plus.net speed fluctuates wildly

I have a 2MB adsl connection with plus.net and the speed fluctuates
wildly over time. What seems to happen is that the speed is fine for a
while then drops to ~100kbps after a few days. If I then turn off the
router for a period of time (1 or 2 hours?) then it goes back to normal,
although this is hard to reproduce exactly. Each time I do a BT speed
test (where you have to reconfigure your router to the bt login etc.)
the speeds are always 1500+kbps so the problem must be with plus.net.

Here is a record of the plus.net speed tests in recent times (I got
bored of doing them at one point ).

27-04-2006 09:22:45 130.5
19-04-2006 23:25:18 1714.5
19-04-2006 22:45:15 941.2
19-04-2006 22:21:58 96
19-04-2006 22:15:51 133.3
17-04-2006 20:05:43 1886.6
17-04-2006 19:57:34 1772.6
17-04-2006 19:52:37 132.5
17-04-2006 19:08:31 128.4
17-04-2006 19:04:36 124.9
17-04-2006 18:39:49 128.7
16-04-2006 04:52:15 1739.3
16-04-2006 04:51:39 1742.1
16-04-2006 04:51:00 1585
16-04-2006 04:50:34 1747.5
15-04-2006 14:00:54 123.6
15-04-2006 12:30:04 132.3
15-04-2006 00:18:39 94.1
15-04-2006 00:17:58 64.2
15-04-2006 00:08:34 133.5


Mostly it is less than a 15th of what it should be with brief spurts of
speed that seem to correspond to router rebooting.

The ticket I have open is constantly deferred everytime the speed goes
back up again which is very frustrating.

Anyone got any ideas?

Raphael
P.S. This is on a linux system.

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

> I have a 2MB adsl connection with plus.net and the speed fluctuates
> wildly over time. What seems to happen is that the speed is fine for
> a while then drops to ~100kbps after a few days. If I then turn off
> the router for a period of time (1 or 2 hours?) then it goes back to
> normal, although this is hard to reproduce exactly. Each time I do a
> BT speed test (where you have to reconfigure your router to the bt
> login etc.) the speeds are always 1500+kbps so the problem must be
> with plus.net.
Not necessarily. The router could be picking up (or generating!) noise which
is dramatically reducing the SNR and increasing the error rate - and sorting
itself out when it cools down and/or is re-booted.

What sort of router is it? Not a 3Com by any chance?

Have a look at the stats - synch rate, attenuation, noise margin, CRC error
rate, etc. next time you get a very low throughput rate, and let us know
what the numbers are.
--
Cheers,
Roger
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lesshaste wrote:
> I have a 2MB adsl connection with plus.net and the speed fluctuates
> wildly over time. What seems to happen is that the speed is fine for
> a while then drops to ~100kbps after a few days. If I then turn off
> the router for a period of time (1 or 2 hours?) then it goes back to
> normal, although this is hard to reproduce exactly. Each time I do a
> BT speed test (where you have to reconfigure your router to the bt
> login etc.) the speeds are always 1500+kbps so the problem must be
> with plus.net.

Do you have to reconfig your router to run the BT speedtest?

Grumps wrote:
> lesshaste wrote:
>> I have a 2MB adsl connection with plus.net and the speed fluctuates
>> wildly over time. What seems to happen is that the speed is fine for
>> a while then drops to ~100kbps after a few days. If I then turn off
>> the router for a period of time (1 or 2 hours?) then it goes back to
>> normal, although this is hard to reproduce exactly. Each time I do a
>> BT speed test (where you have to reconfigure your router to the bt
>> login etc.) the speeds are always 1500+kbps so the problem must be
>> with plus.net.
>
> Do you have to reconfig your router to run the BT speedtest?
>
>


Yes. You use the login speedtest@speedtest_domain in your router and
then go to http://217.35.209.142 or http://217.32.105.42 - if you are
using PlusNet DNS servers.

Raphael

Roger Mills wrote:
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
> lesshaste <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> I have a 2MB adsl connection with plus.net and the speed fluctuates
>> wildly over time. What seems to happen is that the speed is fine for
>> a while then drops to ~100kbps after a few days. If I then turn off
>> the router for a period of time (1 or 2 hours?) then it goes back to
>> normal, although this is hard to reproduce exactly. Each time I do a
>> BT speed test (where you have to reconfigure your router to the bt
>> login etc.) the speeds are always 1500+kbps so the problem must be
>> with plus.net.
> Not necessarily. The router could be picking up (or generating!) noise which
> is dramatically reducing the SNR and increasing the error rate - and sorting
> itself out when it cools down and/or is re-booted.
>
> What sort of router is it? Not a 3Com by any chance?
>
> Have a look at the stats - synch rate, attenuation, noise margin, CRC error
> rate, etc. next time you get a very low throughput rate, and let us know
> what the numbers are.

