Eircom - No DSL Connection problem

Cherry_Cola

Over the past week or so after around 10pm, I have been getting constantly disconnected with the message "No DSL Connection".

The connection can return intermittently for anwhere from 1 second to 5 minutes and as you can imagine it is incredibly frustrating when trying to do anything.

Everything is perfect throughout the day up until around 10pm so I don't think it is anything to do with wiring etc. Any suggestions on how this could be prevented? Would a new router do anything at all?

I'm on the Eircom 2mb NGB line by the way. It was perfect for a year, then I started getting dropouts in the last few months. It's gotten particularly ridiculous this over the last week though and I'm getting disconnected at least 150+ times in the space of an hour or so.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

skyflyer

I've been getting the exact same issue, but it seems to happen at random for me. I've replaced the DSL cable 3 times and eircom had a technician out who confirmed the phone line was fine. Not sure what to do. Downstream speeds have been halved too...

jor el

Moved to eircom forum.

Alun

Possibly some kind of local RF interference that's only appearing after 10pm. Keep an eye out for anything electrical / electronic in the immediate area that's being turned on around that time.

eircom: Mark

Cherry_Cola wrote: »

Over the past week or so after around 10pm, I have been getting constantly disconnected with the message "No DSL Connection".

The connection can return intermittently for anwhere from 1 second to 5 minutes and as you can imagine it is incredibly frustrating when trying to do anything.

Everything is perfect throughout the day up until around 10pm so I don't think it is anything to do with wiring etc. Any suggestions on how this could be prevented? Would a new router do anything at all?

I'm on the Eircom 2mb NGB line by the way. It was perfect for a year, then I started getting dropouts in the last few months. It's gotten particularly ridiculous this over the last week though and I'm getting disconnected at least 150+ times in the space of an hour or so.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Cherry_Cola,

Have tested your connection this morning and it is coming back with a possible fault on the line. To eliminate outside equipment as the issue I would advise following the steps outlined in this checklist : http://bit.ly/xhVSe8

This will narrow down the problem greatly for us, once the setup is cut back to the basics (modem only, main phone socket, wired directly to laptop, etc) then you can call 1901 and say "Fault" and allow them to run the test again at that point. You can leave a note here to run the test also but be aware that the setup will need to remain as per the checklist until we reply and re-test here so the phone option will give an instant result as to whether the fault remains on the line.

One other thing I have noted from your post that 'Alun' touched on was the fact that it is occurring at the same time each evening. This does suggest that something automated is coming on around that time and either disrupting the signal on the phone line or maybe simply interfering with the Wifi signal. Check things like Sky Boxes, monitored alarms, panic buttons (internal) or also outside electronic factors. For example, some cheap halogen lamps are known to interfere with the wireless signal.

You can eliminate wireless interference by changing the wireless channel on the modem. The last paragraph of this post: http://bit.ly/IAxf4k gives the steps involved to change the wireless channel on both our standard modems.

Try these few things and either log the fault through 1901 or get back to us here and we'll do it for you, provided the fault remains after following the guide. The reason we request that customers take these steps is that firstly that these steps resolve/improve connections in about 90% of cases and it gives us the best chance of pinpointing the issue. Also, it eliminates third party equipment as the issue as if the problem was caused by non-eircom equipment it would result in a callout charge.

Regards

James

eircom: Mark

skyflyer wrote: »

I've been getting the exact same issue, but it seems to happen at random for me. I've replaced the DSL cable 3 times and eircom had a technician out who confirmed the phone line was fine. Not sure what to do. Downstream speeds have been halved too...

Hi skyflyer,

As per the above post, can you try the steps outlined. I have no contact info to test your line so the fault logging may not apply to yourself. If you like, PM the lanline/account number and I can check in some more detail for you.

Cheers

James

Cherry_Cola

Thanks very much James. I can't think of anything that would come on at that time specifically but I'll try the steps mentioned and see how it goes. Thanks for the help.

eircom: Mark

Cherry_Cola wrote: »

Thanks very much James. I can't think of anything that would come on at that time specifically but I'll try the steps mentioned and see how it goes. Thanks for the help.

No problem, get back to me here if there are any further questions or problems that I can look at. The steps outlined usually resolve broadband issues but if it becomes ongoing you know where we are!

Cheers

James

Alun

Note that the frequency range that ADSL operates in coincides nicely (or rather not!) with the frequency range used for AM radio, so bad internal wiring, especially non-twisted pair telephone cable is prone to pick up these stations as interference, so if your connection is marginal during the day, then all the foreign AM radio stations coming online at night time will have a detrimental effect on the SNR and can tip you over the edge causing a disconnect. The fact that you're only on 2MBit/s would suggest that your connection isn't that good (long way from the exchange), so this is a distinct possibility.

