K - Tried that a week ago but no difference. Waiting for Mr BT. Due before 1pm.

TOK

That clears it up, when you said -"The phone wire comes from the master socket to a filter and then a splitter with one wire going to the printer and the other to the BT home hub" - I had assumed that the printer and the hub were on the same circuit.

Mr BT has been and gone. He said the line speed at the master socket was 1.7meg (which was around what I used to get) and dropped to 1.1meg when it reached the filter, after say 8m of wire, and then 0.3 on the computer. He blamed the Home Hub and said he would send me another. I'm not convinced. Could it be the ethernet connection on my computer. It has an ethereal green glow with occasional flashes of orange or is that just normal?

Meanwhile, many, many thanks to K and O for your input.

Kayak, not running the telephone cables alongside mains cables, is that a general rule?

TOK

You should always plug the ADSL unit into the master socket (with as short a lead as possible) and then run an ethernet cable to your computer. It is probably worth buying an Iplate, this is a BT device that costs around 15 (nothing to do with another company that makes c**p mobile phones) this may improve the rate further.

It is not out of the question that the ethernet link is at fault but unlikely, as ethernet runs at least 50 times faster than your broadband link so it should not be a factor.

Windows Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low

This appears a couple of times every day.

Clubman

How much RAM have you on your system?

Keep taskmanager running and note how much memory is being used especially immediately before the message appears.

Currently installed memory:2Gb



1GBDDR PC3200 1GBDDR PC3200

Plateman, I find it makes a lot of difference to the noise margin my router reports.

Suddenly the speed has shot up to 1.1meg. I wonder why?

TOK, 8m of ADSL wire is a lot. Can't you place the home hub closer to the master socket? Also, buying a filter/splitter to replace your master socket will help.

K "filter/splitter" - do you mean Iplate?

No I mean a faceplate to fit directly on your master socket and replace your current filter, such as this one:

http://www.adslnation.com/products/xte2005.php

Replacing your filter with a high quality one such as the one above will help, as will getting rid of the wire to the filter by installing it straight on the socket.

The iPlate is likely to help, possibly even more, but only if you have extension sockets elsewhere in the house. You can fit an iPlate behind an ADSL faceplate.

Of course both these solutions need a new-style BT socket with the test socket inside.

Kayak Thanks for that. Looks a nice bit of kit. But my NTE-5 socket is no longer my master socket. Would there be any benefit fitting it to my existing NTE - 5 socket even though the wiring has been changed?

ok now I'm confused again. Are you saying that BT have made a socket that is not an NTE-5 the master socket, and that the NTE-5 socket is now an extension? They should not have done that.

Clubman

You seem to have plenty of RAM so should not be getting virtual memory warnings.

Virtual memory is the way Windows tops up the available memory by writing it to disk. This slows the machine down but allows it to keep going.

Under normal circumstances with 2GB RAM you should not be getting those warnings. It could be caused by an application that handles memory badly, by having too many applications open or possibly a virus.

As I said above, keep task manager open during the day to see how much memory is being used and which processes are using it.

Thank's Optimist I think you are right I have many applications open during the day.
Moneyam, Bloomberg Radio, share dealing platform, Spreadbetting trading platform.

Kayak - Not as such. Local telephone engineer did the change a couple of years ago. His bill for 45 says: "Fault and re-route existing wiring. Socket in office established as main socket for b/b. LJLL installed in main bedroom"

Clubman

That could be enough to start overloading it, If your machine will accept it, try upgrading the RAM to 3 or 4GB. It costs very little to try it but 32 bit Windows can't use more than about 3.3GB.

You should keep an eye on which programs are using the memory. In my experience, Outlook 2003 and Java applications running on IE7 (less so with IE8) both tend to increase memory usage over time, but everyone will have their own rouge app. Sometimes all you need to do is to close and reopen an app every couple of hours.

Still confused TOK...

LJLL is probably LJU but which socket do you have in which room?

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/btsockets.htm