B@lls%^t or Not?

[TheUncleanOne]

So we get the AT&T DSL tech to the house test our connection...

Going into the phone box at the corner of the garage = 8 M
Coming out of the box = 8 M
In the house at the office jack (where the computers are) = 5 M and an error message.
In the kitchen = 5 M and the same error message...

So the diagnosis was that (magically) something has gone off with the wiring in the house.

2 solutions: a) Trouble shoot at $200/hour, minimum $99 for 30 mins. b) Have a dedicated jack installed for $135.00...

For our tech savvy readers, does this seem correct to you?

The AT&T tech said that the error denotes that something is unfiltered (he disconnected the house alarm which was the only unfiltered item in the loop). He implied that I had a satellite receiver attached to the phone line and that was the source (we do not as we don't watch pay-per-view, ever), or that 'something' had gotten plugged into a jack unbeknown to us (DAMN phone Gnomes!)...

And as far as option 'b' goes, any ideas of just how tricky would it be to run to radio shack and buying a few hundred feet of line to run my own jack from the box?

There might also be a option of downgrading to 1.5 M DSL (we in theory have 3 M DSL and why AT&T is giving us 8 M at the box I have no clue) as that might decrease the drops as there is less demand on the system...

Please respond with any hints/advice/ISP hate you choose to share.
Thanks,
X

[Fate]

Ok. First of all disconnect everything from the phone jacks. This includes surge protectors. I had a problem where the phone/dsl was getting messed up by the surge protector. Unplugged the phone line to it and everything was ok.

We pay a 2.99 insurance on our phone that give repairs free. Sounds likw you don't have it.

Another, I hope you don't have a built in filter in the jack.

I would rather run the cable myself the npay 200 an hour for some yahoo to try and figure it out. It is possible tath some rodent has chewed the line up.

[Quintare]

Phone lines are dead easy to install. You only use two of the six wires inside (typically the red and green) and they are operated on micro amperage so you have no worries about shocking yourself, creating a fire hazard or shorting anything out.

However, there are dsl filters and then there are dsl filters. The ones sent to you with your installation package are dirt cheap and often fail. Even when they work they don't work that well. Perhaps something as simple as newer/better filters could solve your problem? Worked for me some years ago when I had a crappy dsl connection. My problem turned out to be that I had SO MUCH signal coming in that it overwhelmed my crappy filter and reduced it's performance. The dsl tech gave me a couple extras he had and so I have no idea where to get them or how much they cost.

[Fate]

Just make sure you don't plug your dsl modem inot a filtered line....

[Sollo]

When they hooked up dsl in my house, I had them run the dsl on a seperate twisted pair than the phone line. Like Fate said, there are 6 or 8 wires coming in (Depending on the cable used). Only 2 of them are used for the phone. On the phone wiring box on the outside of the house, they installed a filter and ran that to the phones. They ran the unfiltered line to the orange/orange-white pair. That way I don't have to worry about filters at all on anything in my house. I wired the raw DSL line to the jack where the DSL modem is and that's that.

If your home has similar wiring setups, you may be able to do something like that quite easily and save yourself a lot of hastle and expense.

[TheUncleanOne]

Well, (ahem) there appears to have been an unfiltered line attached (a sat receiver was plugged into a jack) and upon removing this both Inda and I had 4+ hours in Ugroz without a drop... so no jack rigging for the time being....

[Indagatrix]

although I am suspicious...why would it all of a sudden go down hill -- we had been playing just fine for almost a year and now all of a sudden it goes bad? Perhaps all the static built up and I should have put a dryer sheet next to the line?

[Sollo]

The Satalite box typically dials out in the middle of the night to transmit your usage data. Perhaps it got mis-configured to dial out in the middle of the day instead. It could have been having trouble connecting due to the lack of a filter so it was trying several times a day and each time it did, you got kicked from the internet.

Just a thought...

[bainsoulsmite]

I guess it could also be possible that someone in the household inadvertently plugged the sat receiver in...saw a dangling phone cord near jack...."hmmm, maybe this should be plugged in".... or maybe a sat tech plugged it in if you have ever had installation/repair/upgrade on it... Sounds like you did not know it was plugged in in the first place, so one of these would be my guess.


It's ok...our minds tend to slip as we get older...happens to all of us. Personally I blame stuff like that on the kids! Yeah, that's the ticket

Anyway, glad you guys got your problem taken care of. I know that had to be frustrating!