dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
3648

disconnected
@snet.net

disconnected

Anon

It's Wednesday and the Modem is Retraining every Minute Agai

This happens every week now, since about the past 45 days.. Tues/Wed evening between 8:30 and midnight, my DSL modem retrains about once a minute. Makes downloads near impossible and web activity produces long delays and sometimes 'cannot reach such and such web site' errors. Every time there is a delay, I look over and the 2Wire gateways middle LED is flashing amber. That's the Broadband connection. On the weekends, service seems fine. But something's definitely out of the ordinary on mid-week evenings. Is there some sort of new maintenance or upgrade going on in the 06776 area for the past month or so on these nights?

DrStrange
Technically feasible
Premium Member
join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange

Premium Member

The regular timing suggests an external cause.

Are you absolutely sure there's nothing going on in or near your house on those nights that would produce a lot of RF or electrical noise?
JohnNadeau
join:2006-08-07
Benton Harbor, MI

JohnNadeau to disconnected

Member

to disconnected
Hey There...

We're in AT+T Midwest (Michigan) and have been having a very similar problem over the past week. We're getting new IP's sometimes every 3-5 minutes, but seems to be more random. Example: last night around 8pm had 3 different IP's within 20 minutes; From 8:30pm last night through 9:10am this morning, only 1 IP, then it started up again

Any chance you found the cause of your issue ?

disconnected
@snet.net

disconnected to DrStrange

Anon

to DrStrange
I see no reason for unusual RF activity in the neighborhood on those nights. There's a FM/AM/cellular tower down the road from me, but that's a 24/7 operation and the AM is only 4 watts after sunset. No HAMs live in the immediate vicinity either.
Tonight, the connection has been solid.

DrStrange
Technically feasible
Premium Member
join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange

Premium Member

I don't think the cell tower is your problem. If the AM station were testing at night with higher power or there were a ham near you running near legal limit [1.5KW] on 160 meters with poor grounding or not enough counterpoise, that would do it.

If the problem recurs, take a small AM radio, tune between stations and look for interference. Your prime suspects would be light dimmers, old fluorescent fixtures, old or poorly maintained motorized appliances, etc.

For some reason, site search can never find this FAQ item:

»AT&T Midwest/Ameritech FAQ »My DSL loses sync regularly. How can I detect interference with an AM Radio?
JohnNadeau
join:2006-08-07
Benton Harbor, MI

JohnNadeau to disconnected

Member

to disconnected
FYI... Just to follow up on our situation... this was NOT an AT+T or DSL Modem issue at all !

Turns out that our Router was physically failing (Linksys WRT300N wireless & 4-port wired).

In troubleshooting, we found that everytime a wireless device connected, the "router" would cause the DSL modem to reset (and obtain a new Internet IP address). The "wired" devices functioned consistently and never caused a reset. We disabled the "wireless" function of the router and the problem stopped. Installed a new router and everything is fine. It's worth noting that if you placed your ear directly on top of the router, you could hear a pulsating/hissing noise coming from it !

So... do you connect each/every day via wireless? Any chance that someone is connecting every Wednesday during those times ?

David
Premium Member
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL

David

Premium Member

I have seen routers do that before. Some linksys routers were notorious for this. Part of the reason why dd-wrt became so popular.

disconnected
@snet.net

disconnected to DrStrange

Anon

to DrStrange
I can do even better. I have an HP 8568B Spectrum Analyzer. I have it connected to a longwire sometimes for spectrum surveillance. I have never seen any strong local signals from HAMs. The closest active HAM on 75m is in Wallingford, CT. On 160m, they are in PA.

It's Monday and at 8:30 sharp, the resets started again. We do have some wireless devices, but they are continuously connected, not reconnecting every 2 minutes, as this problem might indicate on that theory.

I may be reading too much into this, but the Chinese language broadcast on 9.58MHz is unusually strong tonight, but it's still only 5.7mV. It's the strongest spike in the 0-1700GHz spectrum at the moment, excepting the 50kW FM rock station down the street, which is 24/7. The AM gives me no trouble when it's at full power during the day, other than being that I hear sports talk on my landline handsets.