As someone who has had similar problems in the past, and ended up getting ComReg involved to find the perpetrator, a simple way of at least seeing when the interference is occurring is to get hold of an AM (MW) radio and when the problems start, tune it off station somewhere (no need to go higher than 1000kHz) until you hear a loud crackly whiny noise. Keep the radio tuned to that frequency and wander around the house and/or neighbourhood seeing if the intensity increases. Also when you're on the net before 10pm, switch it on too, and you should hear the noise starting at the same time as you start to get problems and disconnects.

What really helped me make my case to get ComReg involved was that I continually monitor my SNR (signal to noise ratio) when I'm online using SNMP, so could pinpoint exactly when the problems started and finished. It's a bit messy getting this set up if you're not technical, and I don't even know if the standard Eircom routers support SNMP out of the box, so maybe this might not be possible, but it's worth a try if you know someone local who can help you out with this.

I also had the advantage that my problems were occurring during the day as well, so it was possible for ComReg (on the 3rd attempt) to track down the source.

eircom: Mark

Alun wrote: »

so if your connection is marginal during the day, then all the foreign AM radio stations coming online at night time will have a detrimental effect on the SNR and can tip you over the edge causing a disconnect.

That is something I never knew Alun, thanks for that info.

Alun

eircom: Mark wrote: »

That is something I never knew Alun, thanks for that info.

Yes, it's not uncommon for the reported SNR to drop a good 2 or 3 dB or more at night, and in some circumstances, i.e. in high pressure when you get so-called inversion in the atmosphere it can be even worse as radio signals from even further away get picked up. The effects can be minimized by having good quality twisted pair wiring all the way from the NTU to all the phone points in the house, and not alarm cable or the flat untwisted phone cable some builders are fond of.

I still have a section of alarm cable that is in the route to my modem that I can't get at easily to replace, so I still suffer a bit at night, but replaced all the other cabling with Cat5 network cable which did improve things a lot.

I should also say that some modems are better than others at 'hanging on' when things get difficult. I had the standard Eircom Netopia to begin with which was not that good, but exchanged it for a D-Link 2740B (Broadcom chipset) which would hang on to the bitter end when the Netopia would long ago have disconnected.

cowsfriend

Hey, same thing happened to me last night about 11:30 mid-use I got a no dsl connection error. I called Eircom support today and they tested my line which was fine. He got me to reset the modem and it's now working intermittently but still dropping alot. I'm using the standard Eircom modem and he said it could be a problem with that and he'll send me out a new one. He mentioned that he had a call from someone near me today also with the same problem. It seems odd to me that two neighbours modems would go out on the same day so I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for a solution? Should I try changing the broadband channel? I know I had to do that before a few months back.

eircom: James

cowsfriend wrote: »

Hey, same thing happened to me last night about 11:30 mid-use I got a no dsl connection error. I called Eircom support today and they tested my line which was fine. He got me to reset the modem and it's now working intermittently but still dropping alot. I'm using the standard Eircom modem and he said it could be a problem with that and he'll send me out a new one. He mentioned that he had a call from someone near me today also with the same problem. It seems odd to me that two neighbours modems would go out on the same day so I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for a solution? Should I try changing the broadband channel? I know I had to do that before a few months back.

Hi cowsfriend,

Since you have already been onto support I would imagine they have carried out the basic troubleshooting steps with you. If they have come to the decision that it's a faulty modem it may be best to wait until this arrives before further changes are made. You are correct that 2 neighbours losing the connection at the same time suggests it could be something else but it also could be just a coincidence. Can you DM your landline number to me and I'll run a few tests for you in the meantime.

Thanks

James

eircom: James

Hi cowsfriend,

Thanks for the PM. Have tested both the line and broadband signal strength and the results on that side of things are very positive. Just to give a picture of your line stats, the downstream has attenuation of 11dB and noise margin of 24dB. This probably won't mean too much to you but I can tell you these are very good figures with regards the strength and stability of the signal. The actual phoneline also has no faults or warnings attached.

I've checked the account and there is a new modem on its way out. Should be there in the next couple of days. Can you have a look at this checklist from the eircom community forum and ensure there's nothing we have missed. To me this looks like faulty equipment and normally this turns out to be the modem however it can also be the filters/cables. Try the modem directly to the main socket with no filter and see if it helps.

If you have previously changed the wireless channel then that means there is some kind of interference happening around you. The wireless channels are split into 13 frequency ranges so make sure to try all the way through the range (eg. channels 1,3,5,7,9,11,13) This will give the best possible chance of finding a 'clean' channel. This is all just further troubleshooting so let us know when the new modem arrives and we can then rule that out and move further if we need to.

Thanks

James