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TG582n LAN issues - What gives?

smilerish
Grafter
Posts: 28
Registered: ‎07-07-2012

TG582n LAN issues - What gives?

Hi everyone  Smiley
Two days into Plusnet broadband, and we've had no end of issues with the Technicolor router supplied by Plusnet. I'm pretty sure the fault's with the router, because I've had similar experiences with other models on Be and O2 in the past.
The first big issue was my partner's Vista laptop. It would connect to the WiFi fine, but for no apparent reason it wouldn't get an IP address from the router. My Macs were fine, as were the TV, PS3, etc.  No amount of poking, command line hacking, "repairing" connections, etc. would fix it. I even tried a registry solution on Microsoft's website that fixes an incompatibility with some routers (which I thought was unlikely to fix it, as this laptop has happily connected to Thomson routers before). So the solution? Reboot the router. The laptop worked first time then!
I was having similar issues with my Squeezebox, which just wouldn't connect to the network (using a combination of WiFi and wired Ethernet - it's the two-box Duet model). After the same aforementioned reboot, the Squeezebox configured successfully first time.
Come this morning, I tried to listen to 6music using the Squeezebox (internet radio). This started great, then after a few minutes, it paused for another few minutes to buffer. Nothing else was using the broadband connection - just this stream. Surely the broadband has enough bandwidth to stream 128k ACC audio? At this point, the Squeezebox appeared to give up - it wouldn't play anything, not even the files stored on my Mac (connected to the Technicolor by Ethernet). So I took a punt and rebooted the router. What do you know? Everything started working again! For all of 5 minutes...
At this stage, I checked the sync speed on the router config pages (using my MacBook on WiFi - working fine). About 5M, down from 9M the night before, but still plenty for streaming a 128k radio station. I also did a speedtest.net, which gave a 33ms ping (good), 3.3M down (reasonable on 5M sync, and still much more than 128k) and 300k up (fine).
I've also had occasional problems with uPNP/DLNA not seeing other devices on the network, which have again been fixed with a reboot.
Generally, everything should work, it's just flakey as hell! I wanted to vent where someone might listen and could possibly share similar experiences. My main concern at the moment is that all this rebooting is killing the line profile (hence the big speed drop from last night).
So I guess what I really want is recommendations of a good value router capable of doing its job. I hardly think our network is demanding - there's only two of us in the flat, so at any one time one could be browsing the web while the other streams TV off the net - a very common household demand nowadays. Has anyone had a similar experience with these routers? What did you do to resolve it?
Any input greatly received. And sorry to start with a rant! It's not aimed at anyone in particular (except maybe Thomson's poor excuse for engineers!).
Cheers,
Smilerish
2 REPLIES 2
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: TG582n LAN issues - What gives?

The flakey streaming might be Gateway related - make a note of the Plusnet Gateway that you are on, then try doing a Gateway hop as follows -
Do a Disconnect of your PPP Internet session with the ISP - you need to login to the modem/router interface and look for the Disconnect button to click on. On the Thomson modem/routers you will typically find it in the box marked Internet as shown here.
If you want to make any router or other changes (or just reboot/resync) then Disconnect the session as above then wait a few minutes, power down. Pause a couple of minutes and disconnect from the line. Then wait at least 10 minutes - during this time make any configuration changes (power up but stay disconnected from the line), swap any filters, modem/router, connect to test socket, etc. - it doesn't matter if you take longer than 10 minutes then reconnect to the line and then power up again (You may need to login to the modem/router and click on Connect to re-establish the PPP Internet session). If you check the stats immediately (The Noise Margin [SNRM] shown is usually the current Target Noise Margin).
I usually recommend you do this no more than 5 times in an hour, and then leave it alone for the rest of the day.  The reason for this procedure is to help prevent the exchange DLM from thinking you have a dropping connection.
mattturner
Grafter
Posts: 246
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎25-06-2009

Re: TG582n LAN issues - What gives?

Hi Smilerish,
I'm afraid that I've got no immediate answers or solutions for you.
If possible, please could you perform a Wireshark trace while this is occurring (http://community.plus.net/library/windows/how-to-use-wireshark-windows-video/). This capture will allow my find out which device/process the problem is in, and hopefully suggest a fix or raise it with the manufacturer.
I will try to replicate your problems internally, if I'm able to do this then I'll use Wireshark myself to try and diagnose the problem. I'll let you know how I get on.
Sorry I can't be of more help.
Matt