ntl home:120 hanging from today - Page 15

JamShady · 26-01-2006, 10:38

I don't wish to alarm anyone, but I'm having similar problems with my 250 which replaced my 120 yesterday. Nowhere near as bad as my 120, but sufficient to cut me off a couple of times during an Xbox gaming session (yes, it's definately the modem, not anything else).

It reconnects itself though, I've not needed to pull the wire out once yet, but simply by doing it it's causing me hassle. In the last day it's happened 5 or 6 times. I willing to accept that perhaps I got a duff one and maybe this post should be a separate topic on its own, but before I go down the route of complaining to ntl again I was just wondering if I was the only one experiencing this.

Rik · 26-01-2006, 10:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swoopie

Rik, I done a bit of testing, It seems when you reach a certain upload for a certain time, the modem "resets" (This mainly occurs on torrents when you have many peers/seeds connected)

Hmm interesting!
You are right there, disconnects only happen when uploading.

Wonder why this is happening, gonna have to ring NTL today, this has been going on for too long now, might even have to discuss compensation, nearly 3 days without a usable connection

Can someone technical actually tell me what is happening and why? im a bit of a tekhead I can handle it

Is this purely a Firmware issue, there seems more to this problem than that?

jonze · 26-01-2006, 12:09

I've called NTL support three times and they have fobbed me off every single time, they won't even replace my 120 modem. I'm getting extremely sick and tired of being treated this way by NTL. I've given up calling them now - if they do not rectify the problem soon I'm going to look at alternative ISPs.

monkey2468 · 26-01-2006, 12:22

Just did my first downloading in a while. Downloading from news server, got to 1.4Gb then modem stalled requiring modem reboot. It then continued downloading for 5 mins then rebooted itself. Was on 0003.cpr yesterday, now on 0002.cpr
ambit 120.
Shall see what its like over the next few hours.

Swoopie · 26-01-2006, 12:45

Try this, (if your using a torrent) Put the upload speed to unlimited, and wait about 5 seconds (If i put my torrent to unlimited, My modem will reset within 5 seconds)

Or If im extracting a big file over ssh and I'm getting spammed by what file it's extracting, My modem will reset after that also...

Was just downloading a torrent @ 1mB/s, about 3-4 minutes later, My modem reset, I think it's something to do with the upstream..

Also got it yesterday while uploading a file to my website...

Rik · 26-01-2006, 12:48

Well im gonna roll with it a little longer as the status page does have the info there and duration etc.

Thumbs up for that NTL

Definitely a Upstream problem, as ive been downloading from Usenet for the last 1hr at 1200kB/s without a glitch.

sjw · 26-01-2006, 12:53

Interesting.... I was getting the disconnects all the time - was on the 003 firmware. I stopped downloading and just seeded for a whole day at over 50KB/s without a single disconnect. Then tried to download again and it went to about 550KB/s download for a few minutes and then hung.
The firmware was then reverted to 002 and downloads are back to what they were (upto about 600KB/s). Never near 1000 though.
If you unlimit your upload, your download speed will plummet.

Swoopie · 26-01-2006, 13:02

yea, of course unlimiting your upload speed will effect your download speed, but while seeding, If you unlimit it, You'll notice your modem is more likely to reset, I tried leaving it at about 50~55kb and it doesn't tend to reset

phoenix__ · 26-01-2006, 13:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by sjw

If you unlimit your upload, your download speed will plummet.

This is not a specific issue with ntl, but more the way modems in general work. The modem has a buffer within it that it holds data in whilst it is being transmitted (either out over cable, or to your PC).

The bandwidth available for upload is in the region of KB/s, however your computer can pass data to the modem in the region of MB/s, so the buffer will get filled almost instantly. When download data arrives, the buffer is pretty full,so you don't get your maximum downstream rate.

Probably not explained perticularly well, but hopefully you get the idea.

mcmanic · 26-01-2006, 14:41

well no news then?

sjw · 26-01-2006, 16:14

Quote:

This is not a specific issue with ntl, but more the way modems in general work. The modem has a buffer within it that it holds data in whilst it is being transmitted (either out over cable, or to your PC).

etc.. I knew that.. It was just that somebody was saying about it being upload related and I tried to say it wasn't 'just' upload related. I always have it limited while downloading - to about 10-15KB/s but it still resets. however, at that speed, it downloads at way over 500KB/s and the upload speed is often only 1-2KB/s - it still crashed though. Simple downloads from servers etc. seemed to fly and don't seem to cause any crashes. People often suggest an upload limit of around 80% capacity but that 'generosity' leaves very little room for download and you will see significant improvements in d/l speed for each small lowering of u/l..
Anyway, like I said, it's all fine again now though.

deadite66 · 26-01-2006, 16:24

no lockups so far.

kq501 · 26-01-2006, 17:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by kq501

Can I ask any other members if there loss of service mainly happens when using bittorrent. I constantly lose connection whenever bittorrent activity increases i.e. a torrent with many seeds/peers. Is the Ambit 120 able to accept many connections at the one time. I have no problem with speeds while surfing or downloading with any other method. Downloading via IE gets me 1.25mb sec, zooms through downloads, via DC++ very high speeds also, but with torrents, as soon as the torrent picks up more connections the modem cuts out. Thats not to say speeds aren't great cos they can be, it just cant handle many connections. I've used torrents for ages and never had any problems while on NTL 2mb broadband. I don't think it's a coincidence that the connection cuts out while using this file sharing method. This happens with/without firewall, or all other obvious fixes.

I shared this with the group on page 9 of this thread. It's definitely to do with either the upload speed or too many connections. Torrents with lesser activity don't seem to be hampered.

Swoopie, how often do you get speeds of 1mb/s with torrents. The best I've ever hit was around 700kb/s, but normally i average about 400kb/s. What client do you use, and what are your general settings out of curiosity. I use uTorrent.

DieDieMyDarling · 26-01-2006, 17:27

I've tried all sorts of downloads, since having this problem, and i can't see any pattern. I've tried using Newsgroups using fewer connections, more connections, limiting the speed, and i'm always prone to a reset. Sometimes i can download for an hour with no problems, others it happens after a few seconds, sometimes it's when i'm downloading and browsing at the same time, others it's just downloading or even just browsing (on 1 occasion).

I think as Ovenchips stated last night, the firmwares haven't been fully rolled back yet, and although it might be showing as that on our config pages, the truth is we still aren't using the 002 firmware. Hopefully it'll be back to normal soon.

kq501 · 26-01-2006, 17:34

but DieDie, i have been having similar problems ever since obtaining 10meg on xmas day. It has never been able to handle heavy activity with bittorrent. The recent problem with the firmware has only advertised and aggrevated the problem more.

And as I asked before, but to no avail, it would be interesting to see the amount of users who only have a problem with BITTORRENT and not those with general IE downloads, other P2P, etc...

I just cant seem to hold a connection when bittorrent activity increases.

I wonder where you would stand with CS if you complanied about this. In general I get excellent speeds, its only with the above probs that i get disconnected... FREQUENTLY.