Disgusted with NTL and need HELP!!! PLEASE!!!

Earwig · 24-11-2004, 20:43

I have a VERY serious problem with my connection that has NOT been dealt with by ANYONE!!!

I have had this problem now for 5 weeks in that I have barley any internet connection during the day or evening times.

I have posted a thread before when this problem first started, I beleive ignition replied to it saying he may be able to help.

I live in the NN10 area and have been told on the 3 previous times I have contacted them that there is a problem in my area and that they are aware of it and are dealing with it.

Today I ring them up and I get told that there are no further fualts in my are and that my modem could be at fualt. So I have to ring back when I get home from work and am sat in front of the pc so they could do some more tests.

Fair enough I think so I get home and spend another 45 mins on the phone to them where they run tests and tell me that it is NORTON that is stopping me from connecting to the internet. So fine ok then. Could you turn it off for me please sir. OK....So I do this for them.

Oh yes it is all working now sir...Simply becuase I could access the internet pages (regardless of it taking 30secs to load up) All is fine now he says. I say NO hang on a minute I still have the problem. I try to send a file over msn and I get nothing. It barely puts up 2kb in the 2 minutes he waited.

So he tries to tell me that it MUST be spyware on my pc. So I then ask him...Ok but first you said it was NORTON...WHY??? Oh I have seen it many times before. NORTON works for 6 months and then blocks all traffic for no reason?? Yeah ok then sure it does....I have used NORTON for 3 years now and am now on 2005 edition and have NEVER had a problem with it.

But ok then let it lie and persue the spyware thing he mentioned. My pc has been reinstalled 2 weeks ago to try and sort this problem but he tells me that it only takes an hour to get back on your PC sir......Ok so run SPYBOT evryweek to clear it. (WHY HAVE MY LETTERS GONE ON THE SLANT?? )

So anyway i run it again while he is on the phomne with me and yes it does bring up 5-6 things but they are only tracking cookies, I remove then anyway and the problem STILL exists!!!!

I tried to tell him that my PC is NOT in the wromg and he tells me that my modem is recieving 100% and that the modem is sending back 100% but my PC has packet loss?? WTF???

I asked if I could speak to somebody higher up than him or somebody who had a clue what the hell they were doing?? But he told me there was noone.
He asked me to go to the start menu and RUN before he did any of the above and got me to get my I.P address out. This alone took him 10MINUTES!!! As he was obviously following instructions!!!

So where does this leave me then??

I asked for an engineer to come out but he told me NO. There is no point. He would come out and tell me there is NO problem and charge me ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£85 for the pleasure.

So they will NOT send an engineer to me and the problem is apparently my pc. Either spyware....(Which I cleared while he was on the phone) Or NORTON ( Which I disabled while he was on the phone).

As I write this I have a Torrent open to see what is going on and I have exactly 0KB/s upload and 10KB/s download. Web pages take an absolute age to load so what thye hell can I do?? Where can I go from here??

Thing is at about 12AM tonight I gaurentee that the connection will come back on again and I will upload at MAX 32KB/s for maybe a few hours but then it dies again. It comes and goes in spurts....I either get full up and down or NOTHING of each........

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help me!!!! I am paying ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£40PM for something that is useless to me and this idiot was of no help atall and said nobody else could halp me and nobody would come out?? I have his name aswell which I will not post here, but if anyone wants it then I will be happy to PM it to them.

EDIT: When I posted this I get bare pages....just the writing and stuff....no pics etc. The page loads up the bare minimum. It also took me a couple of minutes to be able to get it back up again to type this edit. It also seems to be upload that is effected more than download. If I do manage to get onto a site I can download anything...Patches, drivers etc....at max speed.

paulyoung666 · 24-11-2004, 21:22

ok , from the top , usb or ethernet , stb or sacm , what tier are you supposed to be on ????? , how about posting some pings and tracerts , can you provide any diagnostics to show signal levels etc ??????? , just a few things to get started on , sorry if i am treading on ground that has been covered before

Earwig · 24-11-2004, 21:26

USB 1.5MB SACM. Not sure about how to ping things etc...or find signal levels. Going to do a speed test at adslguide now, is this right??

Neil · 24-11-2004, 21:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Earwig

USB 1.5MB SACM. Not sure about how to ping things etc...or find signal levels. Going to do a speed test at adslguide now, is this right??

