Poor Speeds And Dropouts

[#1]

Thanks for all the replies guy's, much appreciated.

I will try and answer questions asked in order.

@Dan_the_Van 

I have Unlimited Fibre Extra - same product I have always had

The next time it happens I will take note of the basic and advanced status pages and post the answers to your questions.

I will also save a log file when it happens and upload it here.

@Baldrick1 

On my wired PC pages are slow to load, they used to load in an instant, images fail to load, at time the internet connection just drops - all resulting in a need to reboot the modem.

If/when it happens again I will check the light status and post result here, along with the router log.

@Anonymous 

Should it happen again I will post another screen shot of the status pages before I reboot

On checking my TP Link Archer VR2800 it said it was running the latest version of software however a manual check shows this not to be the case - I have now updated the the latest version.

I ran the Plusnet broadband 'troubleshoot by text' and it found no issues.

With regard to the bufferbloat/QoS - I will leave things as they are just for now just to see if the problem persists after the firmwear upgrade

*************

One change I have also made is to removed the smart in house display contraption, that tells me how much energy I am using, from the network - Not sure it will make any difference but I never really looked at the damn thing anyway 😁

Just another thought, could it be that my TP Link Archer VR2800 is just getting flaky and needs replacing? It does tend to get really toasty as well I have noticed .

If the problem persists I still have the Plusnet Hub2 I could use to see if things improve.

Thanks once again for all your help guys.

Kind regards, 

Derek

[#2]

@DerekW 

These drops that you are having, does the connection recover if you just leave it? Have you tried leaving it off overnight to see if it recovers?

Are there any particular times when this happens?

[#3]

How old is the VR2800? To my mind, if it is properly ventilated it should not even be warm, never mid 'toasty'.

[#4]

@Baldrick1 

When it drops my connection I tend to reboot the router which re-establishes the connection

I have not left it to see if it reconnects itself.

It happens at random times during the day.

[#5]

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@DerekW wrote:

On my wired PC pages are slow to load, they used to load in an instant, images fail to load... ...

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Is that the case all the time now, or only when it is about to lose connection ?

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[#6]

@jab1 

I "think" the router was released 2016/2017

I purchased mine in 2019

The router is sat on a table, nothing on top of it or around it, so it is properly ventilated - it is "toasty" for sure, to the point I would not wish to leave my hand on it for to long.

[#7]

@Anonymous 

It happens only when it is about to loose connection

[#8]

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@DerekW wrote:

The router is sat on a table, nothing on top of it or around it, so it is properly ventilated - it is "toasty" for sure, to the point I would not wish to leave my hand on it for to long.

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It is my experience that it is the router's plug in power supply that is much more likely to start failing, rather than the router itself - the router eventually being destroyed when the power supply eventually gives up.

Do you have access to a multimeter with which you could measure the DC output voltage of the power supply lead ?

and if so is the voltage within 10% of the rated voltage of the PSU.

If it a PSU fault, then it is much cheaper to buy a replacement plug, rather than an entire new router.

.

[#9]

@Anonymous 

Nope, do not have a multimeter and wouldn't know how to use one properly

[#10]

@Anonymous 

I was looking at some of those links you have in you signature and checked out the Zen Status one.

I noticed for my area on the 30/08/23 and 01/09/23 there was a full outage due to Maintenance/engineering works.

Could this be the cause of my issues or am I clutching at straws here? 😁

[#11]

@DerekW 

A full outage would not recover due to a router reboot.

If it was a dropped network connection then I would expect it to recover automatically, not need a reboot.

Another suggestion based on a problem I once saw: The poster had similar problems to yours and what was happening was that unbeknown to them there was a massive upload task, a cloud back up I think, which was uploading in the background. This did not start immediately the system started as it needed to first organise files. As soon as the upload started the system slowed down. This triggered the poster to reboot the router. This caused the upload to completely reset and start organising files again before starting the upload from scratch again. And so on around in circles. I have also seen this happen with computers downloading a big Windows update and being switched off whilst the download was still in progress.

Hence my suggestion to just leave it alone overnight and see whether it recovers.

[#12]

@DerekW  - Yes that is quite possible, as they are not always a full network outage.

I check that Zen status  once a week, and make a note of when my dialling code area is due maintenance or had a recent outage, so that I can correlate the time/date with connection drops shown on my SamKnows Whitebox or packet loss on my ThinkBroadband Broadband Quality Monitor.

You might want to consider setting up a free ThinkBroadband monitor, see Broadband Quality Monitor FAQ 

.

[#13]

Regarding @Baldrick1 's description of the massive upload task, if that's happening to you, then setting the QoS as I described earlier 'should' allow everything to work - just without the connection stalling and losing connection.

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[#14]

@Baldrick1 

Yes I am aware that a full outage would not recover from a router reboot, that is not what I am suggesting.

They happened after midnight when I was fast asleep anyway 

My suggestion is that maybe the problems I was experiencing is the reason why they carried our 2 periods of maintenance/engineering works so close together and maybe the issue is not fixed, what ever it was.

And of course it could have absolutely nothing to do with my current issue

[#15]

@Baldrick1 @Anonymous 

Just to say I have no cloud backups set up what so ever