Help with correct pc settings to optimise connections, etc.

I don't have a terribly great bb speed - on adsl max with supanet, but can only achieve up to 512kbps - that's all the line will support apparently! Get about 350kbps max during the day and it all drops back to a measilly 200kbps during the evening peak. Ping during the day varies anywhere between 35-75 ms and goes sky high at night during the peak. My son likes to game online which is not good news with our already challenged broadband connection. He says however that he does suffer the usual choppy, laggy play, but just has high ping which generally gets him kicked off servers soon after he's joined! We have a 3com office connect router with last firmware update in Sept 3005. I'm just trying to do the best for my family and wonder if anyone can offer up any solutions, tweaks to my pc or whatever that my help us. Many thanks in advance.

[Carey2]

That must be a long or very poor line you are on.If the line is genuinely not capable of better speeds than that it would have been better to have a fixed rate connection. BT have a system called Extended reach and I know of a case where they got a 2MB connection on a line that is 11 miles long.

You need to get your line stats checked to see what you "should" be able to get.Then you also need to look at the miriad of things that can cause bad throughput on your service. House wiring,SkyBox,bad filters,wires along side your ethernet /router cables, the ring/bell wires still being in use in the BT cable inside the house,all these can have a dramatic affect on your BBMax.

If you have an NTE5 BT master socket you can do 2 simple tests,1) remove the bottom cover (2 screws) and plug your phone in to the test socket inside ,if you hear any noise from this socket there is a line fault that BT have to fix.

2) Plug your router into this socket and check your BBMax performance from there,this eliminates all the wiring in your house and you may well see a big difference.

Take a look at the long list of sites I posted in this thread here.... How can I find the best performing provider my area? there is a lot of detailed help there and using the help sheets at adslZone,Kits and Idnet will show you how you can get better results.

Find out how far you are from your exchange, get your router stats,the synch speed,attenuation and SNR margins are important, run a BT speed test,these are vital if you are going to tackle BT they do not accept any other tests and the results are recorded. Go to Test Result and enter your phone number,then you enter your isp username,the results will tell you a lot about your line and you can copy them.

One simple thing that can help your speed,do not shut your router off,leave it on 24/7. Many people power on/off dozens of times a day and this will drive down your speed as the DSLAM at the exchange will register a line fault and drop your line profile,thereby killing the speed.

[BroadbandOrg]

I think Carey2 has covered everything but i would confirm that your line isnt capable of receiving a LLU service such as Be broadband which should give you better speeds you can check your postcode on their site or try our postcode checker which should tell you what is available in your area

Thanks for that everyone. I have raised a fault with Supanet following a bt speedtest which revealed the line was now only configured for 135k - even worse. I have also gone into both the main and extension telephone sockets and removed the wires going into positions 3/4 thus leaving 2/5 only. I have the following data available from my router:

download data rate 608kbps; upload 448kbps

attenuation - both 63db (pretty bad - the worst it can be I think)
noise margin - upstream 12db, downstream 16db

I also have a section named 'defect indication' with various headings and figures:-

Indicator Name Near End Indicator Far End Indicator
Fast Path FEC Correction 0 0
Interleaved Path FEC Correction 1564 31
Fast Path CRC Error 0 0
Interleaved Path CRC Error 26 0
Loss of Signal Defect 0 ---
Fast Path HEC Error 0 0
Interleaved Path HEC Error 1768 0

The two separate figures represent near end and far end respectively. These figures will increase but are low right now cos I had to restart the router following the changes I made to the telephone sockets, so as to reset the noise margin.

I will have a go at testing the phone in the main socket and see if there is any noise. I am very grateful for any help and suggestions and will see about finding out about a fixed connection.

[matthew]

download data rate 608kbps; upload 448kbps

thats not to bad compared to mine if its in peak times
how many mb's you payin for ??
2,8??