Six months ago I bought a new laptop, a Toshiba C660D, it has been excellent except in one respect. With my old laptop I used a modem, with the new one I was told I needed a router, so Talk talk duly supplied one free of charge and it was installed. Everything is fine except it seems to have a mind of its own and occasionally will not allow me to connect to the internet. To rectify this I switch off the computer, switch off the router wait about a minute then switch on the router wait for all the lights to steady, switch on the computer, everything OK. It is just a darned nuisance. I have changed the filters and checked all the plug connections run tests for the signal strength, which is good as I am not too far from the telephone exchange. Can anyone throw any light on this fault? and is there any way of correcting it? or anything I can do to avoid it? Is the free router from talk talk a cheap nasty model and would a more sophisticated one be better? I would be most grateful for any suggestions and ideas on this problem.
I am on the same equipment as you and had the same problem for months. Gradually the problem happened less until it only happens about once every three months or less. This after endless discussions with foreign ladies and gentlemen that restarted the internet connection for an indeterminate length of time. I suspect the improvement came about due to Talk Talk improving the service to my area eventually.
It can be hard to find the cause but if you have a cordless phone the frequency it communicates with the base station can be very near the frequency of the wireless signal.
You have to log onto the router via your PC and change the radio channel it operates on from the setup menu on the router if that is the cause.
Thankyou for your replies everyone. Unfortunately I am stuck with talk talk for another twelve months having paid a reduced line rental up front. The other thing is people I talk to who have other internet providers seem to have similar problems, I am very conscious of changing provider, bearing in mind my limited knowledge of computers and jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Meanwhile if anyone has any other ideas on this problem I would very much like to hear from them.
Agree on the Talktalk thing, bad news… Just wait until you do try to leave, that really can be a challenge…
You mentioned a modem so are you happy to plug the laptop into the router ? If so and assuming the problem is possibly the wireless connection rather than the internet connection itself, then get an ethernet cable and try that. If nothing else it could help reduce the options for the problem if the connection is stable on a cable. As noted above things such as power supplies next to the router, and cordless phones can interfer with the wireless signal, so they say. Where do you plug the router in ? Is it on an extension phone socket as that can degrade you internet connection, you should plug into the main phone socket that comes into the house.
Try checking your wireless signal strength if you have the laptop remote from the router. This is good, run it on your laptop and it will tell you the strength. inSSIDer.
I take it you have a filter on every device connected to the phone system and everything is plugged in BEHIND a filter and nothing directly into a phone socket? The usual culprit that people forget this applies too are sky boxes and extention kits.
Also you should have the router in the BT “master socket” of the house, basically the first socket in the house from the outside.
If you still have problems after checking all this, get BT to do a check on your line for interference, and also check betweeen you and the telegraph pole for trees or branches against the phone cables.
If all that doesnt help, try and borrow a better router and test using that
Thankyou for your replies Martin and Harco. I have all your suggestions in place i.e. plugged into the master socket, filters, clear overhead line etc. in fact all these things were covered in the instructions which came with the router. The only outstanding one is that the router is under the hall table, on the table is the phone for the landline but as they both have to be plugged into the same socket I have placed them as far apart as the cables will allow. I do not have anything like a skybox or anything which may be interfering with the signal. There will be a simple explanation for this the task is finding it!
Indeed. I’m with TalkTalk, and although it was ok, all of a sudden, its lousy. My folks were with Aol, who were really ripping them off. They’re not computer savvy, but it took me about 2 months to get them out of the Aol contract. I have since found out Aol is TalkRalk, so I am dreading changing from TT.
If as I think you are suggesting its the router that keeps losing its “sync” with your boradband connection and not the wireless signal between your pc and the router, then in reality is unlikely to be an issue with your phone, more that you have a bad line
Sometimes this can be down to the way BT initially installed your line to the house. On older houses the problem is usually rare (unless they had a second line), but on more modern houses (1980’s onwards) BT had a practice of “spliting” one line into two to add more usage and save on additional expense of laying extra cables each time a house was connected. this is called a DACS system. Some customers on DACS have had real issues with maintaining a broadband signal. See here… wikilink
The easy way to find out is to ask BT and they will tell you if you are DACS or not.
The giveaway is that your routers “link” or sync light keeps flashing and just drops off on a regular basis. Otherwise if the line is not dropped then the issue may well be the phones or sometimes if you have other wireless equipment such as wireless surround sound speaker systems etc.
In reality most isps are on the same peice of copper wire so usually if you have probelms with line sync holding etc with on, you will have it with the others. The image that some isps are better than others is in realtiy a myth, most are just reselling you BT’s wholesale backbone with a different name. There are exceptions in certain areas the obvious one being Virginmedia cable, but also some isps have now started to stick their own equipment in exchanges which makes things much better, and example being O2 who seem to be able to provide a far superior service where they have installed equipment in the local BT exchange. If anyone is having real speed issues I would always suggest checking with O2 if they have their own equipment in your area.
These are just some of the things that I have picked up over many years of installing and maintaining networks etc. (oh and a few years helping BT roll out the broadband network!) Things change all the time so tomorrow you may find BT comes along and puts you on fibre (the new infinity network which is pretty good to be fair… for BT!!)
