Crazy VSDL Issues

[ECA]

This is a weird one.
The office is dropping the VDSL ( FTTC/BT Infinity ) line in strange patterns.

It was completely fine all through december, but then it started doing stuff it'd been doing in nov that'd I'd fixed by swapping the router and it had been stable for around a month.

It's generally fine overnight but come 8:31 when people come into the building it poos itself.
That's followed by several disconnects, then it calms down but it'll probably disconnect another 5-10 times through the day.

This happens with both router with integrated modem ( draytek ) and a standalone router ( tplink ) with the modem plugged into its wan port.

I'm starting to think there's a rogue device on the network that's fucking shit up.
Any other ideas or ideas for figuring out what the tits this is?

There's like 3 printers, a TV, 2 wireless APs, and 2 IP phones alongwith about 10 computers.

 

[Deebs]

I would do a wireshark/tcpdump trace to see if you are getting mac address issues or duplicate IP addresses etc. What do the logs on the routers say? is PPPOE going down (ie the WAN) or is it the LAN?

 

[ECA]

PPPOE is going down, I don't have the switch details to mirror a port though, might be able to factory reset it but I'm not physically at the office atm ( although its only 20min away ).

 

[Deebs]

PPPOE is going down, I don't have the switch details to mirror a port though, might be able to factory reset it but I'm not physically at the office atm ( although its only 20min away ).

Anything in the Draytek or TPlink router logs ?

 

[ECA]

There was nothing interesting in the tplink logs, the draytek doesn't have local logging, I'll chuck a syslog server up and see what it says.

 

[strangely brown]

I'm also on FTTC BT Infinity, and I've noticed that I've been getting strange disconnects since the end of December, hub light turning orange to indicate problems usually in the evening after midnight. A hard power reset usually fixed it... Thought it was just my crappy home hub playing up - As a result I've probably given it a bit too much "percussive maintenance" and could probably do with replacing it with something better...

When I had ADSL, I had a Billion router (7800N) and it was probably the best router I've owned in terms of connection stability and performance - I wonder what their VSDL ones are like...

 

[dysfunction]

I'm also on FTTC BT Infinity, and I've noticed that I've been getting strange disconnects since the end of December, hub light turning orange to indicate problems usually in the evening after midnight. A hard power reset usually fixed it... Thought it was just my crappy home hub playing up - As a result I've probably given it a bit too much "percussive maintenance" and could probably do with replacing it with something better...

When I had ADSL, I had a Billion router (7800N) and it was probably the best router I've owned in terms of connection stability and performance - I wonder what their VSDL ones are like...

My BT Router does the same thing from time to time. It comes right on its own.
Have no idea what is causing it. Perhaps it updates itself or there is some maintenance on the internet lines at midnight.

 

[smurkin]

My BT Router does the same thing from time to time. It comes right on its own.
Have no idea what is causing it. Perhaps it updates itself or there is some maintenance on the internet lines at midnight.

I imagine its cheap components inside. These things are on all the time, they are cheap, mass produced, they get warm and don't have fans...I had three routers from plusnet over about 8 months and they all dropped connections several times a day - I had BT going up and down the poles like yo yo's - had them changing the boards at the exchange - it caused huge problems as I coudn't work - plusnet's routers are particularly rubbish

 

[dysfunction]

I imagine its cheap components inside. These things are on all the time, they are cheap, mass produced, they get warm and don't have fans...I had three routers from plusnet over about 8 months and they all dropped connections several times a day - I had BT going up and down the poles like yo yo's - had them changing the boards at the exchange - it caused huge problems as I coudn't work - plusnet's routers are particularly rubbish

If it was poor quality then it would be happening very regularly at different times of the day.

Mine seems to only drop the connection at midnight on the very odd occasion.

I don't touch it at all and it starts working again.

 

[smurkin]

A hardware failure will often cause a reboot - so you see a dropped connection. If its at midnight, on the dot, another possibility is that you or someone in your area has a dodgy electrical appliance resulting in REIN on your line so that the connection drops (assuming we are talking about DSL) - perhaps something like the central heating kicking-in. You could try using routerstats (Internet Software) which telnets into your router - it measures losses in connection, syc speed, noise etc.

 

[old.user4556]

Just as a side note, the BT homehub is a PoS, I replaced it with a TPLink and I've never had a drop-out since (I too had the 'orange flashing light' in the evening and sudden speed drops on speed tests).

 

[dysfunction]

Just as a side note, the BT homehub is a PoS, I replaced it with a TPLink and I've never had a drop-out since (I too had the 'orange flashing light' in the evening and sudden speed drops on speed tests).

Which TPLINK to replace the bt home hub? I have fttc and get 70m download speeds roughly.

 

[old.user4556]

Which TPLINK to replace the bt home hub? I have fttc and get 70m download speeds roughly.

N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit VDSL2/ADSL2+ Modem Router - TP-Link

 

[dysfunction]

Thanks. I'll have a look at that