COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Big Kev]

Upgraded out TV to one of those OLED thingies. We now have a 42" smart TV going for FREE. 8 year old good working order. WiFi by dongle (supplied) or your own cable. No stand, (brackets transferred to new TV.) Collect from Colne. E-mail or message

Granddaughter is excited for a new TV. Oldest offspring, wife and a selection of grandchildren are coming for lunch and to collect it. Thank you Ken, it was nice to meet you and your wife (socially distanced of course)

[Stanley]

Lovely post.....

[Tizer]

It's nice to see things passed on instead of always buying new. My cousin's husband, the driving instructor, has had our last two VW Golfs to use as his `work car'. His daughters have both recently passed their driving test (first time of course!) and the oldest Golf is now being shared by them. The savings made have allowed Mum to replace her 10-year-old Nissan Qashqaui. She needs her own motor because she runs health & safety courses in the South-West and has to carry lots of what we call `the bodies' - her mannikins for first aid instruction. When she's not doing that she's part-time in the Admin department at the local hospital. And when she not doing either of those she's `running the family'!

[Stanley]

A busy woman!

[Stanley]

See THIS news item that chronicles the demise of the Blackberry, one of the early success stories in mobile phones. At one time they were ubiquitous but from January 4th are junk.

[PanBiker]

Sometimes it is like banging your head against a brick wall.

I have an intermittent fault on my Talk Talk router. It's on the output or user side of the device. I get intermittent drop-out on the WiFi and the CAT5 wired connection to the Freesat box intermittently fails to load on demand channels and will often buffer which should not really happen on the 65MBps package I am on. I have tried swapping the CAT5 to different ports and switching the WiFi between 2.4Ghz and 5GHz bands, also the WiFi channel used. The actual connection to the exchange through VDSL is solid at 57mbps, it used to be 47mbps but has come up a bit since I rebooted tonight, more on this later.

I contacted Talk Talk at 18.30 on technical chat, I had multiple choices to select which "expert" I was connected to. In my case it was Berna. Not sure if that is short for Bernadette or is the Turkish version of the name but female I think although that should not make a difference. 15 minutes to get through the security checks to prove who I was.

That accepted we went into diagnostic script mode. For the next 2 hours we effectively went round in circles. Line test from my end, and theirs, speed tests from my PC and via WiFi on my phone and Sally's tablet. Those both show an abysmal 2.8mbps down and 5.5mbps upload! The script would not go past the input side of the router. At one point I was asked to find a micro-filter and put that into the circuit. I pointed out that my VDSL installation didn't need additional filtering as it's built into the Open Reach Master Socket which has a dedicated data port. I offered to take the lid off and go directly into the service port which is a user function of the type of socket I have but that was not part of the script.

I asked if they had refreshed the firmware on the router during their tests but they said no. I begged to differ as my router defaulted to factory reset state with default password and WiFi settings. I know I certainly didn't shove a paper clip in the reset hole myself which would have had the same effect. So If I didn't do it who did? A simple reboot does not invoke factory settings.

The support script did not cover user side faults on the router and they cant test for that other than the reverse speed check which I reckon is abysmal at 2.5mbps down but according to the support proves there is nothing wrong with the router! She didn't seem to understand the nature of an intermittent fault or the fact that there are two distinct roles of the device. I had to terminate the chat after 2 hours as I had other things to do. By that time my support agent said she had also exhausted all the options available to her. I pointed out the pitfalls of the script as I see it when asked to rate the chat etc.

I will ring them up tomorrow and see if I can get to talk to someone who knows about what a router actually does and what an intermittent fault is.

[Big Kev]

Have you got an adjustable transformer you can plug into it and fry the thing? They'll have to send you a new one if it's not working...

[PanBiker]

It's just dropped the WiFi signal to my mobile and checking on the PC the Outlook refresh on the email accounts failed. Obviously back to normal now as I can post this reply.

In answer to your question, yes I do but I will appeal to reasoning first. There must be someone at Talk Talk who can understand the issue. I am contemplating going for the Fibre to Premises deal but I think you keep your existing router. Open Reach supply a fibre router as a bridge to your existing VDSL router I believe. Hence the reason for trying to sort this one. If I ring up I will check to see if this is the case.

[PanBiker]

I was wondering if the speed increase to the router is anything to do with the fact that there was an Open Reach guy up our local pole the other day running a new line to one of the houses further up the street. My speed dropped from 56 to 47Mps after the fibre to pole rollout. It has reverted to my previous connection speed now which seems a bit of a coincidence.

[Stanley]

Sorry you've got the problem Ian. That triggered me to check my speed the usual 37 down AND 9.5 UP.

[PanBiker]

How are you checking that Stanley, from the router stats which only measures the speed between your router and the exchange or a speed test from your machine? The latter uses the output side of the router.

My connection to the exchange is 57mbps down and 6.5mbps up so, according to the tech there is nothing wrong with it! My Cisco Network Associate training tells me other wise.

[plaques]

Readers may remember that I ran into loads of problems with TalkTalk where I suspected that they were switching my internet off at periods of high demand to reduce their load. The router could be re-booster to bring the supply back on. TalkTalk claimed this was a mystery to them. I eventually solved the mystery by switching to a different supplier. I still maintain that they can control the router from the exchange on an automated basis. Of course I will never know if this is true but as far as I'm concerned the problem is solved.