This is strictly a early to mid-week problem, which clears up after 10pm.

DrStrange
Technically feasible
Premium Member
join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange

Premium Member

I'll have to agree that with your setup you'd certainly see any stray RF out there.

I don't think Radio Beijing is interfering with your DSL signal
I wonder if they bought relay time from Radio Havana or the CBC.

FWIW: I'm occasionally active on 80m, but I only run about 150 watts.

disconnected
@snet.net

disconnected

Anon

Yep. I pretty much ruled out RFI. I think the ISP is doing something on those nights, perhaps configuration changes, rebooting routers, etc/ Happened again this evening at 7:41 and continued to about 10pm and stopped.

I mentioned the guy in Wallingford because he often has an exceptionally strapping signal and with the Class E modulator he's using, listening on the 10KHz RBW setting, he sounds like FM-quality. He's usually on 3875 in the early nighttime hours.

DrStrange
Technically feasible
Premium Member
join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange

Premium Member

I think I've heard of that fellow. If I ever pick up a rig with AM capabilities, I'll head up to the AM window on 75 and say hello one of these evenings. When I'm on HF, I mostly lurk around the DX window between 3785 and 3800.

Back to topic, I think you've ruled out RFI.

It might well be some kind of maintenance, or your neighbors are all on Netflix and max out the capacity of the RT, the CO or the access concentrator.

disconnected
@snet.net

disconnected

Anon

I used to think DSL was somewhat immune to that congestion problem that cable suffered from. Was always a problem when I had Charter. But who knows? My underlying suspicion is that AT&T is not investing in their infrastructure anymore, as word has it they plan to sell off the landline assets and favor wireless.

Yep, AM is all the rage. One of these days, I may give up my lifelong resistance to getting a federal license and become a HAM. I'd hang out on the AM window most of the time, and maybe go slopbucket so I can talk to the LibertyNet guys on Saturday nights. Not really much interesting going on with HAM radio otherwise. Most of my generation are dead and gone and the new gen are no-code appliance operators with a mentality of CB'ers.

DrStrange
Technically feasible
Premium Member
join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange

Premium Member

The keyword is 'somewhat'. It's more or less immune unless there's absolutely no effort to keep up with increased bandwidth demand, or maintenance falls by the wayside. I'm becoming suspicious that one or both of these is the case. BTW virtually all my customers who had DSL or U-Verse have moved over to cable [some had connection issues, others just got a better deal], so I'm not sure who's using that bandwidth.

There are quite a few old-time hams left. I'm 'officially' no-code since I lurked for 40 years [licensed 7/2010], but I could have passed a code test if I had had to.

I have, unfortunately, run into some of the newer folks you mention and I concur that they sound like refugees from CB at times. It looks [from reading the recent enforcement actions] like the FCC has finally gotten around to starting to clean up 14313, though. Once they're done with that, I suppose they'll finally get the jammers off of 75m.

disconnected
@spcsdns.net

disconnected

Anon

Well, once again it is WEDNESDAY night and the DSL gateway is resetting at 30 second intervals. I am using my cell phone to post this due to the duration of connection being too short to do a post. Rebooting like crazy as of 7:30.
WRT HAM radio, sometimes its more fun to SWL than to engage in a QSO. Not that many folks J

I want to talk to on the air these days.

David
Premium Member
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL

David to disconnected

Premium Member

to disconnected
I know this is going to sound stupid (saw it mentioned once in the ameritech forum might ask RadioDoc See Profile ) about using an am radio as an interference sniffer?

DrStrange
Technically feasible
Premium Member
join:2001-07-23
Bristol, CT

DrStrange to disconnected

Premium Member

to disconnected
this was supposed to have been in reply to David See Profile

I suggested that.

OP has a HP 8568B Spectrum Analyzer connected to a longwire. I concluded that if there were RF present he'd have seen it. I suppose it's possible that something with an extremely localized RF field could be present, but OP's electronics/RF knowledge level makes it very unlikely that he'd overlook this. I'm at the limit of educated guesses without being physically present.