Lynksys modem/router problem...

Hi..

My lynksys modem/router WAG54GS (v1.1) keeps dropping my internet connection
from every 30 mins to 2 hours or so.
It is really irritating to power down, remove all the filters (ADSL) and
then reconnect reboot and retstart the modem/router each time it stops.

I contacted my ISP ( Tiscali, in the UK) and they have assure me there is no
problem with the service, and advised me to use the free modem they provided
( a cheap-o plastic USB modem with a single ethernet input)

This seems to work very well...no drop out in over 24 hrs of use.

does this mean that either..
1. My lynksys modem/router is not configured correctly?
or..
2. The lynksys modem/router is faulty?

I am running on Winxp home.

Thanks in advance!

 

You might also want to check the router power supply

Andy

 

Power supply is fine, I changed it, too :-(

 

Remember, if you try searching the web for answers, the name is spelled
"Linksys" and not "Lynksys" ...

This page came right up:
<http://forums.linksys.com/linksys/board/message?board.id=DSL&message.id=360>

It suggests a firmware upgrade.

 

I've always found the 24/7 tech support folks at Linksys very helpful-- and
they speak the King's English, not the Rajah's ;-)

 

That sounds exactly like my problem. I would lose my connection at least
once every 48 hours. I spoke to Linksys support and we tried several
different firmware versions. An older one helped me stay online longer, but
I still lost the connection.

Eventually, I just had enough and bought a new one. I've had a stable
connection for many months now.

I guess you could buy one at a big box store and see if it helps
immediately. If not, just return it..

 

You might want to re-flash the modem router with the current firmware
it's using or later. That sometimes fixes problem with the right out of
the box, as the firmware can be sick.

Duane

 

Why are you removing filters? Filters must not be located between
modem/router and the DSL service. Filters must be in series with (sit
between) incoming phone line and all other telephone appliances.
Filter does not impede or condition ADSL signal. Filter stops ADSL
signal from seeing any other telephone appliance. If filter is between
modem/router and the ISP, then filter is creating loss/reduction of
ADSL signal.

Only some modems provide useful statistics. Your DSL modem should
contain a status screen so that dB signal strength is monitored in real
time. When DSL is lost, does signal dB drop? Of course if filter is
between DSL provider and modem, then that signal will drop
significantly. Also if filter is not between DSL provider and every
other telephone appliances, then again, signal will diminish. Numbers
from that modem status page will debug your problem.

 

That does seem to be an un-necessary step.

I don't know how it's done in the US, but here in the UK the 'filter' is a
small gadget that plugs into the standard telephone socket, and provides
two sockets - one for the ADSL connection, the other for the telephone(s).
The circuits contained within the 'filter' do indeed do what you describe.
The telephone and ADSL sockets provided by the 'filter' are not
interchangeable. So 'over here', there *should* be a 'filter' between the
telephone socket and the DSL modem or modem/router.

It is possible to get the 'filter' circuit built into a wall box for the
incoming telephone line that has two seperate sockets, one each for
telephone and DSL, but I've never seen that arrangement in use.

My modem/router's 'web page' doesn't operate in real time; changes are
only displayed when I 'reload' or 'refresh' the page. (But that's a
Belkin, rather than the OP's Lynksys).

 

Yes.

If you have checked the settings of the Lynksys (if that is really how
it's spelled, I suspect you've been had - the genuine brand is
'Linksys'), then the device's hardware or firmware is faulty.

You can get the 'User guide' from here, if you haven't got it already
(probably on a CD packaged with the device)
<http://www-uk.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=U
K%2FLayout&cid=1123521940739&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper>

Good luck!

 

DSL was demonstrated by BT in 1981. It works same in both nations.
You may feel a modem connects through the filter. In reality, modem
connection must be a direct connection to phone line and DSL provider.
Any filter between modem and DSL provider only diminishes a DSL signal.
What you have assumed is not how DSL connects. When everything is
installed correctly, that DSL modem makes a direct connection to the
DSL provider. Filter disconnects (blocks) all other phone appliances
from 'eating' a DSL signal. That is how DSL works in Britain.

Removing filters would only permit other telephone appliances to
'eat' the DSL signal. Removing a properly installed DSL filter should
have zero effect on DSL modem signal. If removing DSL filter improves
DSL operation, then a DSL filter has been improperly connected.

Any rate, signal strength numbers from a status page are essential in
understanding and solving DSL problems. DSL modem is, essentially, a
radio receiver. It will only perform properly when radio wave signal
strength (DSL signal) is sufficient.

 

snip

Fine; now go into a UK telephone or computer shop and ask for a "DSL
filter" that only has a socket for the telephone, and see what you get (if
anything other than pity or a withering stare). A "DSL filter" has two
sockets; one for "the computer" (or "the internet"), the other for "the
telephone". What the gubbins inside does, or even that there is any
gubbins in there, means nothing to the ISP helpdesk, shop assistant,
telephone company helpdesk, or end user. The standard cable that plugs
into the DSL modem or modem/router, is fitted with a plug that doesn't
even fit the UK standard telephone socket.