[Big Kev]

TalkTalk connection has been consistent and steady over here in Foulridge.

Screenshot_20220113-111333_Chrome.jpg

Router connection is solid

Screenshot_20220113-111653_Speedtest.jpg

I have a few devices connected to it and they look to be performing OK (my mobile phone speed test above).
There are 3 Sonos devices and another phone using the wifi along with two satellite boxes (for on demand services), the CCTV cloud connection, my personal desktop machine and a work laptop on wired connections. Most of them are connected all the time.

[PanBiker]

Ideed Kev, compare that with my stats 57mbps down and 6.5mbps up to the exchange. 2.8mps down and 5.5 mbps up from speed tests from my mobile via WiFi and PC which is wired to one of the output ports. That is using TalkTalks own speed test which they use as a benchmark. Apparently it only has to work to pass as functional. That is when it is working, the intermittent fault drops the outputs completely.

[Big Kev]

Ideed Kev, compare that with my stats 57mbps down and 6.5mbps up to the exchange. 2.8mps down and 5.5 mbps up from speed tests from my mobile via WiFi and PC which is wired to one of the output ports. That is using TalkTalks own speed test which they use as a benchmark. Apparently it only has to work to pass as functional. That is when it is working, the intermittent fault drops the outputs completely.

I had an intermittent issue, with Sky Broadband, when I was at Park Street. It took several months and phone calls to get it sorted. You've identified the issue is with your router so it should be relatively simple for them to fix. I would imagine it's pot luck if you get someone more accommodating on TalkTalk's tech chat.

[PanBiker]

I rang Talk Talk this afternoon, just got off the phone with a young lady, didn't catch her name but she was very efficient. She had to establish her own baseline tests so did a monitored line test which proved that there was no issue between the exchange and the input of the router which I already know. She accepted the fact that I had an intermittent output fault and has agreed that the best way forward is a replacement router. She added that my current Huawei Super Router is not the best model for the Fibre 65 package that I am on so is shipping out the latest model that in her own words is "more compatible" with my current package.

The new router is already showing as a pending order on my account with a go live date of today.

I will give her brownie points when she sends me the "how did we do" email.

[Big Kev]

Great news, persistence pays off

[PanBiker]

I will have to keep checking the email address that my account is registered on as I don't monitor, it is an old Tiscali address from the late 90's I think. I know I added my panbiker address when I got the ST1100 Pan European which was about 2002. Tiscali sold the UK branch to Carphone Warehouse but it was quickly re-branded as Talk Talk. I have tried to alter it but you can't change what they consider to be the primary account email address.

[Big Kev]

I will have to keep checking the email address that my account is registered on as I don't monitor, it is an old Tiscali address from the late 90's I think. I know I added my panbiker address when I got the ST1100 Pan European which was about 2002. Tiscali sold the UK branch to Carphone Warehouse but it was quickly re-branded as Talk Talk. I have tried to alter it but you can't change what they consider to be the primary account email address.

Do you have the option to put a mail forward on it?

[PanBiker]

Good point Kev but I cant see a redirect option in the account settings.

I have it as drop down as web mail. I could of course just set it up in Outlook but I hardly ever look at it.

[PanBiker]

I have an email to say that Yodel have my new router and will deliver probably on Monday.

They say in their email that they will photograph the parcel as proof of delivery in my open doorway, (I tend to keep them shut at this time of the year), or in a safe space of my choice. What could possibly go wrong?

At least Monday isn't a bin day for us.

[Big Kev]

I have the same in an email from Hermes (new coat). The 'open door' thing is, I believe, proof of delivery to a real person. I have seen these pics, on the Barnoldswick Talk page, with people asking if anyone recognises the doorway as they've received a 'successful delivery' email but no parcel.

[PanBiker]

I was in the attic this afternoon on the radio. I had set a safe place up with Yodel before I went up. Yodel said my parcel was out for delivery but still showing Monday as a delivery date. I came down to find that it was delivered this afternoon to my safe place. I will install it tomorrow. Interested to see the new model of router. Talk Talk operate a responsible recycling scheme and send a free post bag out to send your old router back.

After retrieval, it's the same router that we got when I signed up for a business broadband deal for Bosom Friends. The router is manufactured by Sagemcom who are based in France, manufactured in PRC though. It's bigger than the Huawei, probably half as big again, it has a WAN port as well as the 4 Ethernet switch ports and it's broadband network feed.

[Stanley]

And a pull out card with the password on Etc? That's the same as the one I got about three years ago when my old one gave problems.

[PanBiker]

I changed all the leads on the router install, fired it up and after it had hand shook with the exchange I tried logging on to configure my settings. Nothing, no connection to the computer! I checked all the leads etc and still no joy, swapped the CAT5 to the computer onto another port, still no good. I pulled out the new lead supplied with the router and swapped back to my own and it was OK. I will shove the new lead onto my tester to confirm that it's faulty and send it back with my old router.

58.3mbps down
7.5mbps up

To the exchange.

I configured the WiFi to my preferred SSID and password so there would be no resetting required on any of the devices that we have or visit our WiFi.

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Later:

My network cable tester confirmed the new CAT5 lead supplied with the router is faulty. There is an open circuit on pin 6 of the cable, unusual on a moulded cable assembly but there you are.