Tomorrow, I am going to try to help out a neighbour and attempt to trace
a wiring fault. I could do with any suitable advice before starting.

The situation is this:-

He has just been enabled for broadband but could not connect and asked
me for help (not that I know very much).

He has two telephone extensions leading from the master socket and his
computer is using one of them. He is using a router but the DSL light
was not showing.

When the router is attached to the test socket of the master socket, the
DSL light comes on. When the router is plugged into the front plate
socket of the master socket, the DSL light stays off. I therefore
presume that there is a fault in his extension wiring.

What I propose to do tomorrow (please correct any mistaken assumptions) is:-

Expose the connections at all of the sockets, run a length of spare wire
(bell wire) between them and test each telephone wire for continuity
(using the bell wire for the return path). This, I hope, will show where
the fault is and enable us to correct it or re-wire as necessary.

Any comments/suggestions are welcome, please.

--
Howard Neil

Howard Neil wrote:
Shouldn't be neccesary to do continuity test. It's simple, does a
telephone work at each socket? If yes you have got continuity.

Things to look for..

What type of cable have the extensions been run with? Is it twisted
pair, burglar alarm cable(no twists, no pairs & the conductor is
stranded) or the flat extensions which everybody & their dog appear to
be selling. If it is twisted pair go to the next pointer, if not give
up now & start thinking laterally...

If it's twisted pair ensure that it's not been connected split pair,
in other words the blue white with white blue, orange white with white
orange, if you get my drift, & the connections you should use are 2&5
(one pair) & (if you are going the whole hog & doing it properly)
another wire connected to 3. There maybe other connections available
but they aren't used in this scenario. Older cables may have colored
markers & a white to make a pair, but you can find out the pairing if
you look at the twists. Newer installs may have used colored leadin
in this case it's white & orange, black & green.

Make sure that all equipment is filtered (yep even the Sky digi box
which a surprising number of end users forget) this includes any extra
tele bells or even burglar alarms (which is another one which
end-users appear to forget).

If you've done all the above & it still is not working then try
removing the bell wire, pin 3, see if that makes a difference.

If you're still got problems make sure that all connections are good &
tight (have known more than a few cases where the problems have been
caused by faulty/loose terminations on the extension wiring).

After that mug a passing DSL engineer & feed him tea & biscuits until
they've fixed it, but seriously though, it is a logical progression
which you just have to work thru. there may be problems with the
extension wiring which have been there ever since day one & you just
have to work your way thru checking quality of cables, connections etc
& just because you only get 2 filters in the box doesn't mean that you
only filter 2 things, you have to filter all equipment (yes I have
been called out more than once to people who thought like that as
well).

HTH

B-)

kráftéé wrote:
Thank you very much for the reply. I don't yet know what type of cable
has been used. I do know that the telephones work on all extensions but
they have had intermittent problems with them over the years (problems
that then clear up on their own or are blamed on equipment such as the
answer phone) so it may well be an old fault.

I have printed out your suggestions to take with me (in case I forget
anything).

I am very much obliged.

--
Howard Neil

Howard Neil wrote:

Shucks, ain't no problem, I've given you a bit of grounding that's
all, just think it thru logically & you shouldn't have any problems
but hearing about the intermittent problems which they have suffered
from in the past does make me glad it's you & not me who's trying to
help..

Hope it's a success

B-)

kráftéé wrote:
Thanks. You never know about getting the job. You don't work West Wales,
do you by any chance? ;-)

--
Howard Neil

"Howard Neil" <hneil@REMOVETOREPLY.co.uk> wrote in message
news:44f6eee4$0$541$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader03.plus.net...

Also print this and take it with you.
http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wi...telephone.html

Fred

The Simpsons wrote:
Thank you very much. I have printed it and it is very likely to be of value.

--
Howard Neil

Howard Neil wrote:
I don't think he does.