For example, see <http://www.adsl-filters.co.uk/>,
<http://www.ssiltd.co.uk/products/microfilters/>, or
<http://www.maplin.co.uk/search.aspx?MenuNo=77014&MenuName=ADSL ACCESSORI
ES&FromMenu=y&criteria=ADSL%20ACCESSORIES&doy=28m11&worldid=4> (or
<http://masl.to/?N4282574E> for short).

 

Different in the U.S. then I guess, or at least in my area.
My setup:
Phone Outlet=====DSL Modem====Filter=====Telephone

I've got a bunch of these sitting around as well
http://www.king-cart.com/store/byterunner/dsl-filter.jpg

 

A fully stocked store in Singapore, Australia, Canada or UK also sell
these same microfilters with only one socket - to filter only a
telephone. There need not be a second jack for a DSL modem connection
because DSL modem is not and must not have a filtered connection to
phone line. Basic technology knowledge makes that obvious. DSL modem
must make a direct connection to phone line and DSL provider. That is
fundamental to the technology called DSL. Therefore DSL socket is
labeled - so that user does not accidentally put a microfilter between
DSL modem and phone line.

Any telephone appliance that makes a direct connection to phone line
(without filter) will only diminish or destroy that DSL signal, and may
also suffer noise from that DSL signal. Microfilter function was
understood in Britain in 1981.

Why do you 'only assume'? Because two sockets exist, then you
magically know both must be filtered? If so, then you have no concept
of a technology called DSL and you have not opened one of those
filters. IOW you know without first learning facts.

Some filters provide a second jack in that DSL filter so that DSL
modem makes a direct connection to DSL provider via same wall
receptacle. Whiskers - why are you so quick to 'assume' when your own
citations contradict you?

DSL modem port is not filtered. Telephone port is filtered so that
POTS appliances do not 'eat' DSL signals. Learn about something called
a low-pass filter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSL_splitter

Removing a filter must have no effect on DSL modem (assuming all
connections were properly made). DSL modem makes a direct connection
to phone line. Trying to make a DSL modem work by removing a
microfilter will only prove human failed to make connections with
sufficient care. Whiskers - read your own citations before confusing
lurkers with myths. Get signal strength numbers from DSL modem to
diagnosis DSL problems. Whiskers, learn basic DSL technology and read
your own microfilter citations before deceiving others.

 

snip

snip

w_tom, for your own sake please read what people write rather than make
asumptions without comprehension.

In the UK, it is not possible to plug a DSL modem or modem/router directly
into the telephone socket provided by the telephone company and through
which the DSL connection is delivered. (Unless you cobble together some
sort of adaptor or special cable of your own - which is not recommended,
although if you have no telephone or fax or other analogue equipment in use
then it might work). A device universally (within the UK) known as a "DSL
filter" is required.

When the original poster talks about needing to have a "filter" between
his modem/router and the telephone socket, in a UK context, he is
completely correct. This device separates the data and analogue services;
which in plain English, is the very epitome if what a filter does - ie
separate things which are mixed together. Within the device, if one is
bold enough to investigate, there are some electronic components which
perform the separation or 'filtering'. There is indeed a 'bandwidth
bypass filter' (as the technical jargon has it) to send the high-frequency
data signals to one socket, and the low-frequency analogue signals to the
other socket.

See
<http://www.adslguide.org.uk/howitworks/> and
<http://www.adslguide.org.uk/howitworks/splitter.asp>.

Here are the instructions provided by my current ISP
<http://www.ukfsn.org/support/adsl.html#2>.

 

That is certainly different from the UK. The DSL modems and modem/routers
on sale here, do not (in my experience) have any provision for connecting
an analogue telephone through them, and the "RJ11" connectors provided
with them do not fit our standard "BT 631A" telephone sockets.

The basic arrangement here is:

---telephone
/
Phone Outlet===DSL filter
\
---DSL modem

Our analogue 'dial-up' modems often do have a socket for 'passing through'
a telephone connection, but they need an adaptor to accept a UK style
telephone plug.

 

Whiskers again speculates that DSL technology pioneered in the UK and
found standard throughout the world is somehow completely different.
Did you even bother to read that wikipedia.com citation with a
picture of your UK DSL microfilter? Or do you just know only because
you feel? Why do you post instruction manuals that say nothing about
what is inside the microfilter? Instruction manual shows some
sockets. From a figure, you know everything about that microfilter?
Why do you post citations from adslguide.org.uk that only contradict
what you have speculated? Your speculations even contradict what ham
radio operators must know. Why do I mention ham radio operators? Well
you own citation says:

So you don't understand the technology and yet speculate anyway.
Even that figure in adslguide.org.uk demonstrates why DSL modem must
make a direct unfiltered connection to DSL provider.

