Problems with 877w

[Pawel Lenart]

Hi all,

I have few problems with my 877w and I was hoping someone can help me.

1. NTP server

When I setup NTP server to take time from uk.pool.ntp.org everything is working fine but as soon as I reset my router during boot I can see that router is first trying to get time before it's even connected to ATM and when it can't get time from NTP server it's removing NTP line from configuration (

ntp server uk.pool.ntp.org source Dialer0 ). Can someone tell me how I setup to wait with sync and do it once ATM connection is up and established? Or can someone tell me how to get IOS to leave this line and sync with NTP every 10 min)?

2. When I download files from internet (download speed around 2mb/s - ADSL2+ connection from BT, C870 ADVSECURITY K9 and 15.1(3) firmware) my internet connection is dropped. Can someone tell me how to fix this problem?

[Peter Paluch]

Pawel,

Your NTP issue is strange. I must admit I have not yet seen a router itself removing an NTP server from its configuration. In any case, would you try modifying the command line as follows?

ntp server uk.pool.ntp.org prefer

i.e. don't refer to the source interface, and instead, declare the server as the preferred NTP server. There is no need to refer to the Dialer0 interface, as it will still be the egress interface, and the source IP of the NTP queries will be taken from it.

Regarding your internet connection, what exactly do you mean by "internet connection is dropped" - does the Dialer0 interface go down? Does the router report a link failure on the ATM/DSL interface? Or do just the downloads slow down and eventually stall but the DSL connection is stable?

Best regards,

Peter

[johnlloyd_13]

Hi Pawel,

Could you try configuring your NTP server by using an IP address instead of a hostname? I suspect your 877 is doing a domain look up that's why it's taking some time to sync upon boot up. Try other NTP severs as well as this could be due to a geographic loacation.

For your item 2, please post your show dsl interface and show run output.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[Peter Paluch]

John,

Good point! I was thinking about it as well but the thing is that the pool.ntp.org hostnames actually resolve to a number of IP addresses for load balancing and high availability reasons. Sticking with a particular IP address as an NTP IP address may in future cause problems if that IP address ceases to provide NTP services.

Nevertheless, at least worth trying.

Best regards,

Peter

[johnlloyd_13]

Hey Peter,

I considered that as well but OP can configure multiple NTPs with different IP addresses just to keep the router's time in sync.

We also have 877s configured with ATM interface as the prefered source not sure why but i was hoping if you could shed a light on this.

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[paolo bevilacqua]

Unfortunately DNS-based load balancing doesn't work with NTP on routers.

The reason is the the router resolves the name only once, that is when it's configured intially, or on reboots.

So, you can as well configure two or three servers by IP, and leave it like that.

[Pawel Lenart]

Thanks for all your tips in regards to NTP. I will try them and I will post an update later today. In terms of broadband dropping here are some info:

Alcatel 20190 chipset information

                ATU-R (DS)                      ATU-C (US)

Modem Status:    Showtime (DMTDSL_SHOWTIME)

DSL Mode:        ITU G.992.5 (ADSL2+) Annex A

ITU STD NUM:     0x03                            0x2

Chip Vendor ID:  'STMI'                          'IFTN'

Chip Vendor Specific:  0x0000                    0x71BE

Chip Vendor Country:   0x0F                      0xB5

Modem Vendor ID: 'CSCO'                          '    '

Modem Vendor Specific: 0x0000                    0x0000

Modem Vendor Country:  0xB5                      0x00

Serial Number Near:    FCZ11222250

Serial Number Far:    

Modem VerChip ID:        C196 (0)

DFE BOM:         DFE3.0 Annex A (1)

Capacity Used:   99%                             100%

Noise Margin:     2.5 dB                          6.5 dB

Output Power:    20.0 dBm                        12.5 dBm

Attenuation:     17.5 dB                          6.0 dB

FEC ES Errors:    0                               0

ES Errors:        1                               0

SES Errors:       1                               0

LOSES Errors:     1                               2

UES Errors:       0                              143

Defect Status:   None                            None                       

Last Fail Code:  None

Watchdog Counter: 0x77

Watchdog Resets: 0

Selftest Result: 0x00

Subfunction:     0x00

Interrupts:      8247 (0 spurious)

PHY Access Err:  0

Activations:     1

LED Status:      ON

LED On Time:     100

LED Off Time:    100

Init FW:         init_AMR-4.0.015_no_bist.bin

Operation FW:    AMR-4.0.015.bin

FW Source:       embedded

FW Version:      4.0.15

                 DS Channel1      DS Channel0   US Channel1       US Channel0

Speed (kbps):             0            20083             0              1264

DS User cells:            0          1224761

US User & Idle cells:                                     0          2522033

Reed-Solomon EC:          0                0             0                 0

CRC Errors:               0                3             0                32

Header Errors:            0                3             0                 7

Total BER:                0E-0           1087E-11

Leakage Average BER:      0E-0           1087E-11

Interleave Delay:         0               39             0                15

                        ATU-R (DS)      ATU-C (US)

Bitswap:               enabled            enabled

LOM Monitoring : Disabled

DMT Bits Per Bin

000: 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 6 8 A B C C D D D

010: E F F F F F F F F F F F E E E E

020: 0 1 2 2 3 4 4 5 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 A

030: A A B B B B C C C D D D D D D E

040: E E E E E E E E E F E F F E F F

050: F F F F F F F F E F F F E F E E

060: E E F F E E E E 2 E E E E E 0 E

070: E E E E E E E E E E E E E 4 4 0

080: 0 1 E E E E E E D E E E D E D D

090: D D D E D D D D D E D E D D D D

0A0: D D E D D D D D D D D D D D D D

0B0: D D D D D D D D D D D D 0 D D 0

0C0: D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D

0D0: D C C D D D D D D D C C D D D C

0E0: C D D D D D D C C D D D D D C D

0F0: D C D 0 D D C D D D C C D C C C

100: C C C C C C C C C C C D C C C C

110: C C C C C C C C C B C C B C C C

120: B B B 0 B B B B B B B B B B B B

130: B B B B B B B B B B B B B C C C

140: C C C C C C C C C B C C B B C C

150: C B C C B B B B B B B B 0 B B B

160: B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B

170: B B B B B A A B B B B B A A B A

180: B B A A B A A B A A A A A A A A

190: A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A

1A0: A A A A A A A A 9 A 9 9 9 9 9 9

1B0: 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9

1C0: 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 8 9

1D0: 9 8 8 8 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

1E0: 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 7 7 7 7 7 7 7

1F0: 7 7 7 7 7 7 6 6 6 5 5 4 4 4 2 2

Broadband is dropping which means that status and protocol is up but connection to ISP is lost (pings to outside are dropping, I'm loosing my sttaic IP address and it's not coming back on. I need to reset router or restart interface). May this have something to do with MTU?

[johnlloyd_13]

hi pawel,

your DSL SNR is below average. report this to your SP to have it fixed.

[David Santos]

Noise Margin:     2.5 dB    6.5 dB

These values are not acceptable

Try to change cables and if it does not solves the problem  please report problem to ISP.

[Pawel Lenart]

Hi David,

What is average noise margin? I checked couple differnt routers on different broadband connections (with different cables & ADSL filters) and most of them have noise margin like my router and they don't have this problem.

I phoned my ISP and they run some basic tests on my phone line but they can't fine any problem. I next next couple of days I'm expecting engineer that will look into it from my side.