TalkTalk Broadband - internet connection drops

[Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 145
Forum Member
My parents have their broadband through Talk Talk and we have noticed that the internet connection keeps dropping.
The wireless router (Echolife H...b) version is the one they have.
I have checked and made sure all the phone extentions have adsl micro filters.
I have rebooted the router numerous times and the internet connection returns but will drop again (unfortunately the computer is not used that often and no one can say how long after the reboot the connection drops)
They have 5 phones within the house (most are portable and differing makes - could that be a factor ?)

I am going to use the ethernet cable to try and see if the connection remains
I know there is a check using the master socket but I don't think we are savvy enough to do that.
The alternative is to call an engineer over to check it but I know Talk talk charge upto £99 for this.

The house is in london and so the location should not be a problem - but are there any other factors/check I can do to see if this is an internal issue or a talk talk / router issue ?

Thanks

Comments

  • carguy143carguy143 Posts: 2,327
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Try the checks you have mentioned. If needs be you could get Talktalk to talk you through the tests using the master socket. If your parents aren't that clued up, you can call Talktalk and report a fault and go through diagnostics yourself.

    Tech number for Talktalk is 0870 087 8777.
  • chrisjrchrisjr Posts: 33,282
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    angie2601 wrote: »
    My parents have their broadband through Talk Talk and we have noticed that the internet connection keeps dropping.
    The wireless router (Echolife H...b) version is the one they have.
    I have checked and made sure all the phone extentions have adsl micro filters.
    I have rebooted the router numerous times and the internet connection returns but will drop again (unfortunately the computer is not used that often and no one can say how long after the reboot the connection drops)
    They have 5 phones within the house (most are portable and differing makes - could that be a factor ?)

    I am going to use the ethernet cable to try and see if the connection remains
    I know there is a check using the master socket but I don't think we are savvy enough to do that.
    The alternative is to call an engineer over to check it but I know Talk talk charge upto £99 for this.

    The house is in london and so the location should not be a problem - but are there any other factors/check I can do to see if this is an internal issue or a talk talk / router issue ?

    Thanks
    If you are using Wireless networking between router and laptop and have a load of DECT cordless phones then that might be significant. There is potential for the phones to cause interference to the WiFi signal from the router.

    That could cause the laptop and router to stop talking to each other which would have the same effect as if the router lost the broadband connection.

    Using a cabled connection will confirm that. if the internet is solid via cable then it is your WiFi connection that is causing your drop outs. You can check if the DECT phones are causing interference by unplugging them at the mains so they stop transmitting and see if the WiFi connection is now solid. It could be just one phone that is to blame so turn them on one by one and see what happens.

    Trouble with intermittent faults like this is though that it can take quite some time to work through.

    Testing on the master socket is not hard. if you can locate it and it is the right type. The NTE5 style socket is about the same size as a single outlet mains socket. The front plate is split into two with the phone socket on the lower half which can be removed easily.

    Once removed you will find a phone socket that is normally hidden by the face plate. That is the test socket and is connected directly to the incoming phone line. Removing the face plate also disconnects all your extension cabling. So if you get disconnections with the router plugged into the test socket the most likely cause is a line fault and not a bit of dodgy extension cable.

    While you have the faceplate removed turn it over and see what wires are connected to the back of it. There will be a plastic terminal block with four slots in it into which cables can be pushed to make the connections. Confusingly they will be numbered 2 to 5.

    There should be wires on 2 and 5 and there may be a wire on 3. 2 and 5 are the line and must stay connected. 3 is not really needed with modern phones and can act like an aerial for interference which can affect your broadband performance.

    If there is a wire on 3 carefully pull it out of the terminal block. Just take care not to dislodge 2 and 5 as it is a pain in the wotsit to put them back without the proper tool! Any wire on 4 can be removed as well.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 7,207
    Forum Member
    It may help to read one of the many threads here on using a tool called inSSIDer to fix WiFi dropouts.
  • LION8TIGERLION8TIGER Posts: 8,484
    Forum Member
    double post
  • LION8TIGERLION8TIGER Posts: 8,484
    Forum Member
    Not sure what version of the router you have but ....
    Nailed-Up Connection = Green dot (Enabled)

    From here, I don't think it is a default setting.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 145
    Forum Member
    Hi thanks for the replies.
    Will take the advice on board.
    I did put the ethernet cable in yesterday and left it running for about 4 hours and Talk talk advise to wait 24 hours when I called them (Trouble is I am not at the property often to monitor it!).

