BT Yahoo Broadband setup

[Mofo8]

My brother recently got BT/Yahoo Braodband. The 'fit-it-yourself' type. It's been working flawlessly for around 5 weeks, but decided to go tits-up last week. I popped over last night to see if I could fix it. It's been a long time since I had anything to do with BT broadband, and I'm afraid I'm stumped. When I had BT ADSL, an engineer came to my house, fitted a filter socket thingie instead of my normal telephone socket, and gave me my disgusting green frog alcatel modem.

I'm not 100% sure what type of modem my brother's using. It's one of the Speedtouch range. He's getting a solid USB light and a flashing ADSL light. Attempting to connect gives him a error 680 I think (no dial tone)?

At my brothers, I tried all sorts of stuff. Disconnecting and reconnecting the modem. Uninstalling the modem drivers, and reinstalling them (twice). Uninstalling EVERYTHING to do with BT Yahoo Broadband (and the modem) and reinstalling from the supplied CD (twice). Eventually caved in and phoned their support line. What did they tell me to do? Yup, you've guessed it! Uninstall and reinstall the software/drivers. Bastards.... I'd already tried that twice.

I reckon it might be a problem to do with the physical setup of the thing. He's got a single telephone point in his living room, and the computer is in his bedroom. At the moment (and over the last 5 weeks when it was working), he had it setup like so:

Big splitter thing into the telephone socket. An ADSL filter into one side of the splitter, and his living room phone/answering machine into the other. An extension cable (long.... very long) running from the filter through to his bedroom, where he had a further ADSL filter which the modem finally plugged into. He's got a phone in his bedroom too, but I can't remember how it's connected.

Make's me damn glad I've got NTL in my area I can tell you.

Can someone suggest the "perfect" way to set this up. He ain't willing to move his computer into the living room, and getting a second line put into the bedroom would seem to be an expensive way of doing it.

I must admit, this filter thingie bugs the hell out of me.

 

[Mofo8]

Correction:

Big splitter thing into the telephone socket. An ADSL filter into one side of the splitter, and his living room phone/answering machine into the other. An extension cable (long.... very long) running from the filter through to his bedroom, where he had a further ADSL filter which the modem finally plugged into. He's got a phone in his bedroom too, but I can't remember how it's connected.

That's not the way it's connected. It's a splitter, with an extension lead running through to the bedroom off it, and a filter into which his living room telephone is plugged. Another filter is plugged into the other end of the extension, with the moden and bedroom telephone into that. The way I thought it was wouldn't have worked as the modem would be 'double filtered' and the living room telephone not at all.

 

[Athan]

Get us the precise model of DSL modem, and the exact error code. Or just get them yourself and do the Google search I'd be doing on them .

The fact it DID work flawlessly for 5 weeks implies the basic cabling/sockets setup is fine ASSUMING that this hasn't changed around the end of those 5 weeks of course. My own DSL is socket -> loooooooong extension cord -> splitter -> DSL router & phone.

Just for the hell of it it's worth taking the splitters off anyway. AIUI they don't actually do ANYTHING for the DSL itself, they're just to filter out a possible high pitch whine on the *phones*, which is the DSL signal, and could be annoying.

-Ath

 

[Xavier]

Can't hurt to call BT and ask them to run a line check anyhow - lines can lose sync quite easily, last summer ours went when an engineer tinkered with another BT line in the same switchbox. It doesn't cost you for them to do - it's only if an engineer is sent out and the work deemed 'non essential' when you'd end up footing a bill - which they won't dispatch for DSL unless their diagnostic kit at the exchange finds a genuine problem.

 

[Mofo8]

Get us the precise model of DSL modem, and the exact error code. Or just get them yourself and do the Google search I'd be doing on them .

The fact it DID work flawlessly for 5 weeks implies the basic cabling/sockets setup is fine ASSUMING that this hasn't changed around the end of those 5 weeks of course. My own DSL is socket -> loooooooong extension cord -> splitter -> DSL router & phone.

Just for the hell of it it's worth taking the splitters off anyway. AIUI they don't actually do ANYTHING for the DSL itself, they're just to filter out a possible high pitch whine on the *phones*, which is the DSL signal, and could be annoying.

-Ath

Am I right in thinking that when you say "splitter", you mean 'ADSL filter'? The modem he uses can only be fed into a filter. It's got the wee mini squareish connection, nothing near the size of a standard telephone jack.

 

[Mofo8]

Can't hurt to call BT and ask them to run a line check anyhow - lines can lose sync quite easily, last summer ours went when an engineer tinkered with another BT line in the same switchbox. It doesn't cost you for them to do - it's only if an engineer is sent out and the work deemed 'non essential' when you'd end up footing a bill - which they won't dispatch for DSL unless their diagnostic kit at the exchange finds a genuine problem.

I reckon this is looking more and more like the likely reason. It had worked without problem for 5 weeks. He hadn't changed any of the physical setup. I reckon BT have been arseing around at the switchbox or local exchange. He's considering spending £70(?) or thereabouts to get another telephone point put in his bedroom, but I'll tell him to hold off on that and get them to do another line test first.

 

[Athan]

Am I right in thinking that when you say "splitter", you mean 'ADSL filter'? The modem he uses can only be fed into a filter. It's got the wee mini squareish connection, nothing near the size of a standard telephone jack.

Yes, I do ineed mean ADSL filter. If he needs to do it for purely physical "different plug" reasons then I guess he's stuck with doing that. My DSL router came with a cable for that purpose, so no problem . In fact I'd have been stuck if the DSL bit NEEDED to go through the filter as mine has the phone output on the larger plug/socket type and the DSL part on the smaller jack which I don't have the cable for to plugin into the router.

-Ath