Internet Slows Every Three Days

[rbz5416]

First thought would a driver problem but on both wired and wireless and having just had three months trouble free.....?

Do you have an ADSL faceplate or Iplate fitted to your master socket as the ADSL plate will give better screening and fitting an ADSL High Speed cable between the socket and router may also help.

Have you got the cache set to clear when closing down the net or have you tried this while browsing when it happens, instead of rebooting the router ?

Plug in just a corded phone when this occurs, dial 1 and listen for any noise (such as crackling etc), before the auto voice kicks in and any would point to a line fault which could be intermittent, but on such a regular basis.....?

You could also try enabling Phyr and what is your MTU set at in both pc and router ?

There is no faceplate fitted to the master socket as there are no extensions running from it. Connecting directly to test socket behind the faceplate made no difference when trying to troubleshoot previously.

Do you mean browser cache or something else? When the slow down occurs, opening another browser (IE instead of FF) doesn't help so I can't see it being browser cache.

There is no audible noise on the line.

Never heard of Phyr before but Googled & enabled it thanks. MTU is default at both ends.

[Tomken]

See if there's any improvement with Phyr enabled.

By "cache", I meant the browser cache which can either be set to auto clear on closing the net or manually.

Manually is via Ctrl+Shift+Delete where a window will pop up. I usually have all the boxes ticked.

Auto is done via Tools >> Internet Options and under the General tab (usually default page) in the window that pops up, in the Browsing History section there is a ticky box, ensure that this is ticked, clicking on Delete will bring up the same window with those options.

If the cache goes uncleared, it can usually cause browsing problems.

If you read down through this section http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/lowSNR.htm you will see what I meant about fitting an ADSL faceplate.

Navigating throughout this site, you will find educational and is probably used by quite a number of people once they become aware of its existance and is well worth a read.

Entering just "kitz" into your browser search box will bring up a number of links to the same site, some of which are difficult to navigate to from its home page.

Edited this post, not realizing you had already replied

[rbz5416]

See if there's any improvement with Phyr enabled.

By "cache", I meant the browser cache which can either be set to auto clear on closing the net or manually.

Manually is via Ctrl+Shift+Delete where a window will pop up. I usually have all the boxes ticked.

Auto is done via Tools >> Internet Options and under the General tab (usually default page) in the window that pops up, in the Browsing History section there is a ticky box, ensure that this is ticked, clicking on Delete will bring up the same window with those options.

If the cache goes uncleared, it can usually cause browsing problems.

Thanks, I'll see how things go with Phyr enabled.

[rbz5416]

Well Phyr made no difference.

Clutching at straws I thought I'd power it down overnight to see if that would help. The reasoning being that it may be overheating being on 24/7 (although it doesn't do anything overnight) & I could maybe plug it into a mechanical timer. Unfortunately when I turned it on the following morning there was no wireless. Not just disabled but completely absent from the GUI. After several reboots it came back but there is nothing in the log to suggest what's going on. This seems to be somewhat repeatable in that after a power-down of a couple of hours or more, there's only a 50:50 chance of whether wireless makes an appearance. I've read of several reports of the same issue on the Australian Whirlpool Forums.

I picked up a cheapo Netgear DGN2200 last week & it's been pretty stable, certainly more so than the 7800N. It also doesn't keep throwing up errors on my WHS box saying that port forwarding isn't working. The Billion is boxed up & due back for RMA but when the third replacement arrives, I think it will be straight to Ebay.

[Tomken]

You don't seem to be having much luck with the 7800N and I would have thought unusual for two to be knacked.

Why don't you just ask for your money back as not being fit for purpose, as you're hardly likely to get the full price for it on ebay ?

[rbz5416]

You don't seem to be having much luck with the 7800N and I would have thought unusual for two to be knacked.

Why don't you just ask for your money back as not being fit for purpose, as you're hardly likely to get the full price for it on ebay ?

Well as I say, this will be the third replacement, so three I've had problems with rather than two. I've no idea what's going on with my line, whether there is some odd incompatibility with the Broadcom chipset in the 7800N & the kit in the local exchange or what. All I do know is that when I had the Thomson connected in place of the 7800N I had no problems. As soon as I connected the last replacement there were all kinds of funnies with the GUI being inaccessible & other oddities that seemed to settle down after a while. But now I'm back where I was three months ago so I think it's time to give up.

I'd dearly love a refund but the retailer has washed their hands of it in clear breach of their obligations. Life's too short to enter into a battle with a them but anyone else thinking of buying anything from Expansys might like to bear that in mind. But then I only have myself to blame for reneging on my promise to myself never to deal with again after buying a SIM free phone that turned out to be ex-Virgin stock they'd unlocked themselves.

As for losing money on Ebay, it's already cost me the best part of £30 in return postage so I'll be glad to draw a line under it.

[Tomken]

I bought mine from Expansys as well and have had it since last July, trouble free on a 49-50dB Attenuation. Well, the router has been trouble free with just the odd line problems.

I would have thought Expansys would have had a Freepost returns policy, normally when returning faulty goods, the seller usually foots the bill.

If you were to take them on, even if you had the Sale of Goods Act on your side, it would still have to go through the Small Claims Court, so you have to weigh up if the aggro is really worth it.

The Netgear also has the Broadcom chipset in it, but whether it's the same number or not, I wouldn't know. I did find out once the number of the 7800N but no longer have that info, although a phone call/raise ticket to Billion will get you that info and then you could compare it with the DGN2200.

There's quite a few who swear by the Netgears anyway.

If I was in your position, I think I'd still like to know why it was so and as billion_fan said in his first reply, he'd only came across it with a conflict with his ISP and maybe that's it as well for you but I doubt if your ISP will admit to anything and as long as you have something working, why try to fix it if it's not broken.

[banger]

Bought my wired version from Broadband Buyer and I have a problem where large download files will pause every now and again thus reducing throughput. Support advised me to send it back to rule out a hardware problem which I did and BBB said they wouldn't replace it as it would not solve the problem and gave me a refund. So bought another from Amazon and same problem.

I'm convinced its a compatibility problem between router and exchange, although exchange has a broadcom chipset so you would have thought they would be compatible with the Billion broadcom. But if I swap my Thompson 546 with it the problem goes away. Billion support dont seem willing to look any further into it being a firmware problem which I reckon it is. Not impressed.

[rbz5416]

Funnily enough, on Saturday I managed to stream a football match in it's entirety for the first time in a long while without the stream dieing several times. I can't be certain but I suspect the problems I've had streaming probably coincide with the installation of this latest 7800N.

Interesting that we've both had no problems with Thomson.

[rbz5416]

Probably my final post on this matter.

Unfortunately Billion didn't replace the router, they just replaced the wireless card. I've had it back for five days & it's failed in the same way twice now.

It's going on Ebay this afternoon & I'll make do with the Netgear while I try to find something else. I won't be buying another Billion product again.