How long does an ADSL "always-on" connection stay up

ISTR seeing posts a while back suggesting that "always-on" ADSL connections
would stay up for weeks at a time. Is this the norm?

I have had ADSL (PlusNet) for about 10 days - during which time the
connection has been dropped (and automatically re-connected) twice - usually
in the middle of the night.

I wouldn't mind too much except that each time it has happened, I have been
unable to access any web sites, email servers or news servers until I have
manually taken the link down and re-established it.

Can anyone offer any clues as to what is going on? Could this be caused by a
BT automatic line check every 4 or 5 days? When it comes back, why can't I
surf until I have intervened?

My setup is as follows:
The physical connection is via a PII machine, running Windows 98, and fitted
with an internal PCI MegaSpeed ADSL modem. This computer is acting as a
router (running WinRoute software) in order to share the connection with 3
othere PCs - connected via a hub. This works like a dream for most of the
time, but when this problem occurs I need to:
* Stop the (pseudo) DUN connection
* Stop ADSL
* Re-start ADSL
* Allow the DUN connection to re-establish itself
.. . . before I can surf again.

Do people with hardware routers have similar problems?
--
Cheers,
Tim
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is Black Hole!

"Tiscali Tim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> ISTR seeing posts a while back suggesting that "always-on" ADSL
connections
> would stay up for weeks at a time. Is this the norm?

<snipped>

> My setup is as follows:
> The physical connection is via a PII machine, running Windows 98, and
fitted
> with an internal PCI MegaSpeed ADSL modem. This computer is acting as a
> router (running WinRoute software) in order to share the connection with 3
> othere PCs - connected via a hub. This works like a dream for most of the
> time, but when this problem occurs I need to:
> * Stop the (pseudo) DUN connection
> * Stop ADSL
> * Re-start ADSL
> * Allow the DUN connection to re-establish itself
> . . . before I can surf again.
>
> Do people with hardware routers have similar problems?
> --
> Cheers,
> Tim
> ______
> Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is Black Hole!

I think you are flooging a dead horse. Everything about your current
configuration is asking for trouble.

Win98, even SE version is a nasty bug ridden O/S that cannot be relied upon
for much more than frustration, it is far from uitable for mission-critical
use.

A PII (you dont say what speed) is possibly going to have a job servicing
all of the network connections you need.

An internal modem will most likely be putting high demands on the PII.

Then you are using WinRoute. Is that proven to be a stable piece of
software? It was not the last time I checked.

Get a router, you will be pleased you did.

Jim

Tiscali Tim wrote:

> ISTR seeing posts a while back suggesting that "always-on" ADSL
> connections would stay up for weeks at a time. Is this the norm?

From my MRTG monitor of my router:
The statistics were last updated Friday, 14 May 2004 at 17:30,
at which time 'Viking' had been up for 20 days, 11:51:45.

So yes, weeks is easy. However, I'm using dedicated external hardware (SAR
110 to be precise).

On the other hand, the Vigor 2600 at work has been misbehaving recently,
though since we disconnected the wireless AP from the back of it, the
connection has been stable.

--
Use dhill + nana at cricalix , net with appropriate fixing to reply via
e-mail.

Take a look at the PLUS service status page. You will see that various
maintenance operations have been taking place. Your operating system and
hardware may well not be up to the job anyway,

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Mindmender <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> "Tiscali Tim" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> ISTR seeing posts a while back suggesting that "always-on" ADSL
>> connections would stay up for weeks at a time. Is this the norm?
>
> <snipped>
>
>> My setup is as follows:
>> The physical connection is via a PII machine, running Windows 98,
>> and fitted with an internal PCI MegaSpeed ADSL modem. This computer
>> is acting as a router (running WinRoute software) in order to share
>> the connection with 3 othere PCs - connected via a hub. This works
>> like a dream for most of the time, but when this problem occurs I
>> need to:
>> * Stop the (pseudo) DUN connection
>> * Stop ADSL
>> * Re-start ADSL
>> * Allow the DUN connection to re-establish itself
>> . . . before I can surf again.
>>
>> Do people with hardware routers have similar problems?
>> --
>> Cheers,
>> Tim
>> ______
>> Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is Black Hole!
>
> I think you are flooging a dead horse. Everything about your current
> configuration is asking for trouble.
>
> Win98, even SE version is a nasty bug ridden O/S that cannot be
> relied upon for much more than frustration, it is far from uitable
> for mission-critical use.
>
> A PII (you dont say what speed) is possibly going to have a job
> servicing all of the network connections you need.
>
> An internal modem will most likely be putting high demands on the PII.
>
> Then you are using WinRoute. Is that proven to be a stable piece of
> software? It was not the last time I checked.
>
> Get a router, you will be pleased you did.
>
> Jim

