broadband question
 

im currently with orange broadband and experience a lot of connection drop outs especially when playing on x box live. Happens probably at least once an hour. Im thinking of changing to sky broadband in the hope that they are more reliable but just wanted to see what everyone thinks first. cheers

It's still the same bit of wire between your house and the telephone exchange regardless of who you use. If your exchange is "local loop unbundled" then you may get connected to a different bit of kit at the the other end when you change providers. If not you'll probably stay connected to the same hardware on the other end as provided by BT Wholesale. Therefore all the problems will remain.

Try to get your provider to do a line test.

Is it definitely the ADSL side that is dropping out? Does you router tell you this / log it. If the XBOX is connected to your router over wireless then often next door using their microwave is enough to cause it to drop out for a while. Use cabled Ethernet if you can.

I have to admit if I download or transfer a constant high volume of data, mine drops out too. Orange also.

Not really an issue as i rarely have a high transfer rate.

yes i have the x box wired with an ethernet cable. Its not necessarily just x box live as when im just sat watching tv with no internet being used at all i see the green lights cut off on the router, followed by a minute of an orange error light until it regains a connection. Its a netgear router which i have sat under the tv so i allways notice it wether im on line or not. Should add that ive not always had this problem, especially when orange was wanadoo it very rarely happened but has got consistently worse over the past 6 -12 months

Could be your router giving up the ghost. Can you test another one from a mate?

Can you test it plugged directly into the master socket?

How about your microfilters? Do you have them on all sockets (being used) and are they OK?

Dave

tried another router earlier but for some reason i couldnt get x box live to connect through it. it is also a netgear but supplied by virgin to someone else. How would i know if the filters are working? It doesnt disconnect if the phone rings if thats what you mean

To be honest I'd just swap them over with a new/different one to test them. You'd be unlucky if they were all duff.

But try the router in the master socket with NOTHING else connected. That eliminates all the house wiring. You can also check Guide to rewiring internal UK phone wiring for all those details about wiring phones/ADSL that you really did not want to know. Great as a conversation starter down the pub .... :D Check out how to disconnect the bell wire for example and see if that makes a difference.

Dave

check your router logs

it may be your router is rebooting for some reason

As suggested above try plugging into the master test socket behind the master socket lower front plate and see if that helps.

If you have a skybox double filter it.

Try a silent line test using a corded analogue phone.

Post up your router stats. What are your SN margins like ?

so does no one else have these problems with orange then? im not sure what sn margins are

Take a look at ::. Kitz - ADSL Router Line Stats .:: for background.
For instance, my router gives me an SNR Margin of 8. But my downstream speed is 8128000 ... i.e. 8Mbits!

(Draytek Vigor 2820 on BT 8Mbit line - and not very far from the exchange .... :thumb:)

Dave

And also from the same webpage as above:

::. Kitz - Low SNR Margin & problems .::

I was asking about your stats because I recently had a problem with low (and highly fluctuating) SNR margins causing frequent loss of sync just like yourself. Sometimes the margin would bounce around like crazy and it sometimes even went negative. BT fiddled with stuff at the exchange (after 2 weeks of my ISP having me jump through hoops trying all the obvious stuff) and this stabilised the line.

But this is just one possible cause.

Good luck with getting it sorted.

If you do change ISP's i wouldn't go with SKY if you use Xbox Live because Sky use interleaving has default and will not turn it off even if asked.

rang orange and they said they found problems with the line which would be sorted in 24 hours. done this twice this week and its slightly more secure but still drops out a lot. managed 2 games on fifa out of 5 so its still not good. What does that mean about sky being no good?

What problems did they say they found?

Dave

I found sky customer services to be very poor , bethere are a good option and you can adjust your settings for stability and performance