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micky micky is offline
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Default Folded phone line can mess up DSL.

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 12 May 2018 12:50:56 +1000, Lucifer
Morningstar wrote:

On Fri, 11 May 2018 20:34:49 -0400, micky
wrote:

The networking ng is dormant so I thought I'd report this here.

Folded phone line can mess up DSL.


I think a couple years ago when I had 100 feet of phone line but was
only using 40 feet, but wanted to save the whole 100' in one piec, I had
40 feet played out and 60 feet rolled on the spool, and I asked here or
somewhere else if that could cause a slow DSL connection. And iirc the
answer was no, but I'm not sure of that.

So a couple months ago I finally finish installing my home burglar alarm
and I want to connect it to the monitoring company via the phone line.
Since my main phone connection goes in via the second floor, to the
computer on the 2nd floor, I go to the NIC and put a Y connector in it,
adding back the original wire to the basement. Somewhere I have a 6"
piece of phone wire with modular plugs on the end, but I can't find it,
so I put in one of the cords that comes with most phone devices, maybe 8
feet folded up, maybe 6 circle's-worth, squeezed flat.

This is some time between Thursday and Saturday, and Sunday morning I
leave for two months.

I got back two weeks ago today and the house and car were just the way I
left them, and the computer worked fine. For 3 or 4 days. Then it
stopped loading webpages, except very intermittently (so little as to be
unusable), loaded email and newsgrooups only 20% or 30% of the time.
People told me to call Verizon, as if I hadn't thought of that. But
they charge about $60 if it's not their fault, and anyhow, the point is
to figure it out on my own.

Check the NIC. It's popped open. It's under a roof but maybe it got
wet. Doesn't look wet. After a couple days with no better ideas, I
decide to unplug things in the NIC to give them a chance to dry, and
only then I notice the folded phone cord (with the Y-connector). Take
it out, and everything works fine again.

But how come it worked fine for the first 3 or 4 days I was back? And
at least 12 hours, maybe 2 days, before I left?


On similar lines I was using a network cable that was way
longer than needed and the excess was coiled up.
At 1 gigabit packet loss was around 50%.
I replaced it with a much shorter cable and no packet loss.


Very interesting.

Besides acting as an antenna and picking up interference, I was thinking
something like your or my coiled wiring, this time or the previous time,
could act as a choke. But I'm just guessing.