Intermittent 100% packet loss

[pullywooly]

Hello, I am currently suffering from intermittent periods of 100% packet loss.

I recently moved and my providers (SSE, in the UK) have supplied me with a technicolour router.

Using pingplotter, I have determined the issue to likely be occurring at hop 2 - daisy group.net. This drop is consistent when contacting google or pingplotter.

My isp have determined no issue in the line (pingplotter has found issues in other locations, but the final location seems to have 0% loss when it decides to work), and will be sending an engineer out. Is there anything else I should be looking at before this occurs to narrow down the problem?

Edit: the packet loss will be 0 for a seemingly random period of time, with long periods of 100% loss.


Update: The packet loss seems to correlate to the connection on my partners mobile phone. When she disconnects, packet loss drops to 0. Any reason for such an occurrence, such that I can prevent it in future?

 

[camieabz]

Double check all internal wiring before engineer arrives. If wiring fault at your end (i.e. on your side of the faceplate), you'll get billed for the engineer attendance. Other than that, see what the engineer says.

 

[pullywooly]

I’ve been assured of no charge for the engineer on this occasion in writing, so that should don’t be a problem thankfully

I’ll do my own research on checking the wiring now, but is there a simple checklist of sorts to go through?

 

[camieabz]

There's nothing really, other than common sense stuff, such as:

- Do all tests over ethernet (not via wireless or USB plugs etc.)

- Don't use excessively long cables if you can use short ones

- Use cables that are shielded over non-shielded where possible

- If you have alternative cables available, swap them around to see if tests are consistent, regardless of the cables in place

- If possible, plug directly into the internal faceplate socket (remove bottom half of faceplate to see it, where specific face plate applicable). This is what BT engineer does too, to test line without interference from internal wiring (if unsure, don't bother).

If you DO have old kit in the house, such as very old master socket or slave sockets, or the house is likely to have old phone wiring within, play the "I know nothing" card with the engineer and ask questions about getting them replaced. "Never touch wiring myself" etc. You might get a kindly engineer, if the work to do it is very easy.

 

[pullywooly]

Update: The packet loss seems to correlate to the connection on my partners mobile phone. When she disconnects, packet loss drops to 0. Any reason for such an occurrence, such that I can prevent it in future?

 

[bill001g]

You will see delays and loss in hop 2 if you are exceeding your bandwidth you purchase from the ISP. Could be the phone is using a lot of bandwidth.

There is a extremely small chance that router has some bug since errors on the wan port would also cause loss to hop 2 but this is extremely unlikley