Anyone having problems with BT broadband today

Drift

Hey I'm in the north galway and had no broadband signal with BT all day. (posting from work). The DSL connection the the exchange is up and running but my router won't authenticate or get an IP address off BT. I'm just wondering if anyone may have had similar experiences before?

Sam Vimes

a lot of people on boards have. mine just went down a few minutes ago. it seems they're having trouble with their dns servers. what's worked for me is to change the dns manually in the router when it stops working. the ones i alternate between are:

eircom's
213.94.190.194
213.94.190.236

bt's
168.95.1.1
139.175.55.244

opendns
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

of course it could simply be the act of restarting my router that's fixing it

i'll check that the next time it goes down

sticker

I started a thread here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055074006

Any of you having problems during the week or just today? It could very well be my modem, but the problem seems to be the connection timing out / tripping out...

dogpile

I changed to openDns weeks ago, not had a problem since!

sticker

dogpile wrote:

I changed to openDns weeks ago, not had a problem since!

Apologies - What do you mean openDns? If there's a remedy - I'll try it!

Sam Vimes

sticker wrote:

Apologies - What do you mean openDns? If there's a remedy - I'll try it!

in your router settings, change your dns address to the one i posted above

sticker

Commander Vimes wrote:

in your router settings, change your dns address to the one i posted above

I don't know where to change the dns address in my ZyXEL menu...?

dogpile

Commander Vimes wrote:

in your router settings, change your dns address to the one i posted above

I changed the setting in "network connections" not router settings..works without a fault

dogpile

sticker wrote:

I don't know where to change the dns address in my ZyXEL menu...?

Far easier method here if you're using XP

Select "Control Panel" from the Start menu.
Click "Network Connections" from the "Control Panel" choices..
Choose your connection from the "Network Connections" window..
Click "Properties" button.
Select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and click "Properties."
Click the radio button "Use the following DNS server addresses" and type in OpenDNS addresses in the "Preferred DNS server" and "Alternate DNS server" fields, then click "OK".
Restart your computer.

(addresses to type in)
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

sticker

dogpile wrote:

Far easier method here if you're using XP

Select "Control Panel" from the Start menu.
Click "Network Connections" from the "Control Panel" choices..
Choose your connection from the "Network Connections" window..
Click "Properties" button.
Select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and click "Properties."
Click the radio button "Use the following DNS server addresses" and type in OpenDNS addresses in the "Preferred DNS server" and "Alternate DNS server" fields, then click "OK".
Restart your computer.

(addresses to type in)
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

Many thanks - I'll give it a go -

Here's hoping I won't be rebooting PC and modem every 4 hours now!

muffinhead

sticker wrote:

I don't know where to change the dns address in my ZyXEL menu...?

I found the DNS settings in the LAN section of the ZyXel router menu. I also changed them to OpenDNS and all seems to be working fine.

sticker

NO IMPROVEMENT to my situatiuon - My connection is still crashing?!!

Sh*t!

Sam Vimes

sticker wrote:

NO IMPROVEMENT to my situatiuon - My connection is still crashing?!!

Sh*t!

yeah mine still goes down sometimes too even with open dns. i have a text file that holds eircom's, bt's and opendns's as i posted above and when it goes down i randomly pick one and enter it (not the one that's currently there obviously). seems to fix the problem every time

sticker

Commander Vimes wrote:

yeah mine still goes down sometimes too even with open dns. i have a text file that holds eircom's, bt's and opendns's as i posted above and when it goes down i randomly pick one and enter it (not the one that's currently there obviously). seems to fix the problem every time

I'll try that the next time she drops... cheers. Does re-entering a new DNS require modem / PC restart?

Do you think this is a temporary problem on BTs end or our hardware / web / torrent use?

Sponge Bob

some torrents can overwhelm the routing table on your router, eg a massively seeded and peered torrent can cause maybe 1000 dns requests in a short time which can bork the router pending a restart .

why not turn off client ip resolution in your torrent client anyway

then maybe limit the number of active torrents to 10 or less to reduce teh load on the zyxel.

you should also limit bittorrent to maybe 220k on the upload if you have a 256k limit, that leaves 30k for dns requests and other useful things like page requests , otherwise Bittorrent will 100% dog the uplink and you will be back in here moaning about BT

(having said all that their DnS has been off colour for months now)

Sam Vimes

sticker wrote:

I'll try that the next time she drops... cheers. Does re-entering a new DNS require modem / PC restart?

