Weird router / cable / filter problem

[thecrescent]

Hi,

My phone had been crackly for a while so 2 months ago I invested in a good new microfilter; an ADSL Nation XF-1e. With the router off, this solved the crackly problems. WIth the router on it was still crackly though so I invested in a high speed Belkin modem cable between my black Sky Sagem router and microfilter. The phone was then fine with the router on.

This was all good until a few weeks ago where I found that the internet wouldn't connect so i swapped back to the old modem cable and it connected straight away. Then the next day i switched the router on it wouldn't connect so again i swapped back to the high speed cable and fine. So now everytime I want to use the internet I have to swap the cables over, or remember to unplug the cable at the microfilter after using the internet then it's fine when i plug it back in the next day.

This is really weird, has anyone any idea what could be at fault here?

Also today I left the router on for most of the day and after about 3 hours it disconnected for about 10 mins then reconnected by itself. A bit later it did the same thing but couldn't connect after that time. I switched it off for about 2 hours then it finally managed to get it to work on the old modem cable.

I've just checked my phone now and it is a little crackly but not as bad as it used to be months ago with the old microfilter. A broadband speed test now shows that i'm getting 128kbps, normally i get about 2000kbps.

Could both of the cables be dodgy? Could the microfilter be not compatible with some cables? Could the microfilter have degraded? Or could it be something to do with the incoming phone line? I'm well confused so any help here would be appreciated.

Cheers.

[User05]

What are your router stats at the moment?

How to get your router statistics

Can you confirm the same symptoms from the test socket (assuming you have one)?
Have you tried another router?

[thecrescent]

OK i've done that.

Before:


After connected to Master socket:


So there is a massive difference in speed then.

But it struggled to connect after i turned off the router. The cable I did the first test wouldn't let the router connect to the internet so i swapped to the "high speed" one and this wouldn't connect at first either but managed to after about 3 attempts.

[User05]

I'd suggest to keep it at the test socket and monitor it for a night, as those stats are a lot better. If you're still suffering from noise/drop-outs from there, then you're looking at either a line or router fault. If you have another router that you could try, then fire away and monitor with that. If not, then get onto Sky (with the router still at the test socket) and see what action they take.

[thecrescent]

Edit, i've just gone back to connecting normally (ie not straight to the master socket) and my downstream speeds are now:

Connection speed: 4095kbps
Line attenuation: 53.5dB
Noise Margin: 7.3dB

again it took a while to connect back onto the internet, but the speed is good.

So i guess that would suggest that the incoming line is fine?
But i'm still having problems with the cables or something else.

[Isitme]

I think you may be getting intermittent interference on your internal wiring. I think you will find that your speed will drop right back and maybe even disconnect after a while in the extension socket. Your best bet would be to buy, fit and use a filtered faceplate.