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

Kayak - Before we bought the property some three years ago there were two landlines. When we arrived one had been discontinued. I think at that stage there were two master sockets, one inside the house, in the lounge,
and an exterior one in a box where the line surfaces from underground.

I remember having to have a telephone engineer in to sort out the wiring. I think it was because one extension upstairs was not working as it had been fed from the outside socket which had been disconnected (with me so far?)

Anyway, we were left with a master socket in the lounge and two extensions upstairs, one of which did not have an ADSL filter as the outlet was buiried behind built-in furniture.

After some months it became apparent in conversations with the cognoscenti in Calcutte that the Gold Standard was to have broadband connected to a master socket. So another engineer was commissioned to move the master socket from the lounge to the office and while he was here I had him put a socket on the wire/telephone in the bedroom so that the line could be filtered.

So we now have a former master socket in the lounge, a socket in the bedroom and a master socket (not NTE 5) in the office.

Life may not be simple but it is beautiful!

Well unfortunately the ADSL faceplate and iplate both need an NTE-5 to work. You can of course get BT to install one but they would charge a lot, or you could buy an NTE-5 on ebay and fit it yourself. It is not difficult, but never tell BT what you did :-)

It does sound like your speed could improve drastically by installing the faceplate and iplate. Bad internal wiring is the main reason for poor speeds.

I'll sleep on it. Many thanks again for all your help (not forgetting Opti) Goodnight.

Just as a matter of interest, my home line rental and broadband is now completely with TalkTalk as my exchange has been unbundled. If I were to move my master socket, who do I have to feel irresponsible to? :-)

PC World taking pre orders for Windows 7, home version 50, prof 100. States its a 50% reduction on RRP

Mrs Calcutta telephoned to see if I'm happy after the BT engineer's visit. I told her I was now getting 1.2 down and she said the line had been set at 1.7 However, she said she would set my "rastro" (couldn't quite make that out) profile at 2.5 so that I could get over 2meg. What's she talking about, please Kayak? I promised her a big hug if it worked but she didn't seem impressed'

Jeff - Amazon have cheaper time-limited offer.

I don't think they do hugs in Calcutta...

There is always confusion about three different numbers. The physical line speed is the one at which your router is physically connecting to the exchange. You can get this from the router statistics pages. It is a number you should know and you really can't make sense of Mrs Calcutta unless you do. That together with the "attenuation" and "noise margin" show how welll your line is performing.

The second number is the data throughput. This can never be higher than the line speed, for obvious reasons. That is what you are measuring with speed tests and it is dependent not only on the physical line speed but on the performance of the ISP's network.

However, because of the way the IP (Internet Protocol) works, the ISP network needs to know how fast your line is physically. Otherwise, it will pump a lot of data through its network which will be thrown away at your end because it can't get down your slow line and it will have to be retransmitted from the other end causing a lot of additional load on the network. Unfortunately the physical line speed is not easily available at the IP level and so the third number, an 'IP profile' is used which is lower than the line speed you normally connect at and gives the ISP an indication of how much data it can pump down the line.

So translating, I think your conversation boiled down to you telling her that you were getting 1.2 (throughput) in a speed test, whereupon she said that the IP profile (maximum throughput) had been set to 1.7. She would set your IP profile to 2.5 so that you might see over 2 in a speed test. One can't really check whether all this makes sense without knowing your physical connection speed and attenuation/noise margin.

Rastro could have been RADSL (rate adaptive DSL). Are you on a 2 meg max service?

Looks like I'll have to hop on a plane and give Mrs C her hug. She did as promised: 2meg plus this morning.

Figures from the huib show (down/up)Noise margin 9.6dB/18.0dB
Line attenuation 59dB/31.5
Output power 18.6dBm/12.1
ADSL line status connection information: Down 2656 kbps/Up448

Service is "up to 8meg" LOL

On reflection, Mrs C will have to wait. Off on hols tomorrow.

Looks like a good result. At 59db your line to the exchange is either very long or of bad quality. You're pretty lucky to get 2656kbps. A better quality filter might help (e.g. the ADSLnation one, either the XF-1e or the faceplate previously discussed). ADSL2 might give you a bit more speed.

Kayak - 2300m from the exchange. I'm happy with what's being delivered if it's maintained. So I'll leave well alone for now. Many thanks again for your interest, guidance and general help.

had an upgrade,

and the result is WOW

7/16/2009 1:08 PM GMT 47.57 Mb/s 1.65 Mb/s 28 ms London

Just checked mine (Zen Internet)

Down: 2656 Kbs Att: 61db noise 7db
Up: 448 Kbs Att: Att: 15.5 db noise 15 db

Guess I'm lucky too. I doubt if changing the filter (or the oil ;-) would make much difference, but I might invest in one of those fancy filters anyway.

FWIW, Virgin cutting their 50MB service to 28/month from September (+11 for phone line)

I've fitted a new ADSL filter from ADSLnation as recommended by Kayak.

Comparative results (this morning - speeds are always a bit variable):

Before:

Down: 2626 Kbs Att: 61db noise margin 7db
Up: 448 Kbs Att: Att: 15.5 db noise margin 15 db

After:

Down: 2626 Kbs Att: 60db noise margin 9db
Up: 448 Kbs Att: Att: 15 db noise margin 15.5 db

The significant thing is the notable improvement in the downlink noise margin which has reached the next standard threshold of 9db.