Rant 1Mb to 3Mb, with 1 simple snip. Grrrrr!

[Sar]

I've been struggling along on a fairly crappy MaxDSL line for the past couple of years.

The maximum sync speed I'd ever got on it was 2274.

I've just tonight seen a small, and easy tweak you can make on your adsl line to ramp the speed right up (potentially).

For the past few days I've been sync'd at 1600, or thereabouts, and thought it's about time to do something. So I took the router downstairs, and for the first time ever took the face plate off our main socket and plugged the router into it directly.

Speed?

3488!

It turns out that on phone lines, the ring/bell wire (numbered 3 in the socket, it's orange & white) is completely unneeded on modern lines. Not only that but it generates an RF signal that interferes with the ADSL connection...

SO DISCONNECT IT!

Pulling out this simple wire from the socket plug is the solution to all my problems over the past 6 years I've been living with Mrs Sar.


Even now, plugged into an extension socket upstairs again it's currently sync'd at 3104.

Also the amount of FEC, CRC and HRC errors have dropped MASSIVELY.

So if like me you're getting shitty ADSL Max speeds, particularly if you're a decent ways away from your exchange, then I'd seriously recommend trying the above.

This is the fastest my broadband has ever been, and I can't wait for the IP profile to change to reflect it, so my actual throughput speed will jump up to 2.5Mbs+!

Fuller instructions to carry out the above can be found here.


So I've been struggling along on really crappy connex for the past 6 years, when it turns out it was the house's internal wiring (particularly #3) all along!


KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

 

[adams901]

I got myself a netgear Dg834GT and installed the custom firmware on it.

It lets you play with your SNR settings.

I took my snr down to 5 and my IP profile went from 3500 to 5000, i was getting loads of CRC errors though and quite a few FEC.

I increased my SNR to about 6.5 and ended up with an IP profile of 4500 and a download speed of 4.3mbps.. still had a few FEC errors and a few CRC errors, but nothing that caused me any alarm. had a couple of LOS but mainly when I was in bed asleep so it didnt matter.

Then the BT c*nts decided that I was having too much fun and increased my SNR to 8 and my IP profile down to 4000, so I thought fuck you and lowered it back down to 6.

I woke up this morning and my SNR was 14 and my IP profile was 3000...

Why cant they just leave me alone, I was happy with my connection, I was getting good pings, fast(er) download speeds and no real issues with the connection.

I have asked my ISP put in a request to lower my SNR, I'm paying for it, so its up to me if I wanna pay for a few errors as well.

 

[nath]

If you can, move yourself on to BeThere. I get the impression their tech team is ready and willing to fiddle your stats to get the most out of your line. I got quite the opposite impression with UKOnline.

 

[Kryten]

Indeed, lots you can do to help your line and some ISP's are more willing to help than others. O2 did a fair bit of fiddling with my line and soon got the max performance possible out of it.

Re the bell wire I've mentioned this a few times in the past, it's a very handy little trick. You can also get filtered faceplates (which most new master sockets have anyway) but these aren't as effective as just removing the bellwire anyway.

Best results for removal are from disconnecting and terminating the end at the master socket and *entirely removing the entire bell wire cable from the entire extension system* if possible. Reason it causes the issue in the first place is the interference it picks up, especially from the likes of cordless phones, mobiles and av/hifi equipment.

 

[Tom]

Bell wire was only ever designed for telephones, which have a very poor bandwidth. Its not surprising that little mods like this can be so beneficial.

Its worth reminding people though that the master socket and everything before it belongs to BT, and that you shouldn't really touch any of it. This used to be for safety (back at the exchange, you don't want engineers touching VAC that shouldn't be there), but these days I doubt it would be a problem. Anything after that is fine.

 

[Embattle]

Any one tried the iplate?

 

[Sar]

I've just got home, and I'm on a profile now of 2500, and a throughput of 2.3mbs.

Downloads are maxing out at 300kps, which is 3 times faster than I was able to get earlier this week, when I was lucky to hit 100kps, which is not even 1Mb performance.

Such a simple fix, I just wish I'd known about it sooner :|

I read about the i-plate, but apparently it does little more that removing the ring/bell wire does for you anyway.

Is there a ring/bell wire on BT's side of the master socket? If so I'm tempted to remove it that side as well, just to see if I can get even faster (greedy, I know).

 

[Sar]

Oh and FEC errors still haven't hit 1000 yet, after 15 hours of a rock solid connection. By this stage normally I'd have hit about 20,000 FEC errors.

