Broadband stability problem?

[#1]

Thanks for your comments about some routers and torrents Matt, that's very helpful, something that I now recollect having heard about ages ago and had forgotten, probably because I don't use torrents.
@ReedRichards
It has nothing to do with the amount of data, Modem/Routers can have their own bugs. Routerstats has had it's own bugs from time to time, like any software/firmware can. Memory leakage, CPU hogging are just 2 examples, but I'm not aware of any such problems with the current versions, but as neither of us have tested them with every modem/router they could work with, we can't say either way. When users report problems to John on his forum, he does his best to resolve them.
The polling interval is dependant on what the user sets, but apart from which things get somewhat more complex if telnetting is involved to get the data.
But the primary point being, when you are investigating a problem, as a first step you do NOT introduce another unknown into the equation, however innocuous you think it may be, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't presume what I was thinking and then go on to introduce another irrelevancy.
Your posts since reply #4 attempting to take digs at me have detracted from Karde's issues and as Matt says this is starting to look silly.

[#2]

Quote from: Matt

Guys, come on - this is starting to look a little silly with the unnecessary back-and-forthing.

Yes Matt' we don't yet seem to have made much progress in actually solving Karde's problems.  Can you see from your end whether Karde is experiencing many losses of sync?  Or see anything to indicate why the upstream connection has been banded?

[#3]

Certainly nothing that looks particularly alarming:
<img src="http://ccgi.psmith12.plus.com/visradius/generated/image13521221949298.png" />
Upstream is currently showing as min 32kb/s and max 448kb/s so while it's not uncapped it doesn't look to be banded at the moment.

[#4]

Karde has mentioned some Gateway hopping, also that the US had been previously uncapped which it now isn't.

[#5]

Hmm. The current broadband asset on the account seems to have been live since the end of June, and I can't see anywhere on the speeds report page to show it was uncapped at any time since then. I'll happily place the order to do so though, provided it's not going to get in the way of anything else.

[#6]

I' d suggest it was left for the moment to see if there are any issues with the connection first (not evident at present). I can only go by what Karde said about the US in the OP. Karde's choice to uncap though.

[#7]

Aye, that's what I'm waiting on @Karde, let me know if you'd like the upstream uncapping and I'll place the order for you.

[#8]

Hey all,
nice to see a good healthy discussion going on!
With regard to Matt's latest post about my broadband having been live since June, I've actually been with Plusnet at this address since around Feb/Mar 2011, however around June this year I had a line fault which completely killed my internet and phone line and which I finally got BT to fix.  From what I remember the engineer saying he said it looked like someone had messed about with my connection at the exchange for no apparent reason but as much as I try I can't remember his exact words.
Here comes the but....But I actually rang up plusnet first when I had this line fault, since I don't actually use my home phone, all I really noticed was a lack of internet.  In the process of 'fixing' my broadband Plusnet decided to turn interleaving on, which I then asked them to turn it off (since I do occasionally play games).  Anyway, I very much doubt this incident is related to my current problems but I would guess it explains Matt's comment about my service being active since June.  (funny story, apparently it only takes 1 day to turn interleaving on, but up to 5 working days to turn it back off).

As for upload speeds, every internet service I've ever had has always capped out at 0.37 Mbps so I was actually surprised (and happy) when I signed up to Plusnet at my current address in 2011 and found my upload going past 1Mpbs.  However as I previously said for a while now I've definitely had my upload capped as it never goes past 0.37 using any type of speed test.  I hardly do any uploading so having it capped or not doesn't make much difference to me, unless its part of the solution to my current problems.  I would guess it's worth waiting to see if the problem reoccurs with my new microfilter before trying to un-cap and see if that makes a difference?

Anyway I've done a bit more monitoring of my SNRM, during the day it generally hovers around to 3dB mark (2.9 to 3.7 is what I've seen).  Last night at around 6pm it was at 1.2dB, as I said on Fri night around 10pm it was 0.3dB.  I'll keep checking as I remember but I guess there is a bit of a pattern to be seen here.
I actually manually restricted the max connections settings in my torrent client again and had a full night of DLing with no problems, hoping that this has fixed that particular issue and that it was just the router throwing a hissy fit with too many connections.
@ReedRichards  I do have a Main PC, but my other options are a frankly prehistoric laptop and my wife's Chromebook (which don't have ethernet ports)  I ran the speedtests using the laptop wired to the router but it chugs along so slowly its not really suitable for much else.  Next time I notice any of my sporadic problems I'll try to replicate them on the chromebook and laptop if I can.  While I am no stranger to the fact that stuff can just break for no apparent reason when it has been working perfectly up to that point I would be really surprised if this was a problem with my wireless signal or my main PC.  That said if I manage to think of any way to test other variations of wired connections or PC's I'll give it a go.
@Anotherone Unfortunately my home phone is such a cheap model that it does not even have the option for pulse dialing!  Going to try to borrow a phone or simply order something that's not broken but until then I still can't perform the quiet test.
@Plusnet Roll out some high speed broadband options (fibre?) in my area so I can upgrade and leave all these problems behind me in 1 easy step 

Currently running my setup as normal with a different microfilter - I found an unopened one - to see if this makes a difference.

Darcy

[#9]

Hi there,

Quote from: Karde

I would guess it's worth waiting to see if the problem reoccurs with my new microfilter before trying to un-cap and see if that makes a difference?

I agree - though with that and limiting the number of connections on your torrents I hope things will stabilise for you, then we can uncap it sooner. Hope the downstream SNR settles though, that's slightly worrying.

Quote from: Karde

@Plusnet Roll out some high speed broadband options (fibre?) in my area so I can upgrade and leave all these problems behind me in 1 easy step

Unfortunately that's not really down to us, but we'll be more than happy to get it ordered for you as soon as it's available

[#10]

Quote from: Karde

Anyway I've done a bit more monitoring of my SNRM, during the day it generally hovers around to 3dB mark (2.9 to 3.7 is what I've seen).  Last night at around 6pm it was at 1.2dB, as I said on Fri night around 10pm it was 0.3dB.  I'll keep checking as I remember but I guess there is a bit of a pattern to be seen here.

Matt, I know Plusnet can set a target SNR on ADSL2+ but can you tell what SNR is being targeted 'spontaneously'?  I presume it is 3dB but is there a way to know for sure? 

[#11]

Apparently it gives the target SNR on the usual stats page we get our info from. You learn something new every day
Yes, it's currently set to 3dB.