Hardware, software, bleeagh
May. 24th, 2008 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksHow much of my life have I wasted trying to get various bits of computer hardware to work with various other bits? I dread to think, but you can add another hour today, when I, finally, decided to connect my old printer to my new computer. Hell, I hadn't even noticed that the old printer had a USB slot, so I had previously thought that, because the new computer did not have a parallel port, I couldn't fix A to B.
However, linking up the computer to the printer physically was just the start. Actually getting the printer to work with Vista was a minefield. It took me about four failed software installations before I finally got it right.
One plus to all this was that I found a drop-down panel on the front of the computer that I didn't even know was there. This opened up like some marvellous secret compartment to reveal four USB ports that I didn't know I had.
So, some good came of it all, even if it does mean that Tesco will now be ridiculously crowded when I get round to visiting.
And it STILL seems that my computer won't get a throughput of above 500kbps. I've followed all of the relevant instructions and it really ought to have speeded up to about 4Mbps to 6MBps by now. But, no such luck. Phoning PT Broadband about this is virtually pointless, but you have to do that to get through to BT Wholesale, which eventually takes you through to BT OpenReach, who might, just might, have someone who knows enough about ADSL Max to fix it. Farcical. The problem with all that is that I've already done the things that they will tell me to do "and then wait a few days to see if it improves". The ADSL Max system is, it seems to me, fundamentally flawed on a number of levels, and I'd be much happier back on my old "guaranteed" 2MBPs system rather than have a system that tells me that I should be capable of 6MBPs, if only the exchange would increase its throughput configuration to above 500KBPs. The trouble is, of course, that you can't get them to do it, because they say that your internal wiring is at fault and that's why the auto-speed adjusting system hasn't shifted upwards. Except that I've done everything to fix the internal wiring (right the way down to taking of the faceplate of the master socket and bypassing my internal wiring altogether), which is how the system has been operating for the past 84 hours).
This flat appears to have 30 years of bodged BT work to cope with, and the obvious solution is to rip it all out and start again. Now, how on earth do I go about achieving that?
____________
However, linking up the computer to the printer physically was just the start. Actually getting the printer to work with Vista was a minefield. It took me about four failed software installations before I finally got it right.
One plus to all this was that I found a drop-down panel on the front of the computer that I didn't even know was there. This opened up like some marvellous secret compartment to reveal four USB ports that I didn't know I had.
So, some good came of it all, even if it does mean that Tesco will now be ridiculously crowded when I get round to visiting.
And it STILL seems that my computer won't get a throughput of above 500kbps. I've followed all of the relevant instructions and it really ought to have speeded up to about 4Mbps to 6MBps by now. But, no such luck. Phoning PT Broadband about this is virtually pointless, but you have to do that to get through to BT Wholesale, which eventually takes you through to BT OpenReach, who might, just might, have someone who knows enough about ADSL Max to fix it. Farcical. The problem with all that is that I've already done the things that they will tell me to do "and then wait a few days to see if it improves". The ADSL Max system is, it seems to me, fundamentally flawed on a number of levels, and I'd be much happier back on my old "guaranteed" 2MBPs system rather than have a system that tells me that I should be capable of 6MBPs, if only the exchange would increase its throughput configuration to above 500KBPs. The trouble is, of course, that you can't get them to do it, because they say that your internal wiring is at fault and that's why the auto-speed adjusting system hasn't shifted upwards. Except that I've done everything to fix the internal wiring (right the way down to taking of the faceplate of the master socket and bypassing my internal wiring altogether), which is how the system has been operating for the past 84 hours).
This flat appears to have 30 years of bodged BT work to cope with, and the obvious solution is to rip it all out and start again. Now, how on earth do I go about achieving that?
____________
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
The USB Secret Garden
Date: 2008-05-24 03:04 pm (UTC)And it's not like you can't write your own printer driver for Vista. *Ow Ow Ow My Head*
I mean, none of this stuff is difficult. *Ow Ow Ow My Head*
I am with you on this one. Indeed, I have probably wasted ten times as much effort on this sort of thing as you have. Just moving Windows XP from a failing drive to a brand-new one (which I was forced to do a few weeks back) is a pointless and aggravating nightmare.
The idiocy of USB, on which John Dvorak has blogged, is a perfect exemplar. This is the closest we have to a universal interface. It's just four frigging wires, for God's sake. Yet do we have a standard phsical form? Oh no. That would be too easy.
*Ow Ow Ow My Head Hurts*
It is possible that your ADSL woes are copper-related, though I very much doubt it. The proof of this particular pudding, if I read between the lines aright, is that you used to have a functioning 2MB service on exactly the same wires.
As I've mentioned, I've worked with ADSL spectrum management, and it's a fiendishly complicated technical beast. Not so difficult that I couldn't write a package for, say, 100,000 customers, all with the shiny in-house BT modem, though.
The problem is, as always, Marketing. Two or three years ago, the competition for extending broadband service was pretty cut-throat. The obvious solution would be to improve what you offer at a technical level. The route chosen by Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse and all the other barrow-boys following in the grand tradition of Alan Sugar was to offer the poor broadband noob a fantastically unrealistic through-put and then renege on it on the grounds of "technