SNR Reset and long dodgy rural lines

[#1]

Quote from: Townman

Kgk86, An interesting tale which serves to show just how sensitive ADSL can be to in property wiring. Was the new NTE 5 of the same generation / style as the old one?  Did the old one have the bell wire connected? The later NTE 5 sockets are I believe somewhat better and a connected bell wire can be quite unhelpful! Kevin

Yes it was a new style NTE 5. The OR engineer installed a new NTE 5 and disconnected the bell wire when he fixed the line fault (But left the GPO Box 52a in place) because previously there was just an LJU5. The BB issues remained until I made the changes.
Their setup was:
Trunk cable -> 20 Pair DP -> GPO 52a -> LJU5 -> Multiple Extensions (Lots of GPO connection boxes -> NTE2000 v1 at computer
Now its:
Trunk cable -> 20 Pair DP -> NTE 5 -> NTE2000 v1 at computer (Straight though or crimped with no taps on route)

[#2]

@Townman
Nope, all in the same place. What the landlord thought was a socket upstairs where the drop comes in turned out to be a soapbar junction box.  Fair play to him, it's in an unused spare room which is never used and it's not like he's interested in anything telephonic so the mistake can be forgiven.
The line passes through another junction and then downstairs into an airing cupboard to an old, non-removable faceplate master socket which is where my router lives on a shelf next to the socket. The socket is fine where it is, physically, that location gives decent wifi coverage around the house for the laptop that I gave my landlord.

@kgk
The old "The phone works, sorry mate" is what I fear as just picking the phone up masks the problem to an extent, hence wanting to be armed with diagnostics.  As for connecting my own NTE5 to the drop, I was tempted to try that for my own peace of mind but was fearful of a "work to rule" engineer coming out, seeing that the upstairs JB has obviously been tampered with and then refusing or reporting me.

[#3]

May be you might "suggest" that installing a new drop from the wall box to the NTE 5 (thereby avoiding two junction boxes) might make life simpler for the engineer! 
Looking forward to news of their exploits later today.

[#4]

Quote from: Uncle_Meat

The line passes through another junction and then downstairs into an airing cupboard to an old, non-removable faceplate master socket which is where my router lives on a shelf next to the socket. The socket is fine where it is, physically, that location gives decent wifi coverage around the house for the laptop that I gave my landlord.

I would see if the BTOR engineer is willing to replace the first JB with an NTE 5 and VDSL faceplate. I suspect that your internal wiring could possibly be aluminium. If that works and speeds are good at the new location then replace the internal wiring. Obviously the OR engineer won't do anything about your internal wiring but I'm sure you can get your hands on some cat5 to wire back to the current location  
Bribe him with biscuits and see if he has got any BT89A's or equivalent   and possibly some internal cable.
Then join the drop wire onto the new cable using the BT89A and move the new NTE5 to your current location  

[#5]

Ta for the tips.
Just to complicate things, we've been waiting for a new biomass boiler to be fitted for a couple of weeks now, and today is the day they have decided to turn up and fit it. So, I came back to an unpowered router (switched off certain parts of the mains to untangle the old oil burner) and workmen, pipes and wires everywhere.
Brought an extension lead from a working socket to power the router with so all is in place for BT, and it now appears that there is no dialtone upon any of the house phones either, and I'm unsure whether that's down to BT playing around with the line or whether the boiler workmen have done something.
All good fun! Huzzah for mobile tethering.

[#6]

Quote from: Uncle_Meat

and it now appears that there is no dialtone upon any of the house phones either

Lets just hope that an OR engineer is at the exchange performing tests and your boiler people haven't killed the line.
Didn't you say the master was in the airing cupboard 

[#7]

Well.  End result.  Sod all.  No show by the engineer.  I'll have a rant about this later no doubt.
As for the no dialtone problem, it was the boiler dudes who knackered up the line going to the master socket. 
I've got 2 airing cupboards here.  It's an old house, a converted mill so lots of nooks and crannies here, there and everywhere.
Line comes into an upstairs spare room, along the wall to another smaller JB, then along the top of a doorframe and into the upstairs airing cupboard where the old boiler tank used to live, into another junction box (old red GPO soapbar. Bless. Cute...)  and then straight down through the ceiling into the downstairs airing cupboard where the master socket and my router live.
At some point, whilst they were ripping out the wiring in the upstairs cupboard, they also pulled the wiring out of that red JB. I only found this after they left at 6 earlier this evening, as my landlords were rather worried about having no phone service. After all, they're both in their 70s and although they rarely use the phone it's a comfort to them to have it working in case of illness or any other emergencies.
I followed the wiring around and found it all bundled up behind the new tank, with two rather obvious b/w&w/b wires hanging out of it. I connected them to a master socket I had lurking around just to prove the point and still nowt, but upon flexing the 6 foot or so of spare wire the dialtone came and went, so obviously where they had manhandled things there was an intermittent break in the cable. Righto, trim it back and reconnect to the GPO JB and we have phone service again. Only a temp repair, just enough to restore phone service at least until the boiler dudes come back tomorrow and finish off the job, whereupon I've told my landlord to point the phone cabling out to them.
So. What now? Seeing as BTs side of things, the wiring before the master socket, has now obviously been tampered with due to the boiler fitters knackering things up, do I act daft and explain all this to BT when (if) they ever show up or should I take the "Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" approach and rewire the whole shebang myself with some nice quality CAT5 and see how things go from there?