--
Old Codger
e-mail use reply to field

What matters in politics is not what happens, but what you can make people
believe has happened. [Janet Daley 27/8/2003]

"Howard Neil" <hneil@REMOVETOREPLY.co.uk> wrote in message
news:44f6b5fa$0$3607$ed2e19e4@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net...
I would suggest you buy a cheap phone extension lead ,plug a filter into
the master socket and extend from the ADSL socket, on the filter direct to
the modem or whatever, you may need some Rj 11 sockets and plugs, if it
doesn't work then it may be down to B.T
I get the best results from this, but sometimes not good enough as I am some
distance from the exchange

Leveled wrote:

Problem with cheap phone extensions is 2 fold, if not more. The
quality standards to which they are made are questionable in many
cases. The actual construct with it being flat ( no effective
shielding from any RF noise sources in your property, that's one of
the reasons the pairs are twisted together in reasonable quality
telephone wiring) & the fact that the conductors are stranded & not
solid & so in themselves can cause noise problems.

One case higlights this very problem, but there have been plenty more,
visited an enduser who was complaining about intermitent connections,
over the course of 5 visits everything & it's dog had been changed
until eventually they were getting 18db loop & a very resonable SNR
figure as well, but they still kept raising faults.

This was in the days when we had a little leeway in looking at
customers wiring so on the 6th visit the signal was checked before &
after his cheapo extension, the 18dB attenuation had become 37dB by
the time it had past thru his bodge up & the SNR had gone thru the
floor, At this stage he was advised that any more visits would be
fully chargable & you know what............he hasn't raised a single
fault in the last 5 years, after he had been bothered enough to
actually use the correct quality equipment & not a couple of £1 shop
special telephone extensions as he had been advised to do on a couple
of previous occaisions.

Buying cheap normally equates with being more expensive in the long
run....

Howard Neil wrote:
Thank you very much for your help, kráftéé and Fred. I have had success.
My next door neighbour now has Broadband.

The master socket had two extensions and an external bell leading from
it. I found that the router synced at the front socket if I removed all
extensions/bell. I put wires back one by one (checking for sync each
time) and found the main problem was the bell wire of the downstairs
extension. My neighbour is happy with no bells on those two 'phones (he
can hear the one that plugs straight into the master socket).

The only other problem involved the upstairs extension. The DSL sync
light would not remain steady with that circuit connected so my
neighbour has decided to live without it until we have time to make a
new extension.

He has now gone from an estimated 25kbps to a measured 473kbps (I am on
an 8.8 kilometre line and he is about 3/4 kilometre further on, so he is
approx 9.5 kilometres from the switch as the 'phone line flies. Good,
eh?). I left him totally engrossed in the internet. :-)



--
Howard Neil

Leveled wrote:

Thanks for your suggestion. I have now fixed it (problem on one bell wire).

--
Howard Neil

Howard Neil wrote:
You should still have working bells on those phones as the filters
(well the good quality ones anyway) contain a ringing capacitor. So
if the phones are plugged into a filter & the filter into the 2 wire
extension (which is what you should have effectively done) the
telephones should still ring. If they're not I would view the filters
with some suspicion.


Well you taken him the first step, good on ya, it's great to meet
another user who doesn't just talk the talk but actually tries to walk
the walk as well (& in their own time as well). You may make some
mistakes (& some of mine have been big ones) but it's the only way to
learn the feel of the product, how it actually does go together & does
actually work.

Kudos to you young man nice metting you..

kráftéé wrote:

Interesting. Good news. :-)


Thanks, particularly for the "young" part as I'm actually retired. I
must admit I enjoy a good challenge and it's a great feeling when you
succeed. Your assistance and encouragement was a major help. Thank you,
once again.


--
Howard Neil

Howard Neil wrote:
But you are a young retired. :-)

--
Old Codger
e-mail use reply to field

What matters in politics is not what happens, but what you can make people
believe has happened. [Janet Daley 27/8/2003]

Old Codger wrote:
Thank you, young man. :-)

[note to others: Old Codger and myself have met]

--
Howard Neil