Intermittent dropouts for months, Sky support no help

[Lenaldo]

Hi,

We've got Sky Broadband Unlimited using the Sagem F@st 2504 Router provided by Sky and have been suffering from intermittent internet dropouts all through the day for a long time now. Sometimes there are months where the connection is fine but some months the internet is near unuseable as we can have 4 drops in around 5-10 minutes at times.

Before Christmas we had a spell of awful connection where it did such things. However from January until the start of March it was once again reliable. For the past 2/3 weeks we have once again been suffering from this problem so I have tried to fix it myself over the past 2 days. After trying various wireless channels (i've tried this before in the past) and even resetting the router to factory settings the other day the problem still remains. I have always had UPnP turned off as I have heard this causes problems.

Two days ago we phoned Sky. As I predicted before the phonecall the advice they gave was to change the Network Channel which i've already tried (tried all channels to see improvement to no avail) after that I was told to change the mode to "802.11b only" after being dropout free for a couple of hours the problem returned twice later on at night. Yesterday the internet was fine with no dropouts until around 10pm when it went off twice in an hour then later on I noted down the follwing:

Apr 6 00:15:29 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link down

Apr 6 00:15:30 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.994 training

Apr 6 00:15:38 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 started

Apr 6 00:15:42 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 channel analysis

Apr 6 00:15:49 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 message exchange

Apr 6 00:15:50 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link up, interleaved, us=536, ds=3072

Apr 6 00:15:58 (none) daemon.crit pppd[11969]: PPP LCP UP.

Apr 6 00:15:59 (none) daemon.crit pppd[11969]: Received valid IP address from server. Connection UP.



Apr 6 01:01:13 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link down

Apr 6 01:01:14 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.994 training

Apr 6 01:01:22 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 started

Apr 6 01:01:26 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 channel analysis

Apr 6 01:01:33 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 message exchange

Apr 6 01:01:34 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link up, interleaved, us=605, ds=3067

Apr 6 01:01:40 (none) daemon.crit pppd[14393]: PPP LCP UP.

Apr 6 01:01:40 (none) daemon.crit pppd[14393]: Received valid IP address from server. Connection UP.



Apr 6 01:12:29 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link down

Apr 6 01:12:40 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.994 training

Apr 6 01:12:48 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 started

Apr 6 01:12:52 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 channel analysis

Apr 6 01:12:58 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 message exchange

Apr 6 01:12:59 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link down

Apr 6 01:13:00 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.994 training

Apr 6 01:13:08 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 started

Apr 6 01:13:12 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 channel analysis

Apr 6 01:13:19 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 message exchange

Apr 6 01:13:19 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link up, interleaved, us=605, ds=3065

Apr 6 01:13:26 (none) daemon.crit pppd[15827]: PPP LCP UP.

Apr 6 01:13:27 (none) daemon.crit pppd[15827]: Received valid IP address from server. Connection UP.



Apr 6 02:24:12 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link down

Apr 6 02:24:15 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.994 training

Apr 6 02:24:22 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 started

Apr 6 02:24:26 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 channel analysis

Apr 6 02:24:33 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 message exchange

Apr 6 02:24:33 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link up, interleaved, us=605, ds=3071

Apr 6 02:24:39 (none) daemon.crit pppd[20417]: PPP LCP UP.

Apr 6 02:24:40 (none) daemon.crit pppd[20417]: Received valid IP address from server. Connection UP.




Apr 6 02:33:04 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link down

Apr 6 02:33:06 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.994 training

Apr 6 02:33:14 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 started

Apr 6 02:33:18 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 channel analysis

Apr 6 02:33:24 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 message exchange

Apr 6 02:33:25 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link up, interleaved, us=536, ds=3072

Apr 6 02:33:32 (none) daemon.crit pppd[21449]: PPP LCP UP.

Apr 6 02:33:33 (none) daemon.crit pppd[21449]: Received valid IP address from server. Connection UP.