    Everything was fine and although the router internet light flashed and flickered I did not lose connection.

    Then I tried to connect wireless using my ipod touch (Whilst the router was still hard wired and the laptop was on)

    At that point the connection dropped and the internet light went off and th internet would not connect on the laptop.
    I logged onto the router 192.... etc and it still showed connection .
    At that point without any reboot - the light came back on.
    I assume it was the ipod touch and me using the wifi that caused the internet to go down.

    Is that a clue to anything?
    Thanks
  • carguy143carguy143 Posts: 2,327
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    The internet light does flicker when the internet is being used, that's normal. See if the problem happens again next time you connect the ipod using wifi as it could just be coincidence.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 145
    Forum Member
    Just a quick follow up. With the cable hard wired the internet light was down again so I went to check it etc
    I followed LION8TIGER's advice and check the basic settings on the router.
    The Nailed up connection was NOT enabled.
    Instead the Connection time out when idle was enabled
    I have changed it and then contacted Talk talk support to see if anything could cause the problem. They seemed to think this was what was causing the internet to go off.

    Could it be that?

    They said the internet should not go off again but when I think back how come the internet never came back on when the laptop was fired up or why did it stay on and then go down again?? Frustrated have told them that all the checks show there is nothing wrong with the phone line and if (When) the connection goes again I want an engineer to visit.

    The master socket test proved there was nothing wrong with the extentions. This was done before i changed the connection settings.


    Why do we rely on these machines and then they become so unreliable !!
    Thanks
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 237
    Forum Member
    angie2601 wrote: »
    Just a quick follow up. With the cable hard wired the internet light was down again so I went to check it etc
    I followed LION8TIGER's advice and check the basic settings on the router.
    The Nailed up connection was NOT enabled.
    Instead the Connection time out when idle was enabled
    I have changed it and then contacted Talk talk support to see if anything could cause the problem. They seemed to think this was what was causing the internet to go off.

    Could it be that?

    They said the internet should not go off again but when I think back how come the internet never came back on when the laptop was fired up or why did it stay on and then go down again?? Frustrated have told them that all the checks show there is nothing wrong with the phone line and if (When) the connection goes again I want an engineer to visit.

    The master socket test proved there was nothing wrong with the extentions. This was done before i changed the connection settings.


    Why do we rely on these machines and then they become so unreliable !!
    Thanks

    Impossible I'm afraid. Connecting to the test socket (master with faceplate removed) can only prove if the extensions are faulty, not if they have nothing wrong with them. If connected to the master with ethernet you do not experience any drops in connection then this would indicate there is no fault out to line and the fault lies somewhere in your property.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 80
    Forum Member
    I've had this issue over the last few weeks with a wired modem link.

    Just thinking about, this has been an issue since Talk Talks network upgrade.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 7
    Forum Member
    Hello

    Over the past ten days or so my Talk Talk internet connection has been dropping out quite a lot. I managed to speak to second line support and they got me to change the modulation mode of the modem (which is a DLink) to G.DMT, instead of its default setting (which was Auto-Sync, I think).

    The support guy told me I had been having 16 - 18 dropouts per day over the past few days (handy to know they can tell you exactly how much the service you are paying them for is available to you, by the way. Oh, and their scale goes up to 50, i.e. 50 drop outs per day is considered extreme). In the last 24 hours I haven't had any drop outs whilst online.

    It was easy to change the modulation mode: opened up my browser, typed 192.168.1.1 into the address bar, then clicked through Advanced/Advanced/Advanced ADSL, and changed the mode from the list.

    The support guy used an analogy involving water travelling through a pipe - if it's going along on full blast, and filling the pipe to the sides, then any weaknesses or gaps in the sides of the pipe will allow water to spurt out. Changing the modulation mode kind of gets the water filling up less space in the pipe, therefore putting less pressure on the walls of the pipe, and leading to fewer spurts out. ... or something like that.

    Cheers
  • OneManTagTeamOneManTagTeam Posts: 3,943
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    chrisjr wrote: »
    3 is not really needed with modern phones and can act like an aerial for interference which can affect your broadband performance.

    I didn't know this! I have 2, 3 & 5 still wired in & 4 unplugged. I'll try this & see if my connection improves.