Whiskers own citations explain why a DSL modem makes a non-filtered
connection to phone lines via a UK microfilter. The circuit is called
a low pass filter. Do you understand why telephone appliances must
connect to a DSLed phone line via low pass filters? Did you understand
why a POTS appliance without low pass filtering can change termination
impedances as your own citations discuss? Did you understand what a
low pass filter separates? Apparently not because every Whisker's
citation is devoid of technical facts.

Pennywise has also described how DSL filters work everywhere in the
world:

Phone Outlet=====DSL filter-----telephone (POTS appliance)
\
---------------------DSL modem

Whiskers: Learn how DSL works. Don't assume only because you saw two
sockets in a microfilter or read a user's guide. Even wikipedia.com,
using a UK microfilter as example, describes what that microfilter
does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSL_splitter

Removing a microfilter does nothing for solving DSL problems. Even a
broken wire (thereby acting as a filter) will diminish DSL signals.
DSL solutions start by reviewing signal strength numbers from DSL
modem's status page. Diminished signal could be due to a partially
broken wire thereby acting as a filter. A filter anywhere between DSL
modem and DSL provide diminishes a DSL signal. Even wire too long acts
as a filter which is why DSL has a distance limitation AND why thicker
wire (less filtering) permits longer DSL distances. If a DSL
microfilter was anything but a direct connection to DSL modem, then DSL
service would become unreliable.

 

It's never stopped you from claiming that UPS's don't protect devices
connected to them when there is case after case in the real world that
shows they do protect them.

 

No he doesn't. I have not speculated at all about how it works in other
countries, but I have stated and given citations for the way it works here
in the UK. I have given facts.

I saw no wikipedia citation in this thread, so I can't comment on it.

Because what is inside the microfilter is not relevant to the user.

What I cited does not contradict what I have said; it supports it. I have
not speculated.

I never posted that; if you found it on a web site I posted a link to,
then at least have the courtesy to specify which site and where. Ham
radio is a red herring introduced by you, for reason only you know.

I do not speculate. I use the technology, every day.

No, it doesn't.

Just a minute, I thought you said that the citations I gave were full of
facts that contradicted me; where did all those facts suddenly go?

<cough> liar <splutter> That is your diagram, not Pennywise's - but your
diagram looks remarkably like the one I posted illustrating the basic UK
connection, and the way it differs from the diagram posted by Pennywise.
Your diagram does clearly agree with what I've been saying, though - and
contradicts your claims.

The arrangement that seems to be recommended most often in the USA is more
like this:

Phone outlet========================DSL modem
| |
| |
micro-filter micro-filter
| |
| |
telephone telephone

Which will not work in the UK.

I wonder if has occured to you that as I am here in the UK, and using a
self-installed ADSL internet connection set up according to the
description I have given and the various instructions I've linked to, that
perhaps I do know what I'm talking about? You clearly aren't in the UK.

Aha: here's the link to a wikipedia page. Too bad I didn't read this
response to my article before I posted the article it's a response to ...

Too bad that there's a photo right at the top of the page, showing a
UK-style DSL filter, with the caption "A smaller DSL filter that plugs
into the telephone line" and clearly showing the two different sockets
provided by the filter. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DSLfilter.jpg>.
Here in the UK, you can't even plug your DSL modem in, without one of
these.

The recommended connection arrangements in the UK and USA are not the same;
like you, that page seems to be confused. The text may be correct in some
places, but not here. Wikipedia is the last resource I'd rely on for
getting correct complete and accurate facts.

Here's another UK ISP page about it
<http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/php/enduser/cci/bt_adp.php?p_sid=WDm
PPUni&cat_lvl1=346&cat_lvl2=401&cat_lvl3=407&cat_lvl4=408&p_cv=4.408&p_cats
=346,401,407,408&p_faqid=588> or <http://masl.to/?T2A73294E>

..-----
| [...]
| You need a microfilter for every telephone socket on the BT Broadband line
| where you have equipment plugged in, including your broadband
| modem/router, digital television boxes, Sky boxes, alarms, fax machines
| and smartboxes. You can connect a maximum four microfilters to a single BT
| Broadband line.
| [...]
'-----

Can it be made any clearer?

Here in the UK, removing the DSL filter between the DSL modem and the
incoming telphone socket, makes it impossible to plug the DSL modem into
the telephone socket at all (unless you build your own cable or adaptor).
The plug is a different size and shape from the socket. So it is correct
to say that removing that filter won't help solve anything; it just adds
yet another problem. Swapping in different 'filters' is certainly a basic
trouble-shooting technique though, to eliminate a faulty 'filter'.

DSL troubleshooting starts by making sure that things are plugged in
correctly and working properly. The OP has effectively done that, and
apparently narrowed his problem down to 'something to do with the
modem/router' - as the ISP-supplied basic 'modem' works fine.

Only if you contrive to connect the DSL modem to the 'telephone' socket on
the DSL filter; tricky, as they don't fit - but not actually impossible.

snip

 

1.a. your linksys [nb spelling] is not loaded with the
latest firmware update OR it is hopelessly out of date (DOCSIS).