Complicated wiring

[BillyHunt]

I’ve got a bit of a complicated wiring set up.
It all originates from when I had ISDN installed.
The PC is in the living room, the master socket was at the bottom of the stairs.
When the BT engineer came he said he needed the master socket next to the PC so he rearranged the wiring accordingly.
This is where it gets complicated and quite hard to explain (for me anyway)
He ran a cable from the master to a new socket next to the PC.
But he kept the old master in place and said this would work as before as the line runs from the master to the new master then goes back down the same cable to the old master.
He explained it better than I so it does make sense to me.

Now I’ve had ADSL since the exchange was activated by plugging the router into the new master socket and have been happy with 2mbps but when I went to max with Nildram it only went up by 0.5mbps .
After a while I decided to investigate the wiring in the house to see if I could improve it.
The new master socket had a test socket behind the face plate when I connected directly to this the speed doubled to 5mbps.
Since I’ve left the router connected to the test socket, I use a cordless phone so the fact that no other sockets worked doesn’t bother me.
Now what I’m wondering is if the old master became the master again would I see a further improvement in speed?
I took the face plate off the old master, it’s easy to see where the face plate was bypassed.

If I reconnected this to the socket and plugged the router to it would I see an improvement?
I couldn’t actually leave the router there, but before I go down that avenue I want to know what if any improvement I would get.

I took some pictures (yea I'm sad and bored)
Index of /images/wiring

ADSL Link 	        Downstream 	Upstream
Connection Speed        6752 kbps 	    768 kbps
Line Attenuation        45.0 db 	    29.5 db
Noise Margin 	        9.2 db 	            14.0 db

[Saturday]

That is fairly complicated! We have a few ex-BT engineers on the forum so hopefully one of them can offer you professional advice rather than an unhelpfull guess.

One thing you might wish to bear in mind though is that with an attenuation of 45db, whatever improvements you make to your wiring, the maximum speed you could hope for is ~8000kbps, only about 15% more than you currently have.

[stephens]

I think you could see an improvement. The easiest way to do it is just re-connect the original NTE5 socket and connect the router to the test socket to check stats. It is not complicated to do, and if there is no improvement you can just simply place it back as it was.

You say you get a better result from the new master test socket than the socket on the front. This should be improved if you remove wires 3 and 4 from the back

[BillyHunt]

Well it would be really good if the Attenuation would decrease or the noise margin increase.
But I guess that would be hoping for too much.
If I could get any kind of improvement it would be worth it.
The quality of the line deteriorates quite a bit during the evenings 6-7db during the day becomes 4db or less in the evening which leads to a load of errors.

There are only two lines that come in from the line which are orange and white which are then routed to the new master but when the line comes back there's six lines connected to the socket
Where would I connect the orange and white line to on the socket?
Then when I connect the line back what would be the best way of connecting the two wires?

[stephens]

It is unlikely that you will see an increase in attenuation, noise margins will not necessarily increase as the router connects at the highest possible sync rate while keeping the noise at a reasonable level. Noise margins may increase enough to give a more stable connection.

It looks to me like the orange wire is connected to the brown/white wire and the white wire is connected to the white/brown wire. This cable then feeds to the new master socket where the brown/white wire is connected to terminal B and the white/brown wire is connected to terminal A. Terminals A and B are found at the rear of the NTE5 socket. As in the pictures the wires from the new master to the old on are all linked together to the correct terminals. The green/white and white/green wires will jus be connected for neatness. They do not serve a purpose.

Could you let me know if what I have stated is correct if possible?

Also on one of the pictures there is an NTE5 socket above the extension socket. Is this still functioning?

[BillyHunt]

Yep that sounds about right
The socket above is active via two separate wires that come from the outside it's a line that my work provide.

Edit:
If I did get an increase in noise margin then it would be worth it.

[Saturday]

Improvements to your wiring may give a marginal improvement to your attenuation of ~1db.

Whilst the noise margin may increase (as stephens says, the router will first use this to increase the speed - but the attenuation will limit this) the bigger benefit may be that the normal noise margin cycles will be smaller. The sticky in my signature explains this in more detail.

In the end though it's always going to be a compromise between speed and stability on anything other than an excellent line.

[stephens]

Okay, I see.

The old master socket you refer to is not a master socket, instead it is a secondary socket (LJU3/3A). Was this always used as a master socket before the changes were made or was it put there by BT when they made the changes? If it has always been that way you can just carry on.

To re-activate the old master socket you need to first disconnect all the wires connected to it. Then connect the orange wire to pin 2 and the white wire to pin 5. You need an IDC tool to connect the wires (this is what i recommend), but many people use an old credit card or a very thin screw driver. If doing it this way you need to be very careful. You will then be able to test your router in it to see if there is any difference.

To make the new master socket an extension you can connect the brown/white wire to pin 2 at the old master socket and the white/brown wire to pin 5 at the old master socket. Then at the new master socket all the wires in the faceplate can be removed

[BillyHunt]

Thanks for that stephens that's exactly what I needed to know.
The socket was always used as a master socket before, it was the only socket in the house when I moved in.
I'll give it a go tomorrow and post the results

[stephens]

Good luck!

A quick note, if that does not yield any improvement, or not much improvement an ADSL faceplate on the new master socket would be the next option.