The thing is that the BT test always shows full speed. So I can see no
reason why SNR problems would effect plus.net speed tests and not the BT
ones. Remember these are the special BT tests where you login directly
to BT and not via plus.net.

On another note, it's slow right now but I don't know how to find any of
those stats you mention. It is a solwise sar110 router (the ones
plus.net used to sell)
http://www.bhreviews.co.uk/Hardware/solwise_sar110.htm. I have had it
for years and this problem has only started in the last few weeks.

Raphael

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

>
> The thing is that the BT test always shows full speed. So I can see no
> reason why SNR problems would effect plus.net speed tests and not the
> BT ones. Remember these are the special BT tests where you login
> directly to BT and not via plus.net.
>
Yes, I'm aware of that - but reconfiguring it may well reset whatever has
upset it.

I bet it runs at full speed for a bit when you re-connect to PlusNet?

Have you left it connected to the BT test logon for a long time to see
whether it degrades after a period of time? If not, you don't really have a
valid comparison.

> On another note, it's slow right now but I don't know how to find any
> of those stats you mention. It is a solwise sar110 router (the ones
> plus.net used to sell)
> http://www.bhreviews.co.uk/Hardware/solwise_sar110.htm. I have had it
> for years and this problem has only started in the last few weeks.
>
I don't know this router, but I imagine that you get to its config menu by
pointing your browser at the router's IP address. Somewhere in the menu
system there is likely to be page which shows the relevant statistics. On my
3Com router, it's called "ADSL Status"
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!

lesshaste wrote:
> Grumps wrote:
>> lesshaste wrote:
>>> I have a 2MB adsl connection with plus.net and the speed fluctuates
>>> wildly over time. What seems to happen is that the speed is fine
>>> for a while then drops to ~100kbps after a few days. If I then turn
>>> off the router for a period of time (1 or 2 hours?) then it goes
>>> back to normal, although this is hard to reproduce exactly. Each
>>> time I do a BT speed test (where you have to reconfigure your
>>> router to the bt login etc.) the speeds are always 1500+kbps so the
>>> problem must be with plus.net.
>>
>> Do you have to reconfig your router to run the BT speedtest?
>>
>>
>
>
> Yes. You use the login speedtest@speedtest_domain in your router and
> then go to http://217.35.209.142 or http://217.32.105.42 - if you are
> using PlusNet DNS servers.

I did this once, when I had speed problems.
Since then, I have been able to run the speed test without the need to
logout from my ISP and login to either of the above IPs.

Here are the current stats from my router. (I found the right menu
option at last )

Vendor ID: 00B5GSPN
Revision Number: T93.3.38
Serial Number: Solwise-260304
Local Tx Power: 11.95 dB
Remote Tx Power: 19.51 dB
Local Line Atten.: 14.5 dB
Remote Line Atten.: 12.0 dB
Local SNR Margin: 32.0 dB
Remote SNR Margin: 28.0 dB
Self Test: Passed
DSL Standard: G.dmt
Trellis Coding: Enable
Framing Structure: Framing-3


Speed still below 130kbps downstream.

What do you think?

Raphael

I can also do that but then I get the slow plus.net speed. I only get
the fast speed if I log out of plus.net and into BT.

Raphael

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

> Here are the current stats from my router. (I found the right menu
> option at last )
>
> Vendor ID: 00B5GSPN
> Revision Number: T93.3.38
> Serial Number: Solwise-260304
> Local Tx Power: 11.95 dB
> Remote Tx Power: 19.51 dB
> Local Line Atten.: 14.5 dB
> Remote Line Atten.: 12.0 dB
> Local SNR Margin: 32.0 dB
> Remote SNR Margin: 28.0 dB
> Self Test: Passed
> DSL Standard: G.dmt
> Trellis Coding: Enable
> Framing Structure: Framing-3
>
>
> Speed still below 130kbps downstream.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Raphael

Nothing obviously wrong with the numbers! Is there a page which tells you at
what speed the line is synching?

Sounds like it *could* be a PN problem. PN usually tell you to run the speed
test several times in the middle of the night when contention isn't likely
to be an issue. Have you done that?

If you disconnect and re-connect a few minutes later without turning the
router off or re-booting it, does it temporarily fix the problem?

If not, if you re-boot the router and immediately re-connect, does it
temporarily fix the problem?
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!