I was called to a friend's house last night to take a look at why his
internet connection was not working. His Draytel 2600 router connects
(syncs) with the exchange and is quite stable AFAICS. What does not work is
the PPP connection to Plusnet. I have looked at all the obvious things like
the settings but it just reports PPP authorisation starting and then closes
down before restarting. Obviously there could be a number of things to
check like connecting to the BT server and so on. Before I raise a ticket
for them with Plusnet are there any other obvious things to try? I hope to
test a substitute router but can't do that until tomorrow.

Peter Crosland

Peter Crosland wrote:
The problem has been reported to PN a number of times recently (over
the last 7 days) so they are aware. Unfortunately they do not know
what is causing it, except it may be possibly down to the BRAS being
set artificially high. I was suffering an intermitent loss of PPP &
so reported it & that was the answer that came back......solution,
well they suggested rebooting the router a number of times (I in fact
changed the router which appeared to do the job just as well). This
has lowered my BRAS rate to 3Mb but unfortunately I haven't had enough
time to monitor to see if it's still happening (the present router I'm
using doesn't appear to have a readily available logging service so I
have no logs with which I can check)...

Another thing, which may be worthwhile, is to make sure that the
draytek has got the latest firmware, now standing at 5.2.9_UK2...

Thanks very much for that kráftéé. At least it gives me a starting point to
work from.

Peter Crosland

On 25 Jun 2006, "kráftéé" wrote:

would www.l8nc.com help on this aspect? (You could get it to ping an IP
once a minute and provide graphs of the results for "today" and "yesterday")

poster wrote:
Interesting idea, only problem is the idea of opening up an account
with a third party & allowing them to ping me 24/7. Not to sure I
like the idea but thanks anyway...

kráftéé wrote:
Latest news it has now started again. I just wonder if turning the router
off overnight has allowed the glitch to clear.

Peter Crosland

Peter Crosland wrote:
More likely forced the BRAS to a lower value

On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 13:40:07 +0100, "Peter Crosland"
<g6jns@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Can you confirm an IP address is being allocated? In my case, the
router LEDs indicate sync achieved, but there is no IP address. I'm
with BT as ISP.

PeeGee
--
The reply address is a spam trap. If you need to reply directly, put the UK where it should be - first.

Peter Crosland <g6jns@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

I have been in the same situation with F9/Plusnet since Tuesday 20th.
My router Netgear DB824 syncs fine, but can't negotiate LCP at all. I
raised a fault on Wednesday but I haven't had any progress since then.

My sync rates (e.g. upstream 615kbps) suggests my line has been LLU'd to
Tiscali, though I haven't been notified of that. Do you know whether
your friend is now on 2Mb, MaxADSL or LLU?

Peter

The Draytek router gives a lot of information and displays the details of
the connection to BT. No IP address is allocated because that is done by the
ISP.


Peter Crosland

I would be interested to know why. The router had no problem with syncing
with BT at all. This was rock solid but the onward connection to the ISP
failed repeatedly.


Peter Crosland

Peter Crosland wrote:
Good question Peter, but turning off the router can fool the exchange
equipment into thinking that your circuit can't sustain the faster
speeds. I didn't turn mine off I changed routers, from a Draytek
2600g to a Cisco 837 & next day found my BRAS setting had gone from
4.5Mb to 3Mb & the connection, although synching at a higher limit,
does appear to be more stable, which, after all, is what I wanted so
I'm quite happy. PN support has also suggested that I do random
reboots to fool the BRAS lower....

kráftéé wrote:
Of course, it's up to you, but the only personal info you have to
provide to setup an account is an email address (and even then you can
use a throw-away address). It's not like we have much personal info to
share even if we wanted to share it, but I can assure you we have no
such wishes. To sell on the details would damage our image hugely and
acheive nothing positive.

As for being pinged once a second, it's no big deal and will have no
noticeable impact on your connection. Also, you could chose the the
once a minute option if all you want to do is monitor uptime.

Alex

Thanks for that. At least now my friend is connected and has a better idea
of how to effectively overcome the problem. I just hope BT get their finger
out and sort it themselves!

Peter Crosland

On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 13:40:07 +0100, "Peter Crosland"
<g6jns@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

domain?

note the gaps in the name have the underline character _ not a space
bt_test startup_domain

User: bt_test@startup_domain

BT will ignore any password present in the password box, and therefore
is not necessary to delete or modify these settings.

If you are unsuccessful connecting to BT test account and are sure
your ADSL line has been activated and all hardware wiring is correct
then contact your ISP to let them know.

If you connect successfully you can determine whether your computer
software (e.g. Internet Explorer settings & firewall)and DNS are
configured correctly by going to this URL:
http://www.bt.net/digitaldemo/ If you can view this website then
congratulations your software and hardware is configured correctly.



See if the following works



User: speedtest@speedtest_domain

BT will ignore any password present in the password box, and therefore
is not necessary to delete or modify these settings.

Once connected you will be able to access the bt speedtest URL
http://speedtester.bt.com

On that page you will be promopted to enter your telephone number then
click the "GO" button.

After a short time your results will be displayed against the
different speed internet connections to give you a fair idea of your
ADSL line speed compared to your service.

It is recommended that you repeat the test several times to give an
average tested transfer speed. To repeat the test just click your
browser's back button, which will take you back to the first page.
Then just click the GO button again to repeat the test. Don't be
surprised if the test results vary from test to test, this is not an
accurate test but again will give you a fair idea of your ADSL line
capacity.

kráftéé <kraftee@dontspamkrafteeunless.you.invalid> wrote on Sun, 25 Jun
2006:

kráftéé, can you expand on this, please? I had thought it was it was a
number of turning-offs or re-synchs within a given period that would
affect the BRAS, rather than just one overnight shutdown?

If turning off overnight can do it, what happens to all the people using
USB modems whose connection is shut down every time they turn off the
computer?

--
Nightowl

Nightowl wrote:
You may be lucky, you may not, there is another thread ....

BT announcement re synchronisation

Which may be of interest to you...

Peter Robinson <pmrobinson@gmx.net> wrote:

Well FWIW I still haven't had a response from F9/Plusnet, but my
connection mysteriously sprang back to life this evening.

Peter

Bob L <bl@thisaddressisnowhere.com> wrote:

Do you know of an equivalent for those of us with Plusnet lucky enough
to have been LLU'd to Tiscali?

Peter