Desperate post before switching ISP

[#1]

Just plugged the router into the test socket downstairs and it already appears to be again different figures, altough the SNR margin is still high?
I will leave it in the test socket for the time being to see what happens during today.
Please see attached.
Speak later!

[#2]

Quote from: beapayne

...  altough the SNR margin is still high?

You appear to live a long way, maybe 4km, from your telephone exchange, so having a 15dB noise margin is normal for many people.
SW.

[#3]

I've glanced quickly at the screenshot, and I think it shows figures that are consistent with what your line can achieve in stable conditions. At the moment the SNR figure may be high, but it won't change until the exchange sees that you've been stable for a while.
On the stability front, the important thing is that the figures aren't (currently) showing many errors - 29 correctable errors is OK (I think, but I'm not an expert). The previous screenshot was showing many more errors over 1/5th of the time. Keep it plugged in there, and send more screenshots later.
We haven't yet worked out whether you get intermittent errors randomly through the day, or if they concentrate at particular times, so just monitoring the stats is the thing to do for now.

[#4]

Quote from: godsell4

Quote from: beapayne ...  altough the SNR margin is still high? You appear to live a long way, maybe 4km, from your telephone exchange, so having a 15dB noise margin is normal for many people. SW.

The router has been plugged into the test socket since 11 a.m., no changes on the SNR (yet) but as godshell4 has pointed maybe this is acceptable for the distance to my phone exchange?
Is it good news that there are not big changes? Also errors are still quite high?
Alternatively I have another router which I can try if I the situation doesn't improve although this dlink I'm currently using I think it's better than the BT one.
I will report again later tonight.

[#5]

Having spent several months with much the same problems, and having carried out all the tests and proved the problem was not in the house (although in the current case it may be) I eventually tried BT's quiet line test (dial 17070 then option 2) and could hear noise on the line. I reported a fault to BT saying there was trouble with the phone, and not mentioning broadband at all. An engineer duly called, and of course whilst he was checking there was no noise! However, he went back to the exchange and phoned a couple of hours later to say he had replaced a whole mass of poor wiring in our connection ( I think he mentioned 75%). Over the next few weeks my IP Profile slowly crept up from 1500 to a now, apparently steady, 4000.
If the house wiring in the present case is not the problem, the above might be worth trying.

[#6]

I will try tomorrow, maybe I will discover a possible source of the problem. Thanks.
Attached there is another screen shot, it seems to be very similar to the previous one.
jim:quote

[#7]

Thanks for providing those screenshots.
Again, I stress I'm not an expert at reading the error figures, but those you show at 16:40 still look to be in very good shape (accumulating only 16 RSuncorr uncorrectable errors and 3 ES, errored-seconds). The value for RScorr (which are corrected errors) can go quite high without affecting stability, but even those seem low.
The stats at 22:45 are definitely a bit worse (84 RSuncorr and 15 HEC) , but I don't think it shows any particular problems. The period when phone lines get most intereference is from dusk onwards, so you expect to see a few more problems.
The other aspect you would normally see is for your SNR margin to drift downwards around dusk (perhaps 1-2db?), and return in the morning. Yours staying around 15.3 seems to also be a good indication.
In comparison, my line is really stable almost all of the time (has stayed at 7616 for 2 years, with 8-10db SNR). The modem has currently been connected for 382 hours (15 days), and shows 140,000 RScorr, 7,000 RSuncorr, 784 HEC, 680 ES. The UAS (unavailable seconds) is 19, which indicates it has probably only done the one original sync.
When I look at your original graph, some of the stats don't seem too bad - but the ES figure of over 30,000 implies that you'd had a fair amount of hard, uncorrectable errors. You didn't say how long the modem had been connected originally, but your current stats don't appear anywhere near as bad.
Conclusion so far, is that all seems well. I know we've only been watching for half a day, but my current thinking would guess at it either being a problem caused by the internal wiring, or it being an intermittent fault on the BT side that we just haven't seen as yet.
So, more monitoring & more patience are the order of the day, I think (and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong). Keep watching the downstream SNRM and downstream sync rates, and report if they start to fluctuate more wildly. There are programs that can help graph those values for you, so you can see the fluctuations more easily, but depends on your type of modem. If you want to do that, perhaps you can post your modem type.
Mike

[#8]

Those packet error levels are fine.

