Adsl 2+ HEC errors

N

Nuro

Expert Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2007
Messages
1,986
Reaction score
203
Location
City 17
Hi All

I recently upgraded to 20 Mbps ADSL, from 10. I have kept an eye on my router, and I know see HEC errors accumulating. The rate is about 1 error per second, so 60 errors per minute. I have no dropped cells, and using the telkom guest account, I get full line speed from the saix speedtest.

So, the line is definitely a bit more iffy, but should I be concerned about the hec errors?
I'm worried about my down SNR, it's borderline. My Line stats are as follows (not great, I know):

Downstream Upstream
SNR Margin
6.0 9.2 db

Line Attenuation
24.7 9.9 db

Data Rate
20477 1019 kbps

Max Rate
22812 1108 kbps
 
Your SNR sucks, 6.0 is the minimum for ADSL.

You might want to go back to 10meg.

Any idea how far your exchange is?
 
Borderline.... No sorry you still have about 3dB leniency on the SNR before you will see a line drop. Anything below 4dB I would call borderline. Telkom accepts industry standard of 6dB for max download speed. SO even if you restart Telkom would always try and sync you at a rate that will not exceed 6dB SNR so I say you are pretty safe with those stats actually.

I do not think you should be too worried about those HEC errors unless you really see them accumulating fast. It could be due to the noise but I run my line @ 4dB SNR and I am not picking up so many HEC errors but there is. Generally HEC errors won't affect your line at all actually.
 
Rickster said:
Your SNR sucks, 6.0 is the minimum for ADSL.

You might want to go back to 10meg.

Any idea how far your exchange is?
Click to expand...

What lies are that? 3dB would be the minimum before a line drops. Just saying. I know
 
cavedog said:
Borderline.... No sorry you still have about 3dB leniency on the SNR before you will see a line drop. Anything below 4dB I would call borderline. Telkom accepts industry standard of 6dB for max download speed. SO even if you restart Telkom would always try and sync you at a rate that will not exceed 6dB SNR so I say you are pretty safe with those stats actually.

I do not think you should be too worried about those HEC errors unless you really see them accumulating fast. It could be due to the noise but I run my line @ 4dB SNR and I am not picking up so many HEC errors but there is. Generally HEC errors won't affect your line at all actually.
Click to expand...

Strange, when i was put on to 8meg for testing SNR was at 5.8 I think and it was dropping often.
 
No need to go back to 10Mbps at all. You should see if you are getting latency spikes during games or something like that. What Router are you using? If its a dlink or netgear you can increase the target SNR a bit which will reduce the sync speed and have less errors but I do not think you need to worry about it all.

Check my line.....

line_errors.png
 
Rickster said:
It could be attenuation dependent, lower = lower/higher (one of them) threshold to drop
Click to expand...

Sorry went a bit overboard by calling lies but from my experience 3dB is when the line drops. SNR is not a contstant. You will notice the SNR varies a bit and thus 3dB will cause a line drop. 4dB is nice for stable and max line speed with some erros. 6dB industry standard is a safe option.
 
cavedog said:
Sorry went a bit overboard by calling lies but from my experience 3dB is when the line drops. SNR is not a contstant. You will notice the SNR varies a bit and thus 3dB will cause a line drop. 4dB is nice for stable and max line speed with some erros. 6dB industry standard is a safe option.
Click to expand...

I wish netgear would show detail like your router does, do you know if TP-Link shows that?
 
cavedog said:
Sorry went a bit overboard by calling lies but from my experience 3dB is when the line drops. SNR is not a contstant. You will notice the SNR varies a bit and thus 3dB will cause a line drop. 4dB is nice for stable and max line speed with some erros. 6dB industry standard is a safe option.
Click to expand...

Our office line used to drop at around 6db - 8db sometimes.
 
Rickster said:
I wish netgear would show detail like your router does, do you know if TP-Link shows that?
Click to expand...