Whilst I agree with you to an extent, and intend to get a hardware router
before too long, I doubt whether my setup is directly responsible.

FWIW, the processor is 350Mhz. This line dropping has so far only occurred
in the middle of the night - when all the other PCs have been turned off -
and absolutely nothing is happening. If the PII is overloaded in the
daytime, it certainly isn't at 3am.

If the line is being dropped due to some external cause, this would
presumably still happen with a router?
--
Cheers,
Tim
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is Black Hole!

> Take a look at the PLUS service status page. You will see that various
> maintenance operations have been taking place. Your operating system and
> hardware may well not be up to the job anyway,

ditto there's been 2 nights when BT work has been carried out the last week
or so that could and probably caused the disconnections.

Other reasons: using an application that floods the Modem or Router with
more requests than it can handle. So the Modem/Router hardware locks up and
looses connection and if lucky reconnects, if not it crashes and does
nothing after loosing connection. Usual fix for that is a reboot of the Host
PC or Turn Off and back on the dead Router.


Local bad weather, wet telephone equipment between your exchange and house /
Lightning strikes = worse attenuation etc and if bad enough lost connections

On Sat, 15 May 2004 18:15:44 UTC, "Tiscali Tim" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

> If the line is being dropped due to some external cause, this would
> presumably still happen with a router?

My suspicion is that the line is being dropped due to overnight BT
maintanance activities. But your setup may be to balem for not
automatically logging back on.

With a router, it'd still happen but the automatic log on would work!
--
Bob Eager
begin a new life...dump Windows!

On Sat, 15 May 2004 19:28:44 +0100, "Gus" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>> Take a look at the PLUS service status page. You will see that various
>> maintenance operations have been taking place. Your operating system and
>> hardware may well not be up to the job anyway,
>
>ditto there's been 2 nights when BT work has been carried out the last week
>or so that could and probably caused the disconnections.

The other option is that your PC is doing something overnight, eg is
diskeeper running on it, does it have power saving or sleep mode in
operation etc. Anything like this could power the modem down or starve
it of CPU cycles.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Bob Eager <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> On Sat, 15 May 2004 18:15:44 UTC, "Tiscali Tim" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>> If the line is being dropped due to some external cause, this would
>> presumably still happen with a router?
>
> My suspicion is that the line is being dropped due to overnight BT
> maintanance activities. But your setup may be to blame for not
> automatically logging back on.
>
> With a router, it'd still happen but the automatic log on would work!

My current setup *does* automatically log back on. After one of these
breaks, the WinRoute PC looks just like it always does - with the correct
status for the ADSL connection and pseudo DUN - it's just that I can't surf
until I've re-done it manually!

Anyone got any ideas as to what may be going on?

--
Cheers,
Tim
______
Please reply to newsgroup. Reply address is Black Hole!

Historians believe that in newspost
<40a6564c$0$20514$(E-Mail Removed)> on Sat, 15 May
2004, Mindmender <(E-Mail Removed)> penned the following literary
masterpiece:
>Then you are using WinRoute. Is that proven to be a stable piece of
>software? It was not the last time I checked.

We used it here for a couple of years with no problems for a network of
say 5 computers. However I used to drop the USB ADSL connection at night
and automatically schedule it to re-start at say 8am every weekday. It
was Win2K though!

Now it's a Vigor ADSL router and a much larger network. Much nicer.

Duncan
--
I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing noise they make as
they go flying by.

Duncan Clark
GeneSys Ltd.