Just had Sky Max, not a happy gamer :(

[1have2much3time]

Hey guys,

Just moved into a new house in the manchester area and took sky as we were getting the tv package anyway, easier all on one bill etc. There's 3 lads sharing the house so we went for the 16meg broadband thinking it should be easily enough for us... however there's been a few issues.

It was installed on Tuesday of last week. Firstly, browsing is ok, but nothing groundbreaking, quite 'stop/start' when loading pages sometimes. Downloading is nowhere near as quick as expected, quite shameful at some points in the day. Gaming... well, most games are unplayable.

I see others complaining about pings of 50, that's a dream... pings have been consistantly 100ms+. I know this is nothing to do with my own computer as i've just moved it from another house on NTL (now Virgin i think) broadband and it was fine.

I'm gonna do the gamer's survey stickied above and perhaps you guys could spot anything? Cheers. Perhaps i'm being too hasty only 6 days since it's been installed but i'm sure other gamers can relate, i need my fix!

Have you gotten through to Tier 3 to lower your Max Delay?
Nope, i assume this is probably my first thing to do though?

What are your router stats? E.g Attenuation etc.

Incidently, the download speed was 2xxx yesterday when i checked it, does this update automatically or is that someone at sky tweaking? As far as i'm aware no one from the house has phoned/emailed sky to complain as of yet. Besides, shouldn't this number say 16000?

Roughly how far away are you from your local exchange?
You are around 1.64 kilometres from your exchange (as the crow flies).

Are you connected to your router using an extension cable?
It's just the tiny wire from the phone plug to the minibox thing, then the cable to the router.

Do you know your average sync speed?
Sorry i don't, if anyone can tell me how to find out i'd be happy to.

Are you connected wirelessly or wired?
Wired.

Could everyone ping to the same 2 address' to find their pings? bbc.co.uk and jolt.co.uk
bbc.co.uk = 60ms
jolt.co.uk = 60ms

Exchange Location/Name
Rusholme i believe.

Sky Broadband Package
16meg

Finally a speedtest taken at midday today.


Grats if you made it to the end of this post, ended up being a bit long sorry. Any ideas guys? What would you do in my position? Phonecall? Email perhaps?

[dholdi]

Your are syncing at 3200 ( downstream connection speed in the router stats table ). With a line att of 49 you should be able to get roughly twice that, see this thread for an explanation.
http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/route...explained.html
I would get on the phone to sky and complain of a slow connection. Once that is resolved, as you say you need to get your max delays reduced, but I would deal with one thing at a time.
Unless the unlimited downloads and higher upload are important to you then downgrading to mid would not effect your sync speed ( once sorted 0 AND SAVE YOU £5 A MONTH.

[1have2much3time]

Thanks for the quick reply :>

According to that linked thread, with an attenuation of 50db, i should have a potential connection of 6500kbps, yet i'm actually only getting 3200kbps. Just so i am clear, is the downstream connection speed set automatically by the router as the best speed it can manage with the exchange or is it set by someone at sky?

Cheers.

[Saturday]

I would get on the phone to sky and complain of a slow connection.

Not sure that would be my first step. Sky will just do basic troubleshooting e.g. test socket, filters etc. All that info (and more) is in the cabling and faceplate help forum and saves the hassle of a call to Sky. If after the tests it was clear that the problem was with the BT line rather than the home wiring then Sky will if pushed involve BT but again, I'd rather do that myself. But maybe that's just me.


@ihave

As dholdi has said, your sync is rather low for your attenuation and looking at your noise margin, that shows that the problem is a wiring issue (i.e. filter, splitter, extension or possibly the BT line) and not really anything that Sky can do directly. At least 80% of the time such problems turn out to be arising in the home set up e.g. missing/incorrectly fitted filters, dodgy wiring and so on. Your low upstream noise margin also supports the probability of a wiring problem and it may well be that to achieve the upstream sync the router is "robbing" some of the downstream frequencies which would further suppress your sync. The forum mentioned above will help you diagnose and fix common line/wiring problems. If you're stuck then please post a more complete description of your home phone wiring including extensions, filters, sky box etc plus a stats comparison using just the test socket.

Lastly, no, you've bought an "up to 16meg" service. ADSL is a line length dependent service (unlike cable) and to get 16 meg you'd need a shorter line than your attenuation suggests.

HTH

Just so i am clear, is the downstream connection speed set automatically by the router as the best speed it can manage with the exchange or is it set by someone at sky?

Your stats appear to show that your sync is the best the router can achieve with the current line condition. If you were capped (i.e. Sky had limited your speed) then your noise margin would be much higher.

[Isitme]

About 90% of problems are down to internal wiring, so before you phone Sky, plug the router into your Test socket, which is behind the master socket faceplate, removed by undoing 2 screws. Use one of the supplied filters and do not plug a phone in at this stage. Take your stats from there and post them here.

Your present stats indicate that you are almost at the maximum speed you can get. This can be down to noise on the external line or faulty internal wiring. Hopefully it will be internal wiring which is easily fixed.

Sorry NR had lunch between starting this and posting.

[1have2much3time]

About 90% of problems are down to internal wiring, so before you phone Sky, plug the router into your Test socket, which is behind the master socket faceplate, removed by undoing 2 screws. Use one of the supplied filters and do not plug a phone in at this stage. Take your stats from there and post them here.

Your present stats indicate that you are almost at the maximum speed you can get. This can be down to noise on the external line or faulty internal wiring. Hopefully it will be internal wiring which is easily fixed.

Sorry NR had lunch between starting this and posting.:)

Hey, thanks for replying.

I just got the screwdriver out and tried the test socket, a speedtest after shows practically identical results :(

[Brian69]

When you connect to the test socket, check that all other sockets are dead.

[PaulSky]

Its not the speed we would be interested in from the test socket, attenuation and SNR are what we would look at to see if there are any changes.

[1have2much3time]

When you connect to the test socket, check that all other sockets are dead.

This is proving difficult to test in this house as the only other socket i can find (just moved in) is dead anyway.

Its not the speed we would be interested in from the test socket, attenuation and SNR are what we would look at to see if there are any changes.

Ah, sorry here's the router stats after being in the test socket about 20 mins.

[Brian69]

As there is no real differance at the test socket (and there should always be some) I'm going to take a guess on this one. I think that the extension is connected to the line, and is wired incorrectly (thats why it,s always dead).
to start with you need to look at the extension socket and check where the wires are connected. Post back with a photo if possible.