help. DSL drops connection all the time, is it the modem? (westell 327W)
enzos_people
Newbie

Pardon me because I'm not so tech aware, and so don't know what to do to try to find a solution.  We lose our internet connection a lot.  It seems to happen in spurts:  last night we couldn't connect at all, today it was bad in the morning but now I've been on for about a half an hour and all seems good.  I can't figure out any pattern.  Last weekend we were fine all weekend, during the week it was bad every single day. 

I connect through a desktop and the westell modem;  upstairs we connect with a laptop and wireless.  The connection problems happen in both places, although it's our housemates who connect upstairs through the wireless and so I'm not entirely sure if they have problems when we're having problems or not (this has been going on for so many months, we've all kind of adapted to it.  but it's more and more frustrating).  Our wireless is encrypted.

When we can't connect, we get the Explorer 'cannot find website because you are not connected to the internet' error page.  Even when we can't connect, the "local area connections" icon on the lower right side of the screen (Windows XP) says we have a network connection at 10.0 mbs.  The lights on the modem are all green, and the DSL light stays steady green, although sometimes the internet light will blink erratically, and the wireless light always blinks quickly.  We recently switched out the cable to the jack, so it's not that. 

Sometimes we can get it to get back a connection briefly by doing one of these things (but they don't always work):

- use the "repair" button on the local area connections window support tab -- this will often get it back for a few minutes but is rarely permanent.  When it doesn't work, it usually says it's because it can't renew the IP address

- turn the modem on and off.  That's what worked this morning.  It did not work last night.

- turn the computer on and off.  That worked last night only to get an initial connection that then pooped out.

- use the verizon support popup that sometimes (and only sometimes) appears when we're having connectivity problems.  This morning that worked briefly -- the internet connection popped back up at the stage where the pop up siad "testing connection." 

Any idea what is going on here?  I tried a couple months ago to get help through verizon online support, and it ended up as a 3 hour phone call to India that resolved things only for an afternoon, and not on any more long term basis, and I don't want to do that again unless I know what I'm asking for (since all they do is go through some kind of checklist). 

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Re: help. DSL drops connection all the time, is it the modem? (westell 327W)
mattheww50
Contributor - Level 2

My suspicion is you have a problem with the copper pair connecting you to the Central Office. Two things to check.

Connect to your modem (http://192.168.1.1) and get the connection information. It should tell you the upline/downlink speed, and line loss. Also look a the router log. It should document the fact that connections comes and goes (and also the speed when it comes back up). 

When I had DSL service (I went to FiOS in part because of this), in bad weather, the copper pair characteristics really deteriorated badly, and the connection would fail frequently. The modem would then attempt to re-establish the connection and negotiate a different uplink/downlink rate. The reality was bad weather cut 500k bps out of my connection. When the weather was good I could get close to the 3 million bits per second on the downlink, in bad weather, it was lucky to be able to get a data rate on the link of 2.5 million bits per second. This is NOT the result of any speed test. the DSL modem negotiates with the hardware in the CO to find the highest data rate up to your maximum, that will work. If the conditions on the line change while the link is up, the link often fails and must be renegotiated. While that is going on, you have no connectivity.

If I could hear thunder, my DSL connection would be down. Once the storm passed, it would come back up.

So check the logs of your modem/route, they may show where the problem. If the copper pair from your home to the Central office isn't very good, you don't have many options to fix it. 

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Re: help. DSL drops connection all the time, is it the modem? (westell 327W)
enzos_people
Newbie

Thanks!

It doesn't seem to be weather dependent -- we had great weather all week when we couldn't connect, and last weekend it was super windy and rainy and there were no problems at all. 

Currently, the modem says

DSL Connect Rate (Down/Up)    864 KBits/Sec by 160 KBits/Sec

Are the modem logs the ones under "Diagnostic Logs?"  It's asking for a username and password.  My verizon username/password isn't working.  Shoot.  I wonder what it is.  (sorry, I really am a luddite when it comes to this stuff). 

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Re: help. DSL drops connection all the time, is it the modem? (westell 327W)
mattheww50
Contributor - Level 2
860/160 is the correct value Verizon's basic DSL service (advertised as 768/128). You also need to look at the loss figures on the link. IIRC the default id and password on the router is admin and passwd, and yes, you want to look at the diagnostic logs. It will warn you that can do bad things in that area, but nothing bad will happen from looking at the logs.
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Re: help. DSL drops connection all the time, is it the modem? (westell 327W)
po
Newbie

I had similar probelm. I did find dns lookup is very slow. The following are consecutive tests:
C:\Users\pchen>nslookup www.verizon.net
Server:  dslrouter
Address:  192.168.1.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    www.verizon.net.westell.com
Addresses:  63.251.179.13
          8.15.7.117


C:\Users\pchen>nslookup www.verizon.com
Server:  dslrouter
Address:  192.168.1.1

DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    a1280.g.akamai.net
Addresses:  205.177.69.56
          205.177.69.66
Aliases:  www.verizon.com
          www.verizon.com.edgesuite.net


C:\Users\pchen>nslookup www.google.com
Server:  dslrouter
Address:  192.168.1.1

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    www.google.com.westell.com
Addresses:  63.251.179.13
          8.15.7.117


C:\Users\pchen>nslookup www.bloomberg.com
Server:  dslrouter
Address:  192.168.1.1

DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
DNS request timed out.
    timeout was 2 seconds.
*** Request to dslrouter timed-out
-- when I got disconnected from internel (even westel 327w shows

Internet Status: Connected DSL link:  Connected Speed (Down/Up):  3356 Kbits/sec by 843 Kbits/sec Connection Type:  PPP
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