Do you think this is a temporary problem on BTs end or our hardware / web / torrent use?

it requires a modem restart but not a pc restart. its a problem on BT's end. it happens when i'm not using torrents

sticker

Commander Vimes wrote:

it requires a modem restart but not a pc restart. its a problem on BT's end. it happens when i'm not using torrents

Are my torrents to blame...? Or is it a case of BT needing to fix something?!

Cheers for the advice btw

-===Lord Shoa =

I have been having problems with bt since xmas.
I rang them and they said it is my machine or its my cables or modem nothing to do with them or lots of other people would have complained.

Now I know tech support for bt is one of the worst but to blame my machine or cables is just taking the micky I have had the same network for the last 4 years.

I know its nothing to do with my cables or modem as it works then goes off then works and then goes off and comes back each time giving me a differant ip address try to get webpages like google nothing but dns error page could not be found.

Then the last 2 months its been fine and now its started again so how could this be my system or setup rather the shoddy work of the bt engineers and whats more the 3 meg connection I do have seems to have slowed down to a crawl Its not that I live far from the exchange because its only over the road and new lines were put down to the houses because its a new estate so cannot be to do with the lines as they are new dsl lines put in here.

So the only people that are to blame are BT I am thinking of canceling them and going with another company because the limit is so low and the cost is so high compared with the uk for the same service why should we pay more than the same in another country for the same service or less of a service as everyone in the uk has 10 meg or above now.

stanley1

Maybe have a look here.

http://ntcanuck.com/

Sponge Bob

-===Lord wrote:

I have been having problems with bt since xmas.
I rang them and they said it is my machine or its my cables or modem nothing to do with them or lots of other people would have complained.

kinda true

Now I know tech support for bt is one of the worst

not true

but to blame my machine or cables is just taking the micky I have had the same network for the last 4 years.

nope , a 4 year old dsl modem could (should even) have degraded in performance over time .Components are cheap and get knackered.

I know its nothing to do with my cables or modem as it works then goes off then works and then goes off and comes back each time giving me a differant ip address try to get webpages like google nothing but dns error page could not be found.

you may have gotten a new sky box which can cause that too or something could have gone worng on your line. Constant disconnects are normally a problem with wiring and devices in your house or else between your house and the exchange. Its either eircoms fault or yours . Its not BTs fault normally.

Then the last 2 months its been fine and now its started again so how could this be my system or setup rather the shoddy work of the bt engineers and whats more the 3 meg connection I do have seems to have slowed down to a crawl Its not that I live far from the exchange because its only over the road and new lines were put down to the houses because its a new estate so cannot be to do with the lines as they are new dsl lines put in here.

it can easily be 'to do with the line' actually, can you post your line stats in here if you know what your line stats are. If not start by reading about line stats and then post them in here. It may even be crosstalk ....lets not get too technical though

Again I emphasise that line stats are nothing to do with BT but that if your line is inadequate as I explained you will see the problems you described above.

As to getting a resolution out of eircom, if it IS their fault, good luck to you

So the only people that are to blame are BT I am thinking of canceling them and going with another company because the limit is so low and the cost is so high compared with the uk for the same service why should we pay more than the same in another country for the same service or less of a service as everyone in the uk has 10 meg or above now.

that will get your precisely nowhere in my opinion, pending line stats of course.

sticker

stanley1 wrote:

Maybe have a look here.

http://ntcanuck.com/

Apologies for the dumbass question... what does this app do?

Sponge Bob

It moves the DNS server onto your PC , in effect , conceptually not a bad idea at all if the upstream DNS is gimpy .

stanley1

been using this prog. with plain vanilla bt dns servers since christmas, no problems whatsoever.

Sam Vimes

my bt just went down there and i had to change the dns server. did anyone else's go down?

sticker

Even after installing that app, I'm still losing web activity...

Wierd thing is torrents don't seem to be effected, just web browsers / outlook.

I've tried changing the dns setup within the tcp/ip settings of my modem - then restarting it - no joy.

The only true remedy for me is a system / modem restart.

I don't fancy having to do that twice a day - My startup time is painstakingly long...