US Telco Support > AT&T > AT&T West > [Line Problem] Elite works fine, until the treadmill is started.

[Line Problem] Elite works fine, until the treadmill is started.

Re: [Line Problem] Elite works fine, until the treadmill is star

Well, I've tried plugging it into a different outlet and it did the exact same thing. What else can I try?

The different outlet, is it on a different circuit from the modem? We don't know at this point if the interference is coming through the AC or via RF that are getting picked up by the DSL wiring.

Most of the things in this FAQ don't apply, but who knows, maybe something will work.

»AT&T Midwest/Ameritech FAQ »My DSL loses sync regularly. How can I detect interference with an AM Radio?

reply to racer125
Some people have tried electrical line filters to remove the noise the treadmill (or other electrical device) was injecting into the power lines. I don't know how much success they have had. Mostly they were trying solutions without knowing much about the nature of the interference. The power line noise is probably being re-radiated from your entire electrical wiring (or at least the wiring that is on the treadmill phase) to your inside phone wiring.

If your phone wiring only passes near one phase of your house wiring and the line noise the treadmill is causing is attenuated on that second phase (it probably is attenuated some), then if your treadmill was plugged into the other phase wiring, your shouldn't have the noise problem. That is until you ran an electrical dryer or an air conditioner that would be drawing 2-phase power and would bridge the phases and the noise. I really don't know an easy way to tell which electrical circuit is on which power phase other than using X10 home automation devices.

If you have Speadstream 5100b/4100/410b modem, you might use the DMT tool: »SBC DSL FAQ »How can I check for the maximum attainable sync speeds with a 5100b/4100 modem? to collect a DMT chart of your line without the treadmill on and another chart with it on. The difference would tell you which frequencies are affected (think of the DMT charts as spectrum analysers) and maybe some filtering method could be tried.

Ya know before I gave it to my parents I had a treadmill in the house that would knock my dsl out. I even had a splitter and a cat5e run. The modem was also plugged into a battery backup unit as well. The interference those things put out has to be incredible. I didn't dawn on me till just lately on exactly what a treadmill is doing.

Now for thoughts. First thought would be to maybe try a power conditioner on the treadmill or on the modem? Modem might be the better idea.
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If the treadmill is pushing the power line noise into to the house wiring, then there would be no way you could block it right at the modem. You should be able to walk around the house with the portable radio and hear the noise whenever you get near an electrical circuit (or maybe you don't even need to be near the power wiring to hear the noise).

You would have to have some sort of home run/IW that was immune to any RF influence. Maybe shielded might work? So why not just try to stop the noise before it passes the treadmill plug into the house wiring?

reply to d_l

Normal sync, before treadmill

Re-sync, while treadmill is moving

After turning treadmill off and re-syncing again

reply to racer125
I'd say the bridged tap is the major problem and the treadmill is the secondary one. You have a big valley in your tone bin bit loads as marked by the blue line. It is severely reducing your line's maximum sync capacity which should be higher than 6016! So even without the treadmill ever running, you are pushing up against the limits of your loop with its bridged tap impairment. The bridged tap is either reducing your tone bin bit loads by creating a localized attenuation boost in those frequencies around the blue line, OR more likely, it is acting as an antenna to full in some interfering RF to cause the valley.

It's a 5100b I believe. The log said this:

+000 days 00:00:00      E |System       |=============== SYSTEM UP ===============
 
+000 days 00:00:00      E |System       |Current Mode: Bridged
 
+000 days 00:00:00      E |DSL          |DataPump Version - 01.01.00.00
 
+000 days 00:00:00      E |DSL          |State: WAITING
 
+000 days 00:00:02      E |Ethernet     |Link 1 Up - 100Base-TX Full Duplex
 
+000 days 00:00:04      E |DSL          |State: INITIALIZING
 
+000 days 00:00:12      E |DSL          |HYBRID 3
 
+000 days 00:00:12      E |DSL          |Link up 1 US 768 DS 6016 (FAST:G.dmt)
 
+000 days 04:02:46      E |Ethernet     |Link 1 Down
 
+000 days 04:02:56      E |Ethernet     |Link 1 Up - 100Base-TX Full Duplex
 
+000 days 17:45:25      E |Ethernet     |Link 1 Down
 
+000 days 17:45:43      E |Ethernet     |Link 1 Up - 100Base-TX Full Duplex
 

reply to racer125
The hybrid 3 in your log says that there is some sort of bridged tap. Hybrid 2's are usually due to inside wiring, but 3's seem to be outside on the loop - not always though. One fellow had some messed up, inside wiring that caused a hybrid 3.

