Slow and Intermittent DSL

[MEK6]

I have a Actiontec GT704. It is connected at a telephone jack located at the service entrance in the basement. The filter resides in the verizon box on the outside wall. I ran the Verizon speedtest and got 240.4KBits download. The modem is connected at 992 / 448 Kbps. If I powercycle the modem it will connect at 1742, but unfortunately it doesn't stay there very long. I am signed up for the 1.5M service.

SNR Margin (Downstream/Upstream): 7/15

Attenuation (Downstream/Upstream): 63/31

It seems like the problems started when the outside temperatures started warming up.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

MK

[dslr595148]

Margin (dB) - Signal to noise margin. 6 is pretty bad possibly unusable at times, 20 is very good. You normally want 12dB or better IIRC from back in my DSL days. The higher the number, the better to a point.

Line Attenuation - Measure the amount the signal has degraded. Below 20dB is excellent, above 50 is poor, fill in the dots for anything in between.

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Hmm...

#1 Did you try connecting your modem directly to the NID?

Points to: http://www.dslreports.com/faq/1317

#2 If not, please do and retest those margins and Line Attenuation.

[MEK6]

thanks for the info dslr595148.

the nid has the filter in it. from the nid to the dsl phone jack is about 2 feet of telephone wire, so there really is no inside wiring except for that 2 feet. it seems like i started having problems once the weather warmed up. the best signal to noise margin i've seen was 11. i've never seen the line attenuation numbers change in the 6 years of being a verizon dsl customer. if i powercycle the modem it usually syncs up at a faster speed but lately it doesn't last that long before it resets at a slower speed. i have a trouble ticket into verizon. i hope they find something because this dsl the way it is, is unuseable.

thank you,

mike

[dslr595148]

I am just wondering....

#1 How old is this DSL modem?

For example my old Westell Model: B90-210015-04 Rev C, is at least 5 years old.

#2 Have you ever put this DSL modem in a cold area?

For example in a garage / basemeant.

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My old Westell modem was having those issues too, but now that I have new modem (Westell 6100g) while my connection might be slow (I am on the 3MB plan and I get close to that), it is not Intermittent.

How close - out of 3MB, I get around 2.8/2.9MB .

[MEK6]

I think the modem is a few years old. It replaced a Westell 327 that wouldn't sync upto speed.

The modem resides in an unfinished basement. The temp and humdity are pretty stable down there since I have a dehumifier running. This was how I was able to only have roughly 2 feet of telephone wire between the DSL phone jack and the NID.

Monday when it was cold and damp out I had a SNR Margin (Downstream/Upstream): 13/17 and the speed synced at 1742. Today it's dry and warm out, high 60's, and at some time the modem reset to 1184 / 448 Kbps and the SNR is now 6/16. This is why I think it's the outside wireing somewhere.

Mike

[MEK6]

Just wanted to update this post.

Verizon repair was out yesterday and could not find any problems with their lines or mine for that matter. So, because of that, they think the modem is failing and suggest I replace it. I ordered a D-link DSL-2540B which should arrive within the next few days. I'll update this post when I install the modem and again a few days or a week later to let everyone know if that was a fix or not.

Mike

[MEK6]

As stated in my previous post, Verizon repair found nothing wrong with their equipment. However, I have noticed the following differences on my modem's status page.

Before Friday:
Near End CRC Errors : 332/0
Far End CRC Errors : 3442/0
Near End RS FEC : 15368/0
Far End RS FEC : 25644973/0

After Friday:
Near End CRC Errors : 0/-1
Far End CRC Errors : 0/-5809
Near End RS FEC : 0/-68

Can anyone explain why I have negative numbers on the right side of  the slash? As you can see I used to have numbers on the left side of the slash but after Verizon repair checked and couldn't find anything wrong I now have negative numbers on the right side of the slash.

thank you,

Mike

[dslr595148]

While I have no idea, I would like to know,

Are you still using the old modem or the new one?

[MEK6]

I am still using the old modem. The new one is due to arrive tomorrow. I am almost afraid to hook up the new modem until I find out why the change in the stats.

Just wondering ..... only 2 telephone wires are used. Is it possible the Verizon repair guy hooked them up backwards somewhere when he was out checking the lines? He told us our phone line would be dropping out for short periods of time while he was out checking the lines so I guess he must have been disconnecting/reconnecting us.

Mike

[dslr595148]

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@MEK wrote:

Just wondering ..... only 2 telephone wires are used. Is it possible the Verizon repair guy hooked them up backwards somewhere when he was out checking the lines? He told us our phone line would be dropping out for short periods of time while he was out checking the lines so I guess he must have been disconnecting/reconnecting us.

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That is what I would, guess too.