[#9]

Quote from: WWWombat

You didn't say how long the modem had been connected originally, but your current stats don't appear anywhere near as bad. There are programs that can help graph those values for you, so you can see the fluctuations more easily, but depends on your type of modem. If you want to do that, perhaps you can post your modem type.

Modem type is D-Link DSL-2640B and under normal circumstances it stays always connected; last time I re-sync'ed it was yesterday to do the tests.
Currently:
Downstream  Upstream
Rate (Kbps): 2240  448

SNR Margin (dB): 15.3  18.0
Attenuation (dB): 56.0  31.5
Output Power (dBm): 11.9  17.8

Super Frames: 5009807  5009805
Super Frame Errors: 48  23
RS Words: 170333458  42583342
RS Correctable Errors: 7163  44
RS Uncorrectable Errors: 151  N/A

HEC Errors: 39  23
OCD Errors: 0  2
LCD Errors: 0  2
Total Cells: 449937454  0
Data Cells: 65092857  0
Bit Errors: 0  0

Total ES: 29  0
Total SES: 0  0
Total UAS: 19  0

[#10]

RouterStats-Lite (and possibly Routerstats itself, but with more configuration) works with the D-Link DSL-2640B for monitoring the downstream noise margin and sync speed. Running that and capturing the graphs would provide insight into how these parameters vary through the day and evening.
The stats you posted don't show a significant number of transmission errors over that connection time.

[#11]

RouterStats up and running now. Will post the results later.
The only available DLink router is DSL2740B whilst mine is 2640B, I guess it won't make a big difference?
Thanks.

[#12]

If you've got the program (whether the full version or the lite version) plotting a graph, then that's enough. From the look of some of the support issues, the program may lose track of the data as some of the numbers get too large, but we'll only tell if the graph suddenly stops plotting. We can check later.
How does your connection feel when you're using it now? Any differences to before? Are you consistently getting sites & pages returned OK when you're browsing? Or are you tending to get pauses?

[#13]

Here are a few screen shots from yesterday, the system seems to behave OK when running RouterStats.
Connection speed is very stable and SNR is stable too.
Maybe I should try to run it during the week as well?
Since I re sync'ed on Friday and got it stabilized it's been constant around the current figures. Not sure if it will improve from now on but I'm happy to carry on with further tests.

[#14]

The graphs are looking good, apart from the small number of negative spikes - each around 2db. They would imply a small amount of short-lived interference; if they become more frequent, or last longer, they may indicate something amiss - but at this level, I think they can be ignored.
Your first post indicated that the problems would come back within a week or two, so perhaps we just haven't hit a period of interference yet - so the best answer is to just patiently monitor the graphs for now.
Of course, the problem might have been with the extension wiring, which we've removed by using the test socket. Was the router originally plugged into an extension? If so, can you describe what extensions you have, and how your phones & filters are plugged into them?

[#15]

Just to prove that you need to keep an open mind when trying to pin down intermittent problems like this.......
I had a very similar problem a few months back - my sync rate and BT IP profile would sometimes drop to 200-300kb/s. I would reboot the router, and it would then sync at a healthy (for my line) 2500kb/s. The BT IP profile would recover over about 3 days as would be expected with Max DSL...
.... then it would happen again....
.... eventually tracked it down to the treadmill in the garage.... as soon as it was switched on, the router would lose sync.
The treadmill was radiating RF interference into the phone line causing it to drop sync. I could hear the interference by switching on a MW radio - "shash" all over the band (same frequency range is used by ADSL on the line).
Our compromise at the moment, is to switch the router off before using the treadmill. That way BT never see a poor sync, and the IP profile remains OK.
... Probably not the same solution for you, but a bit of lateral thinking may be needed 
P.S. I agree with a previous poster: There is no point changing ISP - this seems to be a problem somewhere between your house and the exchange. That would remain the same even if you switched ISPs.