200M : Occasional Dropouts

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by Damien

It might just be a one off but I am obviously paranoid.

and you are right to be, there is still an issue. If there was a problem with noise on VM's end it would manifest as errors on one channels. Post rs errors should be very few and far between. You shouldn't see any at all, absolutely 0, and even when I have had problems in the past it has only been a handful. You have got over 1000 on each channel which means there is something wrong with your line again. I would hazard a guess that when they came out last time and replaced bits that they may not have tightened up some of the connectors in the box on the outside of your house or something and some water has got in over the last couple of days.

It is up to you how long you want to leave this for. You can wait to see if it gets worse but it is going to need sorting out and the sooner the better. If i were you I would ring them up and tell them you are still having the same problem and it hasn't been fixed from the last time they came out. Keep your graphs going (you can look at them historically) so when a tech comes round and says he replaced everything and cant find anything wrong you can show him the graphs, the packet loss and disconnects.

Doh.

Do I need to a raise a new case with VM? The engineer left a phone number to text if it went wrong in the next 48 hours but this is a week later....

[General Maximus]

You can try the tech first because you might find he comes out faster (like tonight after work) rather than if you were to arrange through VM. They give you their number so that if there is something wrong they can fix it on the q.t. because if you ring VM and say it still hasn't been fixed it will go down on the tech's record as a faulty repair/installation. There was an intermittent network in my area a few years ago which resulted in frequent random dropouts which were affecting everything. VM got onto toute suite and even though they fixed it on day 1 of me reporting it the tech was very good and rang me everyday for one week to make sure it was fixed and everything was okay. Definitely give him a ring first, the worst thing he can do is say he can't help you/he is too busy bla bla bla and you need to arrange a call centrally. Which ever way you decide to go I would make a call today so you get something arranged because the weekend is just going to be dead time.

[SnoopZ]

Do you know the drop out was only you?

I wouldn't worry too much unless it happens regularly, but I would reboot the router from the GUI to reset the errors.

Nah it keeps happened again now. A week of being perfect and then BAM same issue. I am thinking it might be the water too.

I sent a text to the engineer and he said he would get back to me today but haven't heard anything today, wondering how long to give him until I just phone VM.

[General Maximus]

Tbh i would give him the whole day and only ring VM if you havent heard anything tomorrow. If it is his day off he will want to come round when has done whatever he had planned for today and similarly if he is at work he'll try and get jobs done quickly to give him enough time at the end of his shift to pop round. Either way i dont think you'll hear anything until late afternoon/evening.

Originally Posted by General Maximus

Tbh i would give him the whole day and only ring VM if you havent heard anything tomorrow. If it is his day off he will want to come round when has done whatever he had planned for today and similarly if he is at work he'll try and get jobs done quickly to give him enough time at the end of his shift to pop round. Either way i dont think you'll hear anything until late afternoon/evening.

Well, he said he would contact me this morning as he would be in the area today but I'll give more time. I guess there is no real urgency between today vs tomorrow to phone VM.

[General Maximus]

any news?

[crazyronnie]

i've been having really bad dropouts on my VM connection for the last 2 weeks but the service status checker says that there aren't any issues in my area. Called up VM and was told theres a capacity issues in my area which may be causing the dropouts when usage in the area is high. I was told that the capacity issue should be fixed by the 24th of June. Not sure if this is true or im being fobbed off.

[General Maximus]

You are being fobbed off to get you off the phone for a couple of weeks. When you ring back and say you was told it would be fixed on 24th they'll say it has been put back to xx date dye to unforeseen circumstances and that will be a lie as well. They are just trying to buy time for enough people to get back to work to take some load off the work. It was designed to cope with everyone being at home 24/7.

[crazyronnie]

The interesting thing is it had been rocked solid up until 2 weeks go.

[SnoopZ]

I would post it on VM forum then you won't have to speak to anyone, it'll take around a week for a reply though, but they will check your connection and arrange an engineer via pm if they find a fault.

[Skie]

If your connection is being particularly bad, try using your mobile to run a test on the VM website. https://my.virginmedia.com/faults/service-status

In some cases it will detect that there is an issue and give you the option to book an engineer and choose a slot. But if you run it 3 times and it doesn't find an issue, you're then locked out of running it for a day (which is crazy...)

2nd engineer come and gone and already the RS errors have started again. Sort of giving up hope at this point.

---------- Post added at 13:33 ---------- Previous post was at 13:17 ----------

Downstream bonded channels
Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID
1 226750000 2.7 38 256 qam 12
2 138750000 2.2 37 256 qam 1
3 146750000 2.2 37 256 qam 2
4 154750000 2.2 37 256 qam 3
5 162750000 2.4 37 256 qam 4
6 170750000 2.7 37 256 qam 5
7 178750000 2.9 37 256 qam 6
8 186750000 3 37 256 qam 7
9 194750000 3 38 256 qam 8
10 202750000 3 38 256 qam 9
11 210750000 3 38 256 qam 10
12 218750000 2.9 38 256 qam 11
13 234750000 2.7 38 256 qam 13
14 242750000 2.7 38 256 qam 14
15 250750000 2.7 38 256 qam 15
16 258750000 2.9 38 256 qam 16
17 266750000 2.7 38 256 qam 17
18 274750000 2.7 38 256 qam 18
19 282750000 2.7 38 256 qam 19
20 290750000 2.7 38 256 qam 20
21 298750000 3 37 256 qam 21
22 306750000 3 38 256 qam 22
23 314750000 3 38 256 qam 23
24 322750000 3 38 256 qam 24


Downstream bonded channels
Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors
1 Locked 38.6 29441 1790
2 Locked 37.6 130574 2173
3 Locked 37.6 110182 2395
4 Locked 37.6 93503 2654
5 Locked 37.6 80881 1860
6 Locked 37.3 69432 2139
7 Locked 37.6 60381 2843
8 Locked 37.6 51307 2916
9 Locked 38.6 44514 2320
10 Locked 38.6 39831 2600
11 Locked 38.6 36032 2544
12 Locked 38.6 32328 2501
13 Locked 38.6 26080 2264
14 Locked 38.6 23105 1981
15 Locked 38.9 20696 1276
16 Locked 38.6 19187 2070
17 Locked 38.6 17743 2265
18 Locked 38.6 15918 3062
19 Locked 38.6 13908 2164
20 Locked 38.9 12776 2021
21 Locked 37.6 11339 2250
22 Locked 38.6 10244 2035
23 Locked 38.9 9054 2494
24 Locked 38.9 8393 2453

[General Maximus]

Did the engineer say what he had done or replaced? Ring up and put in a complaint and say you have had 2 engineers out and the fault is still there and you have evidence of it. Afaik on the third call out the principle engineer has to attend. Show him the rs errors and the graph and they will see that something is awry. There must be a damaged cable or something somewhere which they haven't found. They can't keep coming out and leaving saying everything is ok.