[WXC/VFX] Xnet Broadband issues Disconnects

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › [WXC/VFX] Xnet Broadband issues Disconnects

awew0lf

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#24417 23-Jul-2008 15:55

Yeah well afew us in whakatane are getting connection drops off sometime early morning say around 2 am or 1 am that xnet have told me i dont stay up that late to see lol and comes back on around 1 pm for one hour then off for another hour or so then back on most of the night with the odd drop off connection so im getting broadband for 7 to 8 hours a day

Ok with many fone calls to xnet line checks changed modems must of rang them over 20 odd times they know ther is an issue but they blame telecom so telecom did a line check and they say it was ok with another line check pending for 2moro
ive been through every little issue that could be possible with filters and modems vista and xp and they are 100% sister is IT by trade so thats a bonus ive got 2 comps this started the day and i mean the day they introduced the off peak 75 gig plan any1 else having the same prob outside whakatane ?

you may say its my gear but when a pattern starts to show it seem more likely no everyday samething cant check my bank in the mornings b4 work is getting to be a pain i like to see my money grow lol

JayADee

2148 posts

Uber Geek

#150702 23-Jul-2008 17:15

I'm in Opotiki and I checked last night's log and no drop out over here.
I'll keep an eye on it the next couple days and see if it does.
I do get the occasional drop out but it doesn't appear to be a pattern, it's not particularly often and the router starts it right back up anyway. The only reason I know I get one at all is the router logs it. A few days ago, for example, there was a disconnect and the router tried a number of times before it got connected again. I understand there was an issue a few days ago of some sort.

I remember back on IHUG (shudder) I used to get regular drop outs right at midnight during their change over in how their internet plans worked. (at midnight the daily limit reset or something like that) My router at the time, which was a dlink, would faithfully drop link every night at the same time and wouldn't auto reset properly so I had to do the on/off/on powerup thing in the morning. It was a very basic router.

I ended up selling that router and didn't have any trouble after that.

Try another router if you can and see if you get the same result.

Edit: router up time is 102 hours, 51 minutes. I was messing with the firewall a few days back and did a deliberate restart then, so the down time in the log must have been sometime before that. I don't save my logs after reading them though so I couldn't tell you exactly which day the down time was.

awew0lf

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#151375 25-Jul-2008 17:17

Cheers for that man what was the router you had the d-link one that was no good and whats the one ya using now ?

JayADee

2148 posts

Uber Geek

#151524 26-Jul-2008 10:32

Yeah, it was a dlink, can't remember the model number.
I love my current one; netgear dg834gt. I'm running the official latest firmware on it but there are some unofficial ones that let you tweak it easier than telnetting into the router.

Its only drawback is it doesn't have QOS. So if you've got some services forwarded and the line is blazing away at 5Mbps downloading something, the voip service dies (even with all the voip ports forwarded). I did a few speed vs. quality of voice tests and anything over 1Mbs kills the voice quality and ideally running nothing while voiping is the best. Which is weird since voip should take very little bandwidth. I haven't tried running it with no services forwarded but that might presumably work better since it does have a SIP ALG and I would think they would have built in some kind of priority there.

Luckily there are only two of us so I informed the husband he's going to need to shut everything down if he wants to make a phone call and ditto if it rings while downloading. It surprised me he wasn't more annoyed by this. He's a bit technology intollerant when it comes to stuff not working, hah. If we had kids I'd need a hardware solution. I'm hoping the co. will eventually release a firmware with some QOS I can set myself like the rta1025w because otherwise it's a stallar router/modem.

I bought a dodgy rta1025w second hand (as is where is kind of deal) because it's supposed to be really good for QOS, speeds and so on, ranks right up there with my netgear apparantly.

Unfortunately the wireless part of it appears to be toast even though the rest runs really well.
I'm in the process of trying to get the wireless to work. I've already flashed it to the lastest firmware, I'm going to try a downgrade to the latest official firmware and if that doesn't work I may crack the case and see if the soldered wire to the antenna has become unsoldered. Then if it has I may need to ask hubby to teach me how to solder, lol.

awew0lf

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#151530 26-Jul-2008 10:55

1 Sorry for calling you man lol my bad . I need to upgrade my modem as to why i asked i still dont like wireless yet i just dont think its stable enough for gaming :) thx for the info didnt think about upgrading the firmware on the modem just always left it default even though i wouldnt do that with my graphic card or my cell phone i always upgrade them

thats me taking my little modem for granted thx again

JayADee

2148 posts

Uber Geek

#151533 26-Jul-2008 11:03

Statistically speaking most people on this board probably ARE men. :) No worries.

Niel

3267 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#151552 26-Jul-2008 11:43

JayADee: Statistically speaking most people on this board probably ARE men. :) No worries.

It is the exceptional people that do not conform to statistics. My wife is a mechanical engineer and as student she worked at the Mercedes factory in South Africa (while driving a BMW ;-).

