After several years of near flawless working, I am starting to have trouble with my DSL connection. A few times per year the modem would lock-up. It was rare enough that I did not worry much, I figured it was due to lightening or cosmic rays. In any case, it was rare enough that I could think of no way to debug it, and there seemed to be no real reason to, the power went out more often than the DSL. Lately it has been happening several times a day, I just got done with a burst of about ten consecutive lock-ups. I will be browsing the web, or something and it will just quit working. Ping of the ISP's nearest computer (by IP addr) does not work. I go to the modem, pull out the power plug, wait a few seconds, plug it in, wait for it to boot up, and it works again until the next time. I complained to the ISP (Speakeasy) and the nice guy there said:
I had a look at your circuit and see a sync at 1536 kbps Downstream / 384 kbps Upstream with decibel margins of 2.0 dB Downstream / 17.0 dB Upstream. The downstream decibel margins are very low and as a result, your line is incrementing heavy errors.
I asked if I could see these numbers myself, so that I could try some re-wiring to see if it made the problem better (or worse). He said:
You won't be able to see real time Layer 2 stats of your circuit, as this information is accessed from the DSLAM in the Central Office.
But I know I have heard some of you talking about statistics gathering programs for network performance. Does anyone know of a program that might help to see how well a DSL line is working, or other diagnostic tools for this? -- Keith
Keith Wright wrote:
But I know I have heard some of you talking about statistics gathering programs for network performance. Does anyone know of a program that might help to see how well a DSL line is working, or other diagnostic tools for this?
I don't know the answers, but you might find some useful tools at http://dslreports.com/ . And if you don't get any useful answers here, you might have better luck in their forums. -- Rich
Keith Wright wrote:
You won't be able to see real time Layer 2 stats of
your circuit, as this information is accessed from the DSLAM in the Central Office.
But I know I have heard some of you talking about statistics gathering programs for network performance. Does anyone know of a program that might help to see how well a DSL line is working, or other diagnostic tools for this?
This depends on your DSL modem. Some will display the Signal/Noise ratio on a web page interface, or SNMP port. You may be able to buy a different DSL interface that has these features.
On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 01:57:42 -0400 (EDT) Keith Wright <kwright@keithdiane.us> wrote:
But I know I have heard some of you talking about statistics gathering programs for network performance. Does anyone know of a program that might help to see how well a DSL line is working, or other diagnostic tools for this?
It's possible some of that information is available on the internal interface via SNMP, but I haven't frequently seen that on consumer-grade devices. I haven't used DSL in a long while, but I know that that vast majority of cable modems have a status web page on the internal interface at http://192.168.100.1 that gives you upstream and downstream power levels, downstream SNR, frequencies used, and occasionally provisioned rates. (On most well-configured firewalls, that also means remembering to allow 192.168.100.1:80 in on the external interface, heh.) If you hunt around for your DSL modem model in your search engine of choice, there may be something similar. Either way, I imagine a truck roll will still be your best course of action. Brian J. Conway
On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 01:57:42AM -0400, Keith Wright wrote:
You won't be able to see real time Layer 2 stats of your circuit, as this information is accessed from the DSLAM in the Central Office.
But I know I have heard some of you talking about statistics gathering programs for network performance. Does anyone know of a program that might help to see how well a DSL line is working, or other diagnostic tools for this?
The only devices that would have access to the statistics he is talking about are your DSL modem and the DSLAM. If your modem doesn't provide the statistics, then there is no way to get them directly unless you had a hardware DSL analyzer to hook up to the line.
From: "Brian J. Conway" <bconway@alum.wpi.edu>
Either way, I imagine a truck roll will still be your best course of action.
Truck roll? Is that a typo? Is it like a ship biscuit? Or is it like a tractor pull? Or more like rolling your car over? -- Keith
From: Keith Wright <kwright@keithdiane.us>
From: "Brian J. Conway" <bconway@alum.wpi.edu>
Either way, I imagine a truck roll will still be your best course of action.
Truck roll? Is that a typo?
I thought it was, but I think it's not. I have been reading dslreports.com, as somebody else suggested, and I gather that's standard jargon for calling for help (and paying for it). Help arrives in a truck, of course. I am still thinking of installing a DSL splitter inside the house, where the phone line enters (without rolling the truck). Is that crazy? -- Keith
At my parent's house, the DSL was going slowly until we added DSL splitters. Adding them improved performance drastically. Eric Keith Wright wrote:
From: Keith Wright <kwright@keithdiane.us>
From: "Brian J. Conway" <bconway@alum.wpi.edu>
Either way, I imagine a truck roll will still be your best course of action.
Truck roll? Is that a typo?
I thought it was, but I think it's not.
I have been reading dslreports.com, as somebody else suggested, and I gather that's standard jargon for calling for help (and paying for it). Help arrives in a truck, of course.
I am still thinking of installing a DSL splitter inside the house, where the phone line enters (without rolling the truck).
Is that crazy?
-- Keith
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From: Eric Stein <eastein@WPI.EDU>
At my parent's house, the DSL was going slowly until we added DSL splitters. Adding them improved performance drastically.
Did you install them yourself, or call for help? Where did you get them? Do they come in different kinds, or can I get an ADLS splitter and know I have one? Why did you need more than one (as implied by your use of plural)? I think my ISP wants to add one outside the house next to the NID (box with terminals to screw the phone lines to). I don't even think there is one on this old house. I assume that then there must be new holes drilled in the outside wall of the house to run the digital cable alongside the voice/analog wires into the house. I don't see why the splitter can not go a few feet farther down the wire, inside the house. Less drilling, no rain on the splitter, the only downside seems to be about ten feet of the old wire stays there, but is that worse than what comes off the telephone pole? -- Keith
From: Keith Wright <kwright@keithdiane.us>
After several years of near flawless working, I am starting to have trouble with my DSL connection.
I think I solved the problem. Thanks to those on this list for helpful pointers. No truck was needed. I took a pair of dikes to some Neolithic telephone wiring in my basement. RJ31X must die! More details are here, if you want them: http://www.free-comp-shop.com/DSL.html -- Keith
participants (6)
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Brian J. Conway -
Chuck Anderson -
Eric Stein -
Karl Hiramoto -
Keith Wright -
Richard Klein