Tech Support > Computers & Technology > Internet & Broadband > Is my 2 month old modem router faulty?
Is my 2 month old modem router faulty?
Posted by Matthew Long on January 13th, 2006


Hiya,

I bought a BT Voyager 2110 wireless modem router in November.

All has been fine until last weekend, when I noticed the lights at the front
kept showing that my broadband connection kept dropping, and it was
continually reconnecting. I switched the router off and on again. It dialled
back up again on it's own, and the connection was stable for about 10
minutes, then the same thing happened again.

It will disconnect my broadband about every 30 seconds, then reconnect
again - Over and over.

My set up is - Virgin Net 2Mb Broadband, Desktop running XP (Connected
directly via cable. PS2 connected via cable. Laptop running XP, Sony PSP,
and Nintendo DS occasionally connected at different times via wireless.

The router has a separate power supply, and is always switched on, and
connected to broadband. In the options on the router, I've got it set for
permanent connection. Nothing else has changed since I had the router, apart
from a speed upgrade on my broadband, from 512 to 2MB about a month and a
half ago.

I've rebooted it, reset it, and tried downloading the latest software
version - All has made no difference. Is there anything I've missed before I
take it back? And are these BT Voyager routers generally reliable, and I've
just been unlucky?

It's not my Broadband provider, because I've been using my USB Speedtouch
modem all week, with no problems at all!


Thanks for any help given!


Matthew Long



Posted by Phil Thompson on January 14th, 2006


On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 19:09:01 GMT, "Matthew Long" <no_sp@m.net> wrote:

line statistics required to see if its a SNR problem
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.htm

different kit behaves differently so your modem may hag on where your
router fails

Phil
--
Tiscali - dialup speeds at Broadband prices, see
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/postlist...&Board=tiscali

AOL - the unlimited ISP of choice for heavy downloaders.

Posted by SteveB on January 15th, 2006


It's likely that the speed upgrade has caused the problem due to the SNR
being worse, it normally becomes about 10-12dB worse going from 512k to 2M.
The line quality isn't a fixed thing either, its performance often varies
from week to week, so if the SNR is marginal sometimes you'll get problems.
As the signal gets marginal, other factors like interference become more of
a factor, some of the interference can be generated in your house by things
like mains adapters, TVs, fluorescent lights, dimmers. It may be worth
plugging your router into another mains socket, and try moving leads around
while looking at the SNR on your router stats.

I've had all these sort of problems since an upgrade, plus a noisy phone,
but it's all settled down now mainly since BT changed my last length of
street underground cabling and I bought an ADSLnation microfilter but still
the SNR varies between 20dB - 26dB (it used to be 10-20). One thing I have
noticed with my line when it was dodgy is that if you unplug everything at
the master socket for 10 minutes, once it's reconnected the SNR is always at
the top end of its range and stable and this lasts for several days before
it gradually falls to the lower SNR and becomes less stable, this is without
any router reboot. Try it.


Posted by Matthew Long on January 15th, 2006


Not sure which figures you mean. On my router, under the 'Broadband Line' it
says;

Noise Margin:

Downstream 30.0db
Upstream 28.0

Is this the figures you mean? We had the upgrade about a month and a half
ago, but haven't had any problems since last week. I took just the router
back to Argos, and they kindly swapped it over for me. I've not touched any
of the cables. I plugged the new router in yesterday lunchtime, and it's
been connected ever since. So would you think it was a faulty router from
this? Or is it likely to go again?!

Cheers,

Matthew Long



Posted by SteveB on January 16th, 2006


Yes, they're the figures I mean. You shouldn't have any problems at all
with SNR (same as the Noise Margin) of 30dB, that's very good for 2Mb.