Apr 6 02:56:45 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link down

Apr 6 02:56:55 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.994 training

Apr 6 02:57:03 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 started

Apr 6 02:57:07 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 channel analysis

Apr 6 02:57:14 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 message exchange

Apr 6 02:57:14 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link up, interleaved, us=605, ds=3067

Apr 6 02:57:20 (none) daemon.crit pppd[22695]: PPP LCP UP.

Apr 6 02:57:20 (none) daemon.crit pppd[22695]: Received valid IP address from server. Connection UP.





Apr 6 03:22:48 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link down

Apr 6 03:22:49 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.994 training

Apr 6 03:22:57 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 started

Apr 6 03:23:01 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 channel analysis

Apr 6 03:23:08 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL G.992 message exchange

Apr 6 03:23:09 (none) user.crit kernel: ADSL link up, interleaved, us=521, ds=3072

Apr 6 03:23:14 (none) daemon.crit pppd[23957]: PPP LCP UP.

Apr 6 03:23:15 (none) daemon.crit pppd[23957]: Received valid IP address from server. Connection UP.


Until the phone call to Sky the router was upstairs connected into the extension due to the fact we have 3 floors (the loft was converted into an office for my father's business therefore it was the best place for us so we could all have a good wireless connection). There are 3 of us in the house that own laptops (hardly ever all on at the same time), I have an Xbox 360 which I have correctly port forwarded connected to the router via ethernet cable (which also loses connection at the same time as the wireless devices)

As previously said moving the router downstairs to the main line has still led to dropouts and before we make another dreaded phonecall to Sky which will no doubt result in "have you tried changing the channel" I wanted to come here and see if anyone could help me.

atm these are my router stats

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 3069 kbps 502 kbps
Line Attenuation 51.0 db 25.7 db
Noise Margin 7.8 db 7.3 db



If anyone has any ideas it would mean a lot to me, I'm in my last few weeks of uni and have deadlines which need to be met by submitting my work online, so I kinda need this sorting ASAP

[Scubbie]

Do you have a friend locally who is also on Sky BB?

I would be inclined to temporarily swap routers with them if only to rule in/out the router.

With a result like that, it shouldn't take to long to confirm where that problem stems from.

[Lenaldo]

I don't think anyone else I know is on sky, most of my friends are on virgin broadband. I have the old netgear router in a box from when we were on a lower package, should i try and use that?

[I_Hate_Sky_Awnsers]

Your master socket could be upstairs.

Does your phone line enter the house from a telegraph pole?

Do you have a socket in the house that looks like this Master Socket?

[Lenaldo]

Yes the phone line enters the house from a telegraph pole and the Master Socket is the one downstairs that it's been on for the past 2 days since I phoned Sky, it looks like that one you've provided.

[I_Hate_Sky_Awnsers]

Did you just have it connected to the front of the socket or did you take the front faceplate of the socket of?

If you haven't tried it with the faceplate removed it would be a good idea to try it in the test socket. It will rule out internal wiring as an issue.

If it is still dropping from their, you could try another microfilter if you have one.

Is the cable you are connecting the router to the microfilter with around 1.5m (the one supplied by sky)?

[Lenaldo]

I have it connected to the front of the socket, it hasn't gone off today but then again it didn't yesterday until around 10pm so if it goes off again i'll try it with the faceplate off. I'm using the cables sky provided.

[Scubbie]

I don't think anyone else I know is on sky, most of my friends are on virgin broadband. I have the old netgear router in a box from when we were on a lower package, should i try and use that?

If it is a Sky router, then it will work just fine.

If it is a router that isn't tied to someone else's BB and worked fine previously, then I would also recommend that you try it. Extract the password from the new router and set up you spare router as required.

See this section of this forum:

Extracting Sky Router passwords

[Lenaldo]

Ah yes sorry i didn't specify where the other router was from, the netgear router is also a sky router which we used before we upgraded to unlimited.

[Scubbie]

Fantastic!

Sky very rarely block old routers, so please go ahead and try it.