actodesco wrote:
On 4/2/2020 11:27 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

Did you try rebooting your router? Just power cycle it.

With my ISP I usually HAVE to re-boot my modem/router every few days.
When you can't connect on the internet, you look at the modem, ah, red
light, power down, count to 5 and then repower.

You're not going to believe this, but I've had three incidents
where a lack of performance on phone wires was caused by conditions
*inside* the house. I know that Frontier has a reputation for
"sucking" in some locales, so we have to consider that.

The last time I had ADSL trouble, it was a noise-on-mains problem.
Electrical noise on the 115VAC house wiring, could knock out the
modem and cause the red light to come on. It used to happen
at 9PM, when the SNR is the poorest.

1) I had an old CRT TV set operating. This is back just
before NTSC over-the-air transmissions were shut down.
I look at the TV set, and I notice a "herringbone" pattern
overlaid on the TV picture. I didn't make too much of this
observation at the time.

2) I get the red light on the modem.

3) I go around the room, looking for stuff to shut off.
I turn off my second PC... and the herringbone pattern
disappears. As well, the modem stops acting up. No more
red light.

4) I replaced the ATX supply on my second PC. No more
herringbone pattern. No more loss of sync and red light.

The ATX supply has a pair of switching transistors on the front
end. Some fault in that part of the circuit, caused noise to
go back through the PSU line filter and into the mains. And that's
where the herringbone pattern came from. I could see no visibly
defective components inside (and since I hate high voltage,
I'm not sticking my hands in there when its hot).

With modern digital TV sets (LCD screen) there's a good chance you'll
never see that. But an old analog set with the CRT picture tube,
the "noise-on-mains" goes through all the HV power supply, and
modulates the picture. And in my case, I could use it as a crude
"problem detector".

If you have an analog TV set, but the antenna signal is no longer
available, you can feed the TV from a VCR (S-video or channel 3),
just to get a steady picture, and still look for the herringbone pattern.

That's because the herringbone pattern leaks in through the power cable,
and doesn't come down the antenna wire.

*******

An alternative method, is to place a two or three stage AC line filter
before the wall adapter of the ADSL modem. These cost around $70 when
you used to be able to buy them as a separate item. They filter noise
below about 35MHz or so.

The ADSL modem is sensitive to "thru noise". One of the reasons my
ADSL2+ modem has two stages of DC regulation, is an attempt by the
engineer to stop thru noise on power. If you look at the PCB of the
ADSL modem, you'll see someone has gone to a great deal of trouble
to "balance" the twisted pair signals and their layout as they
work their way through the front end of the modem. Most of the
modem "floats" electrically, and this means there is precious
little that can be done to "filter" stuff. The design "asks for trouble"
in a sense. But, that's the way it must be designed. The DAA is
rated for around 1100V withstanding, and it needs to survive having
a power line outside your house, fall on the phone line and zap it.
And do that, without electrocuting you. It's because of some of these
diverse requirements, that it's not all it could be. It's pretty
amazing that it works as well as it does.

Anyway, have a look at your setup, and you decide whether your
conditions in the house might be a factor.

Another one of my adventures, was caused by the phone wiring.
A junction box on the baseboard, examination of the contacts
in the jack, showed corrosion. I ran a separate wire from the
demarcation point up to the computer room, to eliminate all
the crusty old wiring. And that made an improvement back in
the day when I was having troubles (only 33K on a 56K modem,
after rewire went to 46K or so).

To get phone wire, only my one electronics store was able
to supply me with wire intended for the purpose. They could
measure off a hunk for me, and that's what I used to run a
wire from the basement. Sometimes the hardware store has
a reel of that stuff. Since both the demarc and the new baseboard
jack, have screw terminals, installation is a cinch. The wire
in that case is solid copper wire, maybe 22ga or so, four conductor,
yellow/green/black/red.

Paul