Connection Issues

[XennoX]

Hi all,

So I've been losing connection for the past week or so. The thing that bugs me the most is my DSL & Internet LED stay on constantly, but my PC will report that I have no internet connection a few minutes later it comes back. I decided to download router stats and see whats up. I have a Netgear DG834GUv5.

This is what my graph looks like:

http://mybroadband.co.za/photos/data/500/medium/NoiseMargin-2010Jan26-1501.jpg

Every time my noise margin drops below 20dB, I lose connection. My question is, what is the issue here? The modem is brand new (It is 4 days old).

If its a line issue what must I tell Telkom when I report it to them?

 

[Pada]

XennoX, could you also post your line rates (up & down speed), as well as the Line Attenuation values? It could be that the loss (attenuation) is too high due to a faulty line or too long distance between you and the DSLAM.

Lastly: are you dialing the PPPoE connection from the PC, or how does your PC report the no internet connection? It could simply be that Windows Vista/7 was unable to contact their servers (hosted internationally), that its using to establish whether you have a working Internet connection or not. This check could've failed numerous times since last week Wednesday due to the cable break / poor international connection that the whole SA had.

 

[XennoX]

Here are the full details:

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 4096 kbps 512 kbps
Line Attenuation 15.0 db 6.5 db
Noise Margin 22.5 db 12 db

I let my modem handle the connection, I don't dial through it.

My distance from my DSLAM is something stupid like 200m. I can see the building from my house where the DSLAM is located.

I noticed it when I played BF2 on the SGS servers. BF2 only requires an international connection when it authenticates your account and updates your stats at the end of the round.

The problem however occurs during the round. I will get a message saying 'There is a problem with your connection.' I flip over to my router stats and my Downstream Noise margin is sitting at 18dB. If it recovers back to 22.5dB I can play again otherwise I get kicked from the server saying 'Your connection to the server has been lost.'

 

[Pada]

From the numbers that you've posted, you have very good signal quality. See http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?186156-Understanding-SNR-and-Attenuation-Rates for a reference.

It could perhaps be an application running on your PC that is utilizing the Internet to such an extent that your latency skyrockets very badly. I usually suggest that people run: ping www.aardvark.co.za -t
It should give you a response time of 50ms or below if your connection is in tact.

 

[XennoX]

Ping isn't the issue. Its the face that every few minutes my signal dips i.e., that noise margin drops below 20dB. I'm trying to figure out why, because I have 4 devices on my network. Two PC's, a laptop and my Xbox 360. I've tested it with just my Xbox on, and every few minutes like clockwork I get kicked from my multiplayer game of Gears of War 2 and it tells me shortly afterwards "'You have been disconnected from Xbox LIVE."