[plug] Westnet DSL troubles: probably not linux issue - firmware?

[Craig Ringer]

> | According to the TW website:  DSL-300. Firmware Version becomes R1.14AU
> | of July,17 2001.  Been a while since the last update...
> 
> Ours claims to have firmware R2.05.b4t6, ADSL driver version 
> 1.3.5.03182002.0001.  It came from the Iinet web site somewhere.  If you
> want, I can dig up the URL for it.  We've still been getting lousy
> connection times with it (almost always <12hrs, generally less).  Back when
> we were on dialup, we used to stay connected for 24hrs at a time, often a
> lot longer.  Whether it's Telstra, Iinet or D-Link to blame, I don't know.

Please note that the command line reports a DIFFERENT version number to 
the windows-based config utility, or at least has some more garbage in 
it. I'll ask mine what version it thinks it is over the cmd line when I 
get home. The management util (laptops rock for this stuff) says 1.14a 
and there is no update I am aware of. When I asked it over the command 
line I remember it said something different but didn't note down what. 
Will post it in a couple of hours.

BTW when your connection goes down, does the ADSL LINK light on the 
modem go out? Ours does usually and sometimes stays out for 5, 10 
minutes or occasionally up to 2 hours. Not a happy thing, especially 
since in addition to that we've had 3 Telstra-caused network outages 
since signing up. Uptimes are from 15 minutes to 14 hours, disconnects 
randomly distributed across that time frame. If this matches your 
experience I'd be very interested since you, too, use a DSL-300. It 
might indicate borked hardware not just crap lines, and if we can 
identify a systematic problem with that DSL modem p'haps we can _all_ 
get it fixed faster. Or replaced - my Alcatel SpeedTouch at work has 
_never_ gone down except when Telstra kills the exchange.

-- 
Craig Ringer
GPG Key Fingerprint: AF1C ABFE 7E64 E9C8 FC27  C16E D3CE CDC0 0E93 380D
	-- if it ain't broke, add features 'till it is. (or:)
	while (! broken) { features ++ ; broken = isBroken(features) }