No idea but the dlink 2500 is just one of the best routers EVER made. It handles the line great. Allows you to tweak the target SNR to have the sync rate increased or decrease to create stability or speed. The line also does not drop unless I go below 3dB. Then it might drop.

I got tons of errors there and yet played League of legends for 50min and it had a stable and lag free ping of 201ms with a IS capped account.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Our office line used to drop at around 6db - 8db sometimes.
Click to expand...

That means there was something affecting the line that shouldn't. If its on adsl+2 I just don't see how a 6dB SNR can drop. It just won't unless something router or line caused a brief but sudden drop in SNR to something below 3dB. That can cause a drop.

If you have a awesome line like mine [thanks Telkom techie that rejoined all the connections along the route to the exchange] then you should not see ANY drops unless you push the limits like I do. :p
 
Rickster said:
When my area gets bad lightning i sometimes get a SNR of -1.1 :D
Click to expand...

lol yeah I'm lucky. If we get a thunderstorm or any kind of heavy weather it would be a spectacle. We don't get those things here. We just get humid hot weather so that is working in my favour :D
 
Ok, I tried the SNR trick. I got the down SNR to 10.1, up to 11. My sync rate was down to 16000/1019 (I would be happy with this). But the hec errors were still 1/s :)
Dropped the sync all the way to 14000, same story. Also tried a spare router, same stats. I thought the hec error rate would go down as sync drops. Very weird.
I'll keep it as is for now, 10 meg is luckily just a click away.

EDIT: Have only really used the telkom guest account for tests, seeing as AH is mostly stuffed tonight.
 
Last edited:
Nuro said:
Ok, I tried the SNR trick. I got the down SNR to 10.1, up to 11. My sync rate was down to 16000/1019 (I would be happy with this). But the hec errors were still 1/s :)
Dropped the sync all the way to 14000, same story. Also tried a spare router, same stats. I thought the hec error rate would go down as sync drops. Very weird.
I'll keep it as is for now, 10 meg is luckily just a click away.
Click to expand...

Then its not the speed and distance causing that error it might be some kind of interference. Have you tested general things like in game latency or lag? Trace routes or something like that to see if you are getting packetloss?

If you don't see any packetloss or slow speeds or hight lstency then you shouldn't worry about it.
 
cavedog said:
Then its not the speed and distance causing that error it might be some kind of interference. Have you tested general things like in game latency or lag? Trace routes or something like that to see if you are getting packetloss?

If you don't see any packetloss or slow speeds or hight lstency then you shouldn't worry about it.
Click to expand...

I think I'll trace my line to the pole over the weekend, to see if there are any things that might interfere. Don't really game online, but pings to our office look good. No loss, sub 10ms pings (AH account to Neotel fibre).
100 packets transmitted, 100 received, 0% packet loss, time 19877ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 7.045/8.837/16.140/1.628 ms
Click to expand...
 
Follow up: My pots filter was lying next to some ac adapters and power cables. I moved it to someplace a bit more isolated. My hec errors are still there, but now it's more like one every 20 seconds. Holding thumbs...
 
Nuro said:
Follow up: My pots filter was lying next to some ac adapters and power cables. I moved it to someplace a bit more isolated. My hec errors are still there, but now it's more like one every 20 seconds. Holding thumbs...
Click to expand...

That is better. As I said before. The hec errors should not affect your line much at all.
 
I changed the cables and changed to a new filter and my stats improved remarkably... Wow yes the SNR is 3.6dB but I set it like that for higher sync rate.

These are the stats after about 1 hour.... Pretty impressive. Little to no errors not that it matter but before it was like 110k hec errors overnight.

Very impressed with my line now. Wow impressive sync rate with my 40.5 Attenuation to be honest. :D No line drops what so ever. Downloading @ 1.58MB/s constantly. :D

@OP Maybe you should remove the filter completely and remove the phone and see if your hec errors are reduced. If it is you might just want to change the filter.

dlink_stats_2500_l.png
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X