstairs and no crackling. Also I didn't have a drop off of internet after that all last evening. Do you recon that is just coincidence? I wouldn't have thought the handset would have been responsible for the intermittent sync problem but what do I know.

Not long now until Monday and we will see what engineer no 2 has to say on the matter.

Thanks for your interest folks.

bjbyorkshire

Nutfield, were you charged for any of the engineers visits? Im a bit reluctant to authorise a BT engineer as the cost seems to be £130 or thereabouts if it is not found to be their side of the box.

nutfield

No (at least not yet!). The talktalk engineer - number two visit - identified noise on the line so set up the BT call. However, if you have any dodgy equipment get rid quick as they will charge you if the fault is with your equipment. Re: the HG633 - Amazon sell a router which gets good reviews for £16! Why do talktalk mess about with this dodgy rubbish? At present I am running on my old talktalk router (HG533) which is faster than the so-called super 633.

Jim431

Line faults of this sort are a real hassle. You MUST get at the master socket as others have said otherwise you are risking a big wasted callout bill.

Moving from TalkTalk at this time isn't in my opinion a good idea. If the fault is on your side of the master socket then BT will charge TalkTalk for a wasted callout but you will only have to pay 50% of £££ (whatever it is now)

If you are with BT then you pay 100%. Unless this has recently changed.

You need to get over to the TalkTalk forum to register then log your problem.

http://www.talktalkmembers.com/forums/

The advisers will then check your line and look at the error logs and will try to identify the problems. In my experience they are very good. In the end tho an intermittent problem is the worst to find.