\o/

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

tbh if i lived in Belfast i would be tempted not to cut ANY wires at all :lol:

 

[Tom]

Is there a ring/bell wire on BT's side of the master socket? If so I'm tempted to remove it that side as well, just to see if I can get even faster (greedy, I know).

There are only 2 wires coming into your house. Leave them alone, if you bugger things up there is a chance you can hurt an engineer at the junction box or the exchange.

 

[Zenith.UK]

A Speedtouch 585v6 router with 6.1.4.3 firmware allows you to tweak your SNR with DMT Tool as well.
::. Kitz - DMT tool v7 - Speedtouch routers .::

Without tweaks I'm lucky to get 3.5Mbps at 12dB SNR/52dB att.
With tweaks, I get a moderately stable 5.0Mbps with 6dB SNR/52dB att.
I could push it further to 6.0Mbps but the increase in errors causes problems with stability.

No chance of Be for me... no LLU presence at the exchange at all.
That said, my exchange is due to get WBC enabled later this year which should hopefully mean ADSL2+.

 

[Scouse]

Pulling out this simple wire from the socket plug is the solution to all my problems over the past 6 years I've been living with Mrs Sar.

Including your erectile dysfunction?!

 

[Raven]

BT did all that for me when I moved into the house...

To be fair the engineer would have lost a first born child to boost my bandwidth. Their telephone staff on the other hand are utterly useless. You are better off phoning up the local take away and asking them to fix it.

 

[Sar]

Including your erectile dysfunction?!

No

 

[Panda On Smack]

I just have 4 solid wires coming into my master socket from the BT junction box and only orange and blue lines are connected.

The master socket sends these into A and B of the master socket but they don't come through to the other side where you can clip them individually into the 6 little clips

Any ideas?

ta!

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

after reading master socket 3 times in one sentence i gave up

 

[Embattle]

I'm on a 8128/448 kbps line. Using Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test I get 6000-6400 kbps download and 360-380 kbps upload, when downloading I can get 750-800 kB/sec but the reality is most times it is less because I'm limited to the speed of the slowest part of the chain. This line is my dads so it is a business line, nice not paying any thing for it although i tend not to want to go pulling wires out either

 

[Sar]

I just have 4 solid wires coming into my master socket from the BT junction box and only orange and blue lines are connected.

The master socket sends these into A and B of the master socket but they don't come through to the other side where you can clip them individually into the 6 little clips

Any ideas?

ta!

The blue/white & white/blue ones are the ones you need to leave alone. The orange/white one should be connected to #3 in the socket. That's the one I took out.

 

[Jupitus]

Wootage!

I just did mine and Ive re-synched at 2208 d/l from 1635 \o/

Nice one Sar

 

[Edmond]

Hmmmm, i'm about to try this, Jup look out your window in my direction in about 5 mins and look for the explosion

 

[Uara]

lol Ed, I thought it was just Trem who always buggered things up






*hides from Trem*

 

[Edmond]

Yeah but i'm thinking of driving to the master socket, who knows what could happen on the way there !!!

 

[Sar]

Wootage!

I just did mine and Ive re-synched at 2208 d/l from 1635 \o/

Nice one Sar

Nps

 

[Sar]

It's finally achieved an IP profile of 3000, which means I'm getting a full 3Mbs now.

Download speed is 350kbps, 20Mb per min, which is over 3 times faster than I was getting a week ago.

\o/

 

[Jupitus]

It's finally achieved an IP profile of 3000, which means I'm getting a full 3Mbs now.

Download speed is 350kbps, 20Mb per min, which is over 3 times faster than I was getting a week ago.

\o/

I haven't seen any changes in the speed of connection - are you changing settings along the way or is it just doing it itself?

 

[inactionman]

I assume it's retraining. Almost all installations of ADSL is rate adaptive these days, it will steadily try to get improve it's sync speed.

 

[cHodAX]

Guess I should consider myself very lucky, I am able to get 7.5mbps constant on downloads through my 8mbps line. Can only manage that with my Safecom router though, any other brand I try struggles to break 6mbps.

 

[Sar]

I haven't seen any changes in the speed of connection - are you changing settings along the way or is it just doing it itself?

Re-sync'd it and it did so at 3424kbps, which is the lowest 3mb sync speed, so I just squeaked in under the fence

Brill being able to download over a Gb in just 50 mins or so