Pls help me get my parents ISDN working

jisystems

I originally posted this in the broadband forum

Hi Guys I wonder if you could pls help. My parents live in Gorey, Wexford and for the past year have used Eircoms ISDN service. DSL is available in they town but according to the Eircom web site both there phone lines “fail” the test. if you don’t mind maybe you guys can help me get the ISDN working correctly I would be happy with the IDSN if it worked but there definitely is a problem but Eicrom won’t acknowledge it. When they connect to Eircom XP says connected at 64k but with every speed test we try we get results as if we had 14,400 modem. Its driving me crazy Eircom has “tested” the line from there end (without sending a tech out to the house) and they say the line is fine. I was under the impression that if you could connect with ISDN you should be getting a constant speed…(and not that of a 14.4 modem :-) ) . They have a brand new PC (3 days old) and are still getting the same speeds; I really think it’s a line problem I would be SO gratefull of any help or trouble shooting ideas. The trouble is that I live in the US and it’s hard to get anything done from here

Thanks in advance

jayok

Hi jisystems,

I too use ISDN on remote sites where broadband fails and to be fair to eircom (even though they are muppets) if you're connecting at 64K then you are probably getting 64K. Is this an Internal or External ISDN TA? This is important because the port settings may affect how it behaves. What is the make and model of the card?

One was to test the line would be to dial-out the A channel and back in the B channel and doing an upload / download to see the throughput you should be getting 8Kb/s.

Other troubleshooting tips? Well I know you're probably sick of this, but what's the XP port speed through Device Manager? Often this is overlooked. What if you combine the channels in a multilink configuration?

So many questions!

JayoK

jisystems

Thanks JayoK
Thank you for your response and will happily answer all you questions. They are using the Draytek 128 minivigor USB , they seem to be able to connect one channel using the NDISWAN connection every time but when they use the ISDN PPP single channel it works 1 out of 5. As for MLPPP same thing it works one out of every five and when it does it seems to drop a channel all the time and still is slow. As for the port speed they are 3 entries for the modem all set with the port speed at 115000 I know my way around a PC but I’m not that good with ISDN how would I perform that “loopback test”.

Thanks in advance for any help

Steve

RicardoSmith

I don't know much about ISDN but I installed\uninstalled and reinstalled about 15 Draytek 128 minivigor USB modems last week on Windows XP. Had problems with nearly all of them. I was using XP. The kinda problems I had was that it would blue screen occasionally. I had to connect multiple times to get a connection, and sometimes I just couldn't get a connection. Our solution was to replace it with a external COM port modem. Had no problems from then on. The DIVA TA and the Webflyer DSS seems to give no problems. The Draytek's were a real pain to uninstall as well. I also tested about 8 other types of ISDN modems aswell.

My advice borrow a com port modem and see if the connection improves.

jisystems

Well I know its not the PC and Eircom says its not the line so I think you might be right the modem could be the problem. I will try and see if they can borrow one to try, will any ISDN modem work with Eircom or does it have to be a certain type ?

Thanks again guys

jayok

Ahhh... you're using a Draytek (read piece of sh**te). Had way to many problems with these units. Try to get an Eicon DIVA unit if you can, they seem to best the best out there. Let us know how you get on.

Jason.

jisystems

Looks like the Draytek has to go…I was thinking of picking them up a cheap ISDN modem on ebay, can I get any modem or does Eircom need a certain type? Sorry for all the questions

jayok

Hi Steve,

Eircom doesn't have any particular requirement, but make sure it's supports European switching (DSS-1, I think is the name). TBH I find the Eicon Diva the best, its well supported, has good diagnostic tools, easy to install and of course works with the European signalling switching.

BTW, I assume this is set correctly on the current TA?

Jason.

jisystems

To be honest I don’t know if it’s set up correctly on the TA how would I be able to tell? Again thank you if would be great if I could get this working for them


Thanks

Steve


BTW when I did a search for the Eicon Diva I came up with USB, PCI and the old favorite serial. Is one better than the other ?

RicardoSmith

The Eicon ones I've seen were the DIVA 850/852 had a USB and a com port. I only used them via the com port. USB modems can be troublesome in my experience. I noted that if you let XP auto install the driver for the Eicon, from the CD, it picks the wrong one. You have to point it at the XP one.

Of the ones I tried. The ones that worked with XP were , Webflyer DSS, Zyxel Ominet, Diva T/A, Xircom ISDN PC card. Ones that either work or gave trouble under XP were the Mini Vigor Draytek (USB), LASAT speed basic, DeteWe ISN telephone.

jisystems

You guys are great…thank you…I was looking at this one on e bay (as the seller is in Ireland) do you think it might work ?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3692&item=6703908401&rd=1

jayok

Did you get a setup program for the TA? If so you'll find the ISDN configuration in here. The default is normally NI1 or something like that, switch it to the European ISDN (EDSS-1) type.

As for the best Diva, like RicardoSmith said, you've the 850/852, but use only the serial port (not USB) and you'll need the correct drivers off the CD. Alternatively I use the PCI Diva as it requires no external power supply and are relatively straightforward - also XP supports the card directly.

More info:

http://www.eicon.com/worldwide/products/ISDN/DivaISDN.htm

An Irish vendor

http://www.pcsource.ie/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=25&products_id=721931&osCsid=94adaaa65bc0c1b359f2edec7c64e04d

But you should be able to pick it up off ebay.co.uk cheaper.

Jason

jisystems

A few more questions and I promise I will leave you in peace…I have not been to my parent’s house since they had it installed I guess the TA is the “big white box “they refer to. If this is the case how do I access it to check its setup? , from what they have told me (don’t forget they are parents and not too good with tech stuff) the Draytek is connected to the TA (big white box) by a phone lead.

Again sorry for the questions

jayok

jisystems wrote:

You guys are great…thank you…I was looking at this one on e bay (as the seller is in Ireland) do you think it might work ?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3692&item=6703908401&rd=1

Hmmm... seem to be out of sync with my messages!

The 3Com units are equally fine and for €10 + shipping you can't go too far wrong. Again though experience has taught me to connect these via a serial port. You will need the driver CD though, but the vendor ships this so all should be ok.

As for the install this is fairly straightforward. Install the s/w first and then the TA and the drivers will load correctly. Then configure the switch, your line number and you're done!

Jason.

jayok

jisystems wrote:

A few more questions and I promise I will leave you in peace…I have not been to my parent’s house since they had it installed I guess the TA is the “big white box “they refer to. If this is the case how do I access it to check its setup? , from what they have told me (don’t forget they are parents and not too good with tech stuff) the Draytek is connected to the TA (big white box) by a phone lead.

Again sorry for the questions

Ah, what Eircom have delivered is there Plug and Play ISDN product which is basically a ISDN NTU box with and convertor circuits on board to support analog lines. Manafactured by siemens it was eircom's attempt at support analog over ISDN for the masses and pure digitial for the specialists. On this box there's three ports, 2 x ISDN ports (one for each channel, though the channels can be combined onto one physical port). This is the big-white-box on the wall.

So, your folks Draytek (the TA) plugs via a RJ45 cable to this unit into either ISDN port.Then from there to the back of the PC via a USB cable. This could be any colour, white, grey, black.

Small thing, I assume when you say phone lead, you mean a RJ45 cable? Looks like an ethernet cable. For you folks, looks like an inch wide clear plastic plug on either end and you can see the coloured cables in it (I had this with my mum and her ISDN connection! ).

Jason.