A few years ago Telecom Wholesale tested all popular modems in use in New Zealand (in preparing to switch to ADSL2+). The report, which is somewhere on their web site, shows that the D-Link is one of the lowest performers. The later model D-Links are not too bad, but still not that good. My theory is that if they supply most people with low performing modems, then it is longer before they need to increase their bandwidth.

One of the best performers were Dynalink. The RTS1320 was one of the best performing (and has QoS), and the later one with wireless was even better I think. XNet staff has echoed this as well.

The problem with Dynalink is that it is cheaply manufactured, so it is worth getting a new one so you have a warranty. They are cheap, as a few ISPs supply them for "free" and thus people think they are no good. The service centre is in Albany (Auckland) and is easy to deal with (had to exchange mine). Overall they last a reasonable time, but you do get the odd faulty one (which goes for most low cost consumer products).

You can never have enough Volvos!

JayADee

2148 posts

Uber Geek

#151561 26-Jul-2008 12:30

Cheers, Niel. :)
I bought it as a back up in case ours fell over. Just so we'd have something to keep the voip phone going.
And if I am being honest I just wanted one to play with, lol.
When I originally bought the netgear the Dynalink was my first choice but I couldn't find anyone who sold the rta1025w so I ended up with my second choice which was my dg834gt. That was a few years back. I'm super happy with the netgear though.

More recently, a buddy of mine who does a little IT on the side was in the market for a new router/modem He's with xnet as an ISP too), did his own independant research before talking to me and came up with the same two top choices, lol. He ended up with the rta1025w and is happy as a clam. A recent (within the last six months or so) magazine article also put the Dynalink rta1025w in the top slot. Netcomm is made by the same company and their Netcomm NB6Plus4W is the exact same model in a different case. (confirmed by email by the dynalink rep).

I flashed the rta's firmware back to the official version, still no wireless.
I'm still debating prying the cover off but I may wait until I get some feedback on the best way to go about it without breaking something...because after all, it DOES still work as a wireless router. :) I got it for about $20 with shipping so I'm not that worried.

The RTA1320 looks good if you're not looking for wired and you can get them cheap as chips right now with all the freebies flooding the market. So Dynalink/netcomm looks like a solid co. to go with on your router search and don't rule Netgear out. 3comm is supposed to be a good brand as well.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

eljefe

99 posts

Master Geek

#151840 27-Jul-2008 16:33

awew0lf: Yeah well afew us in whakatane are getting connection drops off sometime early morning say around 2 am or 1 am that xnet have told me i dont stay up that late to see lol and comes back on around 1 pm for one hour then off for another hour or so then back on most of the night with the odd drop off connection so im getting broadband for 7 to 8 hours a day

Ok with many fone calls to xnet line checks changed modems must of rang them over 20 odd times they know ther is an issue but they blame telecom so telecom did a line check and they say it was ok with another line check pending for 2moro
ive been through every little issue that could be possible with filters and modems vista and xp and they are 100% sister is IT by trade so thats a bonus ive got 2 comps this started the day and i mean the day they introduced the off peak 75 gig plan any1 else having the same prob outside whakatane ?

you may say its my gear but when a pattern starts to show it seem more likely no everyday samething cant check my bank in the mornings b4 work is getting to be a pain i like to see my money grow lol

Hi awewOlf, yes I am having problems, (typing this off-line) my line has been up and down most of the day. Still is, I am lucky to get 5 mins up time at a stretch this afternoon. I have a request in with Xnet, but the best advice I got was to check my filters. So I guess I need to buy a new filter to make sure the one I have is not faulty. I sent them a bunch of upload/download stats and ran a program for them, cant recall what it was, a packet checker of some sort? It uploads pretty fast while its going, but can stop at any time. As it is doing today...

I guess I would have to say my problems only really started after getting VOIP, and have gotten steadily worse over the crap winter here in Wellington. There is no way I could recommend VOIP the way my line is. Its my mums birthday tonite I guess I will have to ring through Telescum.

I will wait till its back again and try to post this as quickly as I can,

(Edit) Funny how writing stuff down makes you think about it a bit more. I just unplugged my adaptor, and my line has been up now for longer than 5 mins! Come to think of it, the help-desk guy may have actually suggested that. Maybe that means that the brand new adaptor is crap. Hmmmm.

===================================
Adaptor=Lynksys spa2102, Router=Netgear DG834, Opensuse 10.3, Ubuntu 8.4, and XP. FireFox.

JayADee

2148 posts

Uber Geek

#151867 27-Jul-2008 17:58

What filter do you mean? My line runs from the wall phone plug directly to the router then to my ATA (which is the really basic one) and my ata is connected to my phone. Are you using the Netgear in your sig as your modem/router?

I read someplace the spa2102 can be finicky to set up. I have no experience with it myself but I think it acts as a router too so if you have your Netgear in front of it I imagine you're going to have to make sure everything is talking to each other correctly.