ADSL dropping in and out consistently at night

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johnr

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#1243757 21-Feb-2015 16:27

temperature change but this is does not sound like a ISP issue but house wiring related for sure

ajkiwi

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#1243759 21-Feb-2015 16:30

johnr: temperature change but this is does not sound like a ISP issue but house wiring related for sure

Interesting. Can you give an example?

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johnr

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#1243778 21-Feb-2015 16:41

Read the blog by Steve Biddle about house wiring and after many years of everyone repeating themselves over and over I don't need to provide any examples they are all over Geekzone,

Get a professional in to sort out the house wiring and get a master filter installed,

RunningMan

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#1243783 21-Feb-2015 16:55

OK, here's some possibilities.

Alarm dialler
Sky TV dialler
Bad cable
Bad modem
Power supply on modem
Some other temperature dependant fault
Interference from phone, microwave, neighbours welder, electric fence
Network congestion from other uses - backups, iCloud, torrents, malware, video streaming, system updates

That's only the tip of the iceberg - the list is probably almost limitless.

These problems can be really tricky to pin down - the best approach is generally a systematic approach. First is trying to confirm more precisely what happens, and when, hence starting a log. Once the fault is reproducible, then you can start trying some solutions, to isolate what is causing it. Once you've got a better idea of precisely when it occurs, and what happens to the DSL line when it does, then we can suggest some things to try to narrow it down further.

Eg. if it drops at exactly the same time every day, then it is most likely the alarm or Sky phoning home. If it's more random, it could actually be temperature or moisture dependant - a power supply that fails when it is cool.

First step though - get some readings of line stats at various times through the day, and get some (precise) times of when the problem occurs.

sbiddle

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#1243804 21-Feb-2015 18:00

ajkiwi: If a connection is rock solid during one period of the day, and timing out randomly in another, what else MIGHT be the cause?

Are you using your connection during the day? If not, and the issues are occurring when the connection is being used then it points to a modem/network related issue or possible saturation of the upstream, but normally that results in significantly increased latency rather than a total loss of pings.

ajkiwi

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#1243850 21-Feb-2015 19:01

sbiddle:
ajkiwi: If a connection is rock solid during one period of the day, and timing out randomly in another, what else MIGHT be the cause?

Are you using your connection during the day? If not, and the issues are occurring when the connection is being used then it points to a modem/network related issue or possible saturation of the upstream, but normally that results in significantly increased latency rather than a total loss of pings.

Yeah, this is what is puzzling me. I use the internet regularly in the day, and often quite heavily - streaming and work downloads occur in daytime, as does gaming and video now and then. Day time, absolutely no issues at all, and there hasn't been in 3 years.

Night: buggered. No use changes in our house at all. We haven't changed anything, everything is identical to the daytime setup that works, but if anything, we have lower use at night. At night, even the most regular of web page browsing usually fails - we don't have sky; the alarm calls home hourly according to the alarm company, so shouldn't be different between day and night; and the pings indicate complete timeouts, rather than latency.

So, running through Runningman's list, above:

Alarm dialler - unlikely, apparently happens hourly with no issues.
Sky TV dialler - don't have.
Bad cable - which miraciously works the other 12 hours of the day.
Bad modem - tested with 2 modems, issue happens on both
Power supply on modem - ditto.
Some other temperature dependant fault - hmmmmm... possible, I guess.
Interference from phone, microwave, neighbours welder, electric fence - all night? Possible.
Network congestion from other uses - backups, iCloud, torrents, malware, video streaming, system updates - Backups run in day, icloud nup, tested turning all all other internet devices for congestion, regularly scan for malware, don't usually stream at night, system updates at midnight daily... you get the idea. Possible.

The only thing that has changed is that our neighbours down our long driveway seem to have got broadband (and possibly lightbox, etc) recently as well. Could that be it? Odd, if so.

Thanks for the suggestions, all. Will continue directional troubleshooting, one thing at a time, this week.

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hio77

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#1243851 21-Feb-2015 19:03

your still yet to confirm exactly what is happening, are you loosing full dsl connectivity? PPP sessions? is it at the same time of the day or variable.?

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sbiddle

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#1243852 21-Feb-2015 19:05

ajkiwi:
The only thing that has changed is that our neighbours down our long driveway seem to have got broadband (and possibly lightbox, etc) recently as well. Could that be it? Odd, if so.

Thanks for the suggestions, all. Will continue directional troubleshooting, one thing at a time, this week.

Establishing whether DSL and/or PPP is dropping is the first basic step. Until you can provide the answer too that everything else posted here is mere speculation. Knowing the answers to this is critical for any diagnosis.

quickymart

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#1243855 21-Feb-2015 19:10

If you're located in Auckland/Waikato coffeebaron might be able to help you out with a proper master filter installation (instead of the power company's "oh yes, we installed one, we did") when they didn't.

freitasm

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#1243886 21-Feb-2015 19:17

ajkiwi:
Alarm dialler - unlikely, apparently happens hourly with no issues.
Sky TV dialler - don't have.
Bad cable - which miraciously works the other 12 hours of the day.
Bad modem - tested with 2 modems, issue happens on both
Power supply on modem - ditto.
Some other temperature dependant fault - hmmmmm... possible, I guess.
Interference from phone, microwave, neighbours welder, electric fence - all night? Possible.
Network congestion from other uses - backups, iCloud, torrents, malware, video streaming, system updates - Backups run in day, icloud nup, tested turning all all other internet devices for congestion, regularly scan for malware, don't usually stream at night, system updates at midnight daily... you get the idea. Possible.

The only thing that has changed is that our neighbours down our long driveway seem to have got broadband (and possibly lightbox, etc) recently as well. Could that be it? Odd, if so.

Thanks for the suggestions, all. Will continue directional troubleshooting, one thing at a time, this week.

Alarm dialler: still a likely culprit, the existence of a proper master splitter isn't confirmed
Bad cable: still could be a temperature problem (expands when warm during the day, shrinks at night when cold and interrupts contacts)

But as above need to know exactly what kind of disconnect to then work on a root cause.

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Jase2985

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#1243971 22-Feb-2015 00:00

sooo what happened tonight?

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SepticSceptic

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#1244601 23-Feb-2015 09:26

What's the landline quality like when this happens ? Pops crackles and buzzes ?

ajkiwi

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#1245008 23-Feb-2015 17:09

Will check landline. Sat night network was rubbish, Sunday was fine, have set up monitoring tools for tonight. Generally strange.

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ajkiwi

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#1246034 25-Feb-2015 07:24

Ok, update! Problem seems resolved. I've been running pingplotter over the connection for the last few days to track. Even though Sat night was weird, I've had no issues since - pings firing off and coming back at regular speed.

Talking to the chorus tech, it seems that when the neighbours got their new ADSL connection, it was hooked up at the front of our properties where multiple lines converge. His idea to re-strip, check all the connections, and rewrap them seems to have dealt with the issue, which he thinks was either moisture getting into a connection, a loose connection, or some form of interference when they were using their connection heavily.

Ye olde adage came into play: first look for what has changed. Neighbours getting a connection was *it*. On the up side, based on your suggestions - thanks all - I've now tidied up some of the house wiring to ensure it won't be the potential cause of things in the future, and the alarm monitoring will either be switching to IP or cell over the next month, depending on what sort of deal the alarm company can put together for me.

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Jase2985

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#1246053 25-Feb-2015 07:46

glad you got it sorted

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