Do Robin Walker's speed test from here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d...speedtest.html

Earwig · 24-11-2004, 21:32

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 20:33:04 UTC
1st 128K took 703 ms = 186447 Bytes/sec = approx 1551 kbits/sec
2nd 128K took 719 ms = 182298 Bytes/sec = approx 1517 kbits/sec
3rd 128K took 703 ms = 186447 Bytes/sec = approx 1551 kbits/sec
4th 128K took 719 ms = 182298 Bytes/sec = approx 1517 kbits/sec

It is upload more than download can I test this> What about signal strength??

Neil · 24-11-2004, 21:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Earwig

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 20:33:04 UTC
1st 128K took 703 ms = 186447 Bytes/sec = approx 1551 kbits/sec
2nd 128K took 719 ms = 182298 Bytes/sec = approx 1517 kbits/sec
3rd 128K took 703 ms = 186447 Bytes/sec = approx 1551 kbits/sec
4th 128K took 719 ms = 182298 Bytes/sec = approx 1517 kbits/sec

It is upload more than download can I test this> What about signal strength??

Nothing wrong with that download result.

Let me read your post again.....

Neil · 24-11-2004, 21:36

Right.....

We need to know a bit more about your PC's setup-for starters do you have a router?

Tezcatlipoca · 24-11-2004, 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Earwig

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 20:33:04 UTC
1st 128K took 703 ms = 186447 Bytes/sec = approx 1551 kbits/sec
2nd 128K took 719 ms = 182298 Bytes/sec = approx 1517 kbits/sec
3rd 128K took 703 ms = 186447 Bytes/sec = approx 1551 kbits/sec
4th 128K took 719 ms = 182298 Bytes/sec = approx 1517 kbits/sec

It is upload more than download can I test this> What about signal strength??

Upload test - http://www.pcpitstop.com/internet/BandwidthUpTest.asp

Signal levels -

How to access them depends on the modem.

Have a look here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d...ps/signal.html

rdhw · 24-11-2004, 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Earwig

he tells me that my modem is recieving 100% and that the modem is sending back 100% but my PC has packet loss??

This symptom can be caused by a flaky USB implementation on the PC. Have you tried converting to proper ethernet?

Nikko · 24-11-2004, 22:56

Good to see you rdhw

Earwig · 24-11-2004, 23:25

I have no router at all.
Juat 1 PC connected to my modem. Cable from the wall to the modem and then USB to my pc via USB2.

It seems that my download is not the problem, if i manage to get to a site i can download at 180+KB/s.

IF for example I use a torrent site i will download at max speed but up nothing.....Then all of a sudden for no reason I will go to 32KB/s for a few hours and I can surf the web with ease. This tends to happen late at night. After 12AM. During the day and the evening I get nothing again?

As I speak now...I have a torrent running and azureus is showing 29KB/s up and 175KB/s down. So it seems it has come back on again. But by tomorrow I bet it has gone off again. It has been doing this for 5 weeks now......:o

Going to try the signal strength tests now, but while it is working I am sure it will be fine. Since my last post I have been unable to access the web atall so was unable to try the tests sooner.......

Earwig · 24-11-2004, 23:32

Type : Ambit ETH/USB Combo Cable Modem
Cable modem : Ambit Cable Modem
MAC address : **:**:**:**:**:**
IP address : x0.1xx.6x.xx3
Downstream Receive Power Level : -4.04 dBmv
Downstream SNR : 28.15 dB
Upstream Transmit Power Level : 24.50 dBmv

Neil · 24-11-2004, 23:36

I've also removed your MAC address.

I would do as Robin suggests & try via ethernet, that way if the problem doesn't re-occur you know it was USB related.

And if it does re-occur, you'll know that it nothing to do with USB!

It's a process of elimination I'm afraid.

jtwn · 24-11-2004, 23:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Earwig

As I speak now...I have a torrent running and azureus is showing 29KB/s up and 175KB/s down.

Huh? Surely your download would be saturated with 29kB/s up? Or maybe it is just me :s

Neil · 24-11-2004, 23:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by jtwn

Huh? Surely your download would be saturated with 29kB/s up? Or maybe it is just me :s

I was just thinking that......

It's probably maxing out/saturating the upstream bandwidth, which in turn is crippling the downloads-but poster said he can d/l & full speed, & speed test results support this (or perhaps Bit Torrent wasn't running at the same time of the speed test....?)

Either way, worth capping your upload speeds.