Keep losing AOL Broadband Connection - Why?

Keep losing AOL Broadband Connection - Why?

Author
Discussion

Clivey

5,108 posts

203 months

Wednesday 24th March 2010
quotequote all
Sixpackpert said:
rgracin said:
We are on AOL
Stop there.

Right there is your problem.

Those 3 letters in that particular order!
Thirded. The worst bit is their AWFUL web browsing & e-mail software.

Anyway, I'd recommend trying to connect directly via Ethernet (in order to tell whether or not it's simply a problem with the WiFi side of things) before trying anything in Command Prompt.

silverthorn2151

6,298 posts

178 months

Wednesday 24th March 2010
quotequote all
I'm not with AOL, I'm with BT. Always have been, and very happy with them.

We recently upgraded to the new BT Infinity service at home. No cost whatsoever, same subscription etc etc. Anyway, having been promised 24mbs connection I was looking forward to it.

Installation was fine and speeds impressive (36mbs on Monday)but the laptops and my netbook just kept losing connections. The whole thing was as good as useless, in the evenings.

Spoke to the BT chappy and by conencting the netbook to the new homehub 2 we changed the wireless channels. He said the channel default is 6 and is often problematic. We tried channel 11, not better, switched to channel 1, fine and dandy!

Now we seem to have good reliable wireless connections to 4 laptops and the Xbox and it's REALLY quick! I was dreading it being a long winded problem, but an easy fix. Would the same apply to some of the other problems discused here?


Dave_ST220

10,288 posts

204 months

Wednesday 24th March 2010
quotequote all
If you are with BT for the line dial 17070 & do quiet line test, do you hear anything?

Chimune

3,159 posts

222 months

Friday 26th March 2010
quotequote all
Sixpackpert said:
rgracin said:
We are on AOL
Stop there.

Right there is your problem.

Those 3 letters in that particular order!
Hehe.

My filters get all gunged up. I just hoover them out every 6 months. I spend the money saved on replacing them, to purchase bband from a proper supplier.

bogie

16,342 posts

271 months

Friday 26th March 2010
quotequote all
in their defense, ive never used the AOL software of any kind...just a user/password to access the network

im on a BT Wholesale 8Mbps line, just as any other provider would give on my exchange, its a small village, no-one has their own kit in it

originally went with AOL years ago when they were the only ones with unlimited download and no traffic shaping...this was after BT sent me a proforma invoice for £200 one month for going over my download limit with them of 40GB on their "unlimited" package

every time ive tried to leave theyve offered a package better than anyone else for unlimited use, so no reason to go elsewhere yet


rgracin

Original Poster:

601 posts

211 months

Monday 29th March 2010
quotequote all
Right.

I've run the "ping" test with the laptop connected to the router with the yellow cable. There is definitley losses in connection. Over the various time scales I run it for ranging between 20 mins and 2 hours, there was a loss of 2% to 3%. Before I give BT a call (Ipresume it's down to them) I will borrow the in-laws router and connect via that to make sure it's not the router losing the connection.


Sixpackpert

4,538 posts

213 months

Monday 29th March 2010
quotequote all
My parents had AOL for ages. Terrible connection that kept dropping out/slowing down etc etc.

Managed to get them changed over to BT broadband and all the problems vanished.

Have a look through here http://www.dslreports.com/forum/aolplus

rgracin

Original Poster:

601 posts

211 months

Wednesday 31st March 2010
quotequote all
Well, Called BT. They did a remote line check. No issues. they said that if phone is working fine then it will be the broadband provider.

Called AOL back. Explained it all...again! The guy from the overseas call centre talked me through and onto the netgear settings site and eventually changed a number in a box from "1492" to "1450". Hey presto, has all been fine since.

WTF is that all about?? I've spent a fortune on their "helpline". I asked him to explain what it was he asked me to change, but as it's not on their script I got nowhere.

Anyone got any ideas what it was?

Scraggles

7,619 posts

223 months

Wednesday 31st March 2010
quotequote all
http://help.expedient.com/broadband/mtu.shtml

aol is crap lets face it, great for the numpties and not a lot else

friend had aol, got adsl and wanted to use 2 pc's on the lan, impossible, he needed 2 aol accounts

so binned aol, connection speed increased and a lot cheaper

malman

2,258 posts

258 months

Wednesday 31st March 2010
quotequote all
rgracin said:
Well, Called BT. They did a remote line check. No issues. they said that if phone is working fine then it will be the broadband provider.

Called AOL back. Explained it all...again! The guy from the overseas call centre talked me through and onto the netgear settings site and eventually changed a number in a box from "1492" to "1450". Hey presto, has all been fine since.

WTF is that all about?? I've spent a fortune on their "helpline". I asked him to explain what it was he asked me to change, but as it's not on their script I got nowhere.

Anyone got any ideas what it was?
he got you to change the mtu size

http://help.aol.co.uk/what-is-an-mtu-setting-and/a...

AOL if I remember rightly use a smaller packet size than the rest of the world for some reason

editited after I found AOl link


Edited by malman on Wednesday 31st March 11:49

silverthorn2151

6,298 posts

178 months

Wednesday 31st March 2010
quotequote all
Could a similar thing be happening with my BT Infinity. Posted earlier about changing the channel and how that has helped but we are still getting laptops dropping the connection in the evenings.

The Xbox360 seems perfect and doesn't drop connection.

rgracin

Original Poster:

601 posts

211 months

Wednesday 31st March 2010
quotequote all
Ahh. that explains it a bit more, thanks. So would it be the Router changed the MTU setting by default after being turned off or something? Trying to get my head round why it had been fine for ages, then suddenly started playing up.