[#8]

Tbh your 'Engineer reschedule' is probably going to be another week 
If I were you I would just take that master up to the spare room and connect directly onto the drop wire.
Connect your router and phone directly to the master and see what the results are.
If they are good then I would go ahead and cancel the engineer appointment and rewire the whole shebang yourself.
If the boiler installers have messed up the 'BT side' of the master and you get an 'arsey' engineer, they are going to bill you anyway.
It really does sound like the internal wiring is shot though!

[#9]

If I would have thought on, after seeing the knackered wiring, I would have tried that but was more concerned with getting the phone service back and also a bit cheesed off after kicking my heels for 6 hours waiting for BTO to turn up and losing half a days work into the bargain.
Should be an easy job anyway, following the cable around those JBs can easily be eliminated and a relatively short drop of cable can be neatly routed from the outside drop to the downstairs airing cupboard without much fuss or hassle, and the landlord is happy enough for me to do that.
As for BT doing the job, any potential charges will rightly be billed to the boiler dudes anyway, IMO. The landlord is already primed and ready to give them a bit of a rollocking.

[#10]

Hi Uncle_Meat,
What a let down, you could not have scripted this in a soap opera! Was so looking forward to reading good news tonight.
Be sure to ask PN about BTOR no show compensation.  Look on the bright side though; if BTOR had turned up and fixed the problem... Only to have the boiler monkeys knacker the line.....
If I were in your shoes, I'd consider replacing the drop from the outside box to the NTE 5 down the outside wall.  It BTOR raise an issue, just tell them some cowboys trashed the internal wiring, if they then get snotty gave the cost passed onto the cowboys.
Kevin

[#11]

Haha, yep. Coronation Street has got sod all on yesterdays capers. Well, more Fawlty Towers come to think of it...
Anyway, I'll be curious to hear the reason for the missed visit.  If they even dare play the "Could not gain access" card I'm going to tattoo "Liars!" into their foreheads with an IDC punchdown tool.  
In two minds what to do now.  Thing about rewiring things myself is, if this does turn out to be an external issue, it gives them an excuse to fob me off.  Then again, what's the worst they can do apart from charge for the callout and rewire it, probably exactly the same as I would, but with potentially inferior wiring?
Going to try and catch the boiler crews sparky later today anyway, work out which way to play it from there.

[#12]

Morning all.  Any idea what happened to my engineer then?
I'd like to hold off booking another visit just yet until I find out what the boiler dudes who knackered the internal wiring have got planned. Work is still ongoing by them so I'd rather they finished off what they have to do before I start playing with wires again.

[#13]

Good afternoon.
I've just checked in with our suppliers who have advised that there has been a system issue which has prevented the engineer being dispatched. Unfortunately this information was not presented to us on our suppliers systems, otherwise we would have been able to advise you of this in good time - I'm really sorry this has happened 😕
I've had a case raised to have the issue with the fault on our suppliers systems rectified so that this doesn't happen again. I'll need to wait for them to come back to me before arranging a visit, that perhaps works well alongside the boiler guys finishing their side of the work.
I'm honestly really sorry for the inconvenience.

[#14]

Ta for the update Chris. No need to apologise, it's not your fault.  BTw though...  Come the revolution...
Going to decide which way to play it over the weekend anyway. Torn between rewiring the whole lot myself, or reporting it as a fault via the line provider, explaining that some workmen knackered things up, and letting BT rewire the whole lot and bill any resulting charges to the boiler dudes.
My reasoning is, if this rewire does not cure things, at least they can't subsequently try to get me on the "you've been fiddling" which could delay or otherwise knacker me up with getting the line fault fixed.
There's a thought, a question for anyone reading this.  Have any of you (points finger at screen) rewired your own drop from DP to master socket and then had any problems with BTO for doing so?

[#15]

Uncle_Meat,
Iirc you are North Wales.  Give this guy - http://www.saynotobt.com - a call for advice. He is Wirral based and offers free advice over the phone.
A PM to kgk86 would not go amiss either.
Kevin