    My broadband has been losing sync over the past week or so when my phone rings :confused:

    Edit: just removed wire 3... My connection rose by a whole 1.5mb straight away!! :eek: that's crazy!! Just hope it doesn't lose sync when I get phoned (don't want to try that just now as the wife us sleeping & might wake her up) I thought I had to keep wire 3 connected too so my phone would ring as it's called the bell/ring wire :o

    Just to confirm, I now have a wire in 2 & 5 & my speed has gone up by about 40% :D
  • EarakeEarake Posts: 1,808
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭

    they got me to change the modulation mode of the modem (which is a DLink) to G.DMT, instead of its default setting

    But if you're paying for an ADSL2+ connection, why would you downgrade to basic ADSL ?

    You don't actually make it clear what your connection should be.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 7
    Forum Member
    Earake wrote: »
    But if you're paying for an ADSL2+ connection, why would you downgrade to basic ADSL ?

    You don't actually make it clear what your connection should be.

    Well, the reality is that in the 2 days since changing the modulation mode, I have not seen as single drop out, so at least as a temporary measure, for me, that is a very good reason to have done so ... please note though ...

    all this stuff is quite beyond the limits of my technical knowledge - I know nothing about the difference between ADSL2+ and ADSL, and do not know what my connection 'should be' I'm afraid.

    I was informed that our house is 3085m from the exchange, and that there is some kind of threshold figure of 3000m that is relevant here ... should I be expecting more from my provider? or is it likely that what I have been experiencing and what I can expect from my broadband service is limited by the wiring from my house to the exchange?

    Download speeds, measured using speedtest are about 3.25-4.5, and upload is somewhere around 0.4 - 0.7. IIRC. these figures have not changed much over the past couple of years.
  • EarakeEarake Posts: 1,808
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭

    should I be expecting more from my provider? or is it likely that what I have been experiencing and what I can expect from my broadband service is limited by the wiring from my house to the exchange?

    Answer to the first is yes

    Answer to the second is possibly.

    If you are approx 3085m from the exchange then your attenuation is approx 43dB which would mean the router should sync at approx 6000kbps on ADSL and 8000kbps on ADSL2+

    You really need to find out what you're paying for, ADSL or ADSL2+.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 7
    Forum Member
    Thanks Earake

    At risk of going off-thread, and hijacking things for my own benefit here - without calling up talk talk to ask the question directly (I have a fear that all too often these kinds of calls lead to frustration), can I establish whether I should be getting ADSL or ADSL2+, and / or what the router is currently syncing at?

    (Apologies if these questions are not really relevant, or don't quite make sense).
  • carguy143carguy143 Posts: 2,327
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Talktalk systems are down at the minute so they wouldn't be able to access your account anyway. They hope to have things back online later today.
  • EarakeEarake Posts: 1,808
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    If this is wrong then somebody on TalkTalk will correct me.

    Put http://192.168.1.1 into your browser then log on using userid admin and password admin.

    Click Status at the top of page then in left hand menu click Statistics.

    The connection data is shown in ADSL Statistics section.

    Copy and paste then post into a new thread.
  • albertdalbertd Posts: 14,341
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    For info folks, I am having these dropout problems as well, and I don't have any WiFi or router, just an old hardwired USB ADSL modem (Speedtouch 330) which was supplied by Tiscali when I first went to broadband some years ago.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 160
    Forum Member
    Hi all,

    if you are still having issues with the connection, have you registered with us on www.talktalkmembers.com? We will be more than happy to investigate the issues for all of those on this thread who are experiencing connection problems.

    OCE_ ADY
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 241
    Forum Member
    My TalkTalk internet connection has gone down twice in the last three weeks where the connection has been very intermittent. I spoke to them both times and yesterday they arranged for an engineer to come out which may cost me £50 if there's a fault at my end.

    I don't know anything about broadband connection etc but I'm puzzled that if the internet light on the router is on and the computer shows that it's connected to the internet but I still can't get on, then is the problem really likely to be with the socket?

    It's been fine today so I'm wondering whether to cancel the engineer (can't really afford £50 at the moment).
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 43
    Forum Member
    Hi Angie,
    I was getting a lot of drops outs from my TalkTalk connection. I got in touch with their technical support but had to keep ringing them back to say it hadn't improved. They then refered me to a senior level technician who talk me through changing the router settings. Since then I have had a perfect connection. Persist with TalkTalk technical. I have a D-Link DSL-2640R router. If you have the same I could send you the settings.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 160
    Forum Member
    Hi Impersome,

    if you have an intermittent fault it may well come back.

    Are you registered on talktalkmembers.com ? There are several members of support staff including myself who will be delighted to assist you.

    Ady
Sign In or Register to comment.