A friend of mine ended up absolutely frantic with TT. He eventually renewed everything in his house-EVERYTHING. This after months of talk with TT & BT. BT finally found it was the BT wire from the house to the telegraph pole in the street, despite claiming all along it definitely was not the BT equipment.
My old dear had no end of problem with TT. When she returned to BT all problem corrected. There seems to be a hold by BT over TT and the equipment rented. With thses two companies it seems to be TT’s fault in BT’s eyes and NOT a problem in TT’s view when your with TT. Return to BT and all is fine!
Thankyou to everyone again for your input. Harco’s post makes perfect sense to me, whoever is my internet provider is reliant on the same wires junction boxes etc. Today I have tested every wire, remade every connection to ensure scrupulously clean tight joints. One thing has occurred to me is that I am using a multiple trailing socket from the mains plug to supply the phone and the router. I have replaced that today with one which is surge and spike protected, just a hunch, but it can not do any harm to eliminate a possible cause. I have checked and I am not on a DACS system, the underground cable to the telegraph pole was replaced by BT including the line to my house around twelve years ago. Just over a year ago my landline had a fault and went off, the following day I was called by a BT engineer to say the fault was in the exchange and the equipment at the exchange which governs my line had been renewed. So it does not seem that I have any outdated wiring etc. I shall persevere and will update with any developments as it may help someone else with a similar problem. Meanwhile if anyone has a sudden flash of inpiration, please let me know. Once again thankyou to everyone.
I had the same problem when I first moved my ISP to Sky - My solution was similar to what ’Drumtochty ’ suggests
‘You have to log onto the router via your PC and change the radio channel it operates on from the setup menu on the router if that is the cause.’ in addition to this i had to lower the level of wireless security from ‘WPA’ to ‘WEP’.
Posting this as it may be of help to others in a similar situation. After cleaning all the wiring joints/ terminals on my phone lines and junction boxes, which made no difference, I decided to replace the filters in the phone sockets six weeks ago. Connection has not been lost since. So I am thinking the problem is solved, thank goodness!
If you are connecting the laptop to the router via wi-fi then it could well be due to another router using the same channel. Recently had the same problem myself. Laptop shows that it is connected to the router but won’t actually send any signal back and forth. Most routers are set to automatically pick a free channel and the first one they will probably check is channel 1. Let’s say that a neighbour has a router 60 feet away that is already using channel 1. This will be too far away for your router to see so it sets itself up on channel 1. All well and good if you try using your laptop right next to your router but if you then take your laptop to the other side of the house things can be different. You are then 20 feet away from your router and 40 feet from your neighbours router both using the same channel. Poor little laptop sees both signals and gets very confused with two signals shouting at it at the same time. I’ve found a great little tool that will let you see what’s going on. Do a google search for ‘Xirrus Wi-Fi Monitor’. Download and install it and it will search round and display all the networks in your area and show the channels they are on. If there is another network showing up on the same channel as yours then make a note of which channels are in us and change yours to a free channel as far away from the others as possible. Let’s say 1, 3, 4, 9, 11 & 13 are in use. Set yours to 6 or 7. If you are having problems accessing your router then check the TalkTalk website, there will probably be a user guide on there.
OK so that should be any wi-fi problems sorted. If it’s a network or ISP equipment problem that’s a different kettle of fish. I actually work for Openreach, the BT business that installs and maintains the network for most of the service providers. BT have their own equipment which is rented out to many ISPs but some including TalkTalk have their own equipment in many BT exchanges. What equipment you are on I have no idea. There are many different factors that can affect the reliability and speed of your connection. There are also many different causes of problems. Cordless phones, flourescent lights, christmas lights, Sky boxes and cheap and nasty power supplies on just about anything. A minor fault on a power supply can cause terrible interference while the unit still appears to work perfectly. We had one instance locally where a faulty power supply on a DVD player knocked out the broadband to a whole village! One favourite trick for finding interference is to get an AM/MW radio and tune it 612kHz and have a listen. Just take it aound the house and the area and listen for any really loud buzzing. Working for Openreach I cannot make any comment or recommendation regarding service providers. I am on BT broadband myself mainly because I get it free. My Dad is on TalkTalk because he got a good deal from them but now that he is on TalkTalk equipment rather than BT equipment he actually gets a faster and more stable connection. Please note this is not a recommendation as I’m not allowed to give one just a statement of fact in one particular case.
The following advice is not related to any particular company, telecoms or otherwise. When contacting a company that uses a menu based phone system you will be asked to press a series of buttons which eventually should in theory put you in touch with somebody who is trained to answer questions on a very small area of expertise. If you are not really sure what the problem is then your chances of getting through to the correct department are slim. The person you get through to will probably be somewhere that you wouldn’t stand much chance of pointing to on a world atlas. A handy little tip is when you are asked to select a number between 1 and 6, do nothing. You will be read the list again so do nothing again. The system will get confused and you will very likely find that you will be put through to somebody who deals with all the difficult problems, knows absolutely everything and, shock, horror, is actually in the UK.
Hope this is of use to you. If you want any more info or advice then it would be helpful if you could PM me with your postcode. Should be able to find out what exchange and equipment you are likely to be on and what sort of speed you should be able to achieve.