I guess your line stability means that other than the problem caused by the bridged tap, there aren't really any other noise sources on your loop. That's good. I suspect that your CRC counts (on the stats page) still increase fairly rapidly due to the bridged tap even without the treadmill on. We've seen other DMT charts similar to yours that are on relatively stable lines (they don't drop sync much) that accumulate errors fairly fast and have low noise margins. These Speedstream modems seem to be able to hang onto sync under some adverse conditions.

So what do you recommend doing from here? Posting a link to this in the ATT direct forum and seeing what they can do with the bridge tap? Other than trying other outlets in the house/trying a power filter/UPS, a new treadmill is pretty much the only other option right? Would getting a shielded home run do any good? Thanks again.

reply to racer125
Definitely start a Trouble thread in Direct and post a link to this thread. I think their remote tests should be able to "see" or at least suspect the bridge tap (or whatever is causing that "tone bin valley").

I don't think a shielded home run would necessarily work. The RF interference may also be radiating from your power drop lines to the phone drop line. There was a fellow in the AT&T - Midwest forum that had a treadmill problem. The treadmill was several blocks away from his house down the street! The noise was being transmitted throughout the neighborhood on the power lines and other DSL customers were also seeing interference in their modems. It took over a year for the power company and AT&T to get that problem fixed.

I'd say the order of things to do would be to
1) get the DSL line fixed to see how bad the treadmill problem is afterwards.
2) maybe buy a filter solution if there is still a problem.
3) buy a new treadmill if all else fails.

I'm trying not to spend your money on a new treadmill if possible. If you are rich or feel you can afford to get a new one, then by all means jump to #3 at anytime you feel like it.

reply to racer125
I did some more thinking about the treadmill interference and a good quality surge suppressor you may already have might eliminate (or at least reduce) the interference. I'm basing this on the effect surge suppressors have on powerline home automation signals such as those of X10 or Insteon. Those signals which would be similar, but much less powerful than your interference "signals", are often eliminated by surge suppressors.

You could test a surge suppressor on the treadmill. A DMT chart collected during the test and its max sync speeds could give you real data concerning the the degree of interference reduction, if any, during the test. If this test shows some improvement, then you could start investigating potential filter purchases on the internet.

reply to racer125
I think the reason to get the bridge tap removed is that the quality of DSL connections never improve with age. At best, they just stay the same. Normally the level of crosstalk interference increases as more and more loops in your cable bundle are used for DSL. There is always a chance that some new interferer beyond your control, e.g. a streetlight or a neighbor's outdoor light, will have problems and emit interference. A splice in your loop might suddenly oxidize during the next wet season or more probably your loop attenuation might increase a bit due to summer time temperatures.

What I'm trying to say is that with the bridge tap, your sync stability is tenuous and could easily be ruined by a slight deterioration in your line conditions. Removal of the bridge tap will give you a much more robust loop. If you can get AT&T to remove it, then do so now to avert trouble later. I really feel that if the bridge tap is left on we will be "re-visiting" these thread charts sometime in the future.

Edit: BTW, that is great that you found a filter that can eliminate the treadmill noise. I was fairly sure that a filter at the treadmill plug could do so, but that it was just a matter of finding the right filter that could handle as much noise as it was injecting into your house wiring.

reply to racer125
Just for future reference, which Belkin unit did you get? Also, did you plug the treadmill into it, or the DSL modem? Seems like it would be the latter.

It's the Belkin PureAV PF60 Home Theater Power Console. I actually tested both ways. The problem persisted when the dsl modem was plugged into it. The problem went away when the treadmill was plugged into it.

One thing I'd be curious to know is if a regular surge protector would solve the issue, or if the 'Phase 6' filtering on the Belkin is what is solving the problem, filtering the power not only coming into the box, but also filtering out whatever is going back out from the treadmill power cord. Like I said though, I really have no education in electrical stuff like this so this is all just a guess. But it appears to have solved the problem. Hopefully my post in the ATT Direct forum will get replied to soon and my bridge tap removed and line stats improved a bit for even more headroom. I'll post again if anything dramatic changes.

reply to racer125
Clearly you are filtering the the noise that treadmill is sending to your power line. I've always thought that those A/V filters are sold as a blocking device for noise on the mains and not as devices to protect the house mains from noisy devices that a homeowner might be using, but I guess yours operates in both directions. Thanks for finding that. Now we at least have a proven solution to fix these treadmill problems.

At various times, many people including myself, have tried powering our modems on battery power (a UPS) to see if that would improve an interference problem. It never does. I tried with an impulse noise problem. Others have tried with halogen lamp and mercury vapor lamp interferences. The clear conclusion of these failures is that the interference is never affecting the modem through the power lines, but is broadcasting to and being received by the DSL line from the power line.

So now your treadmill's interference is limited to the radiation from its power cord and its motor. You should be able to still detect it with the AM radio if you are close to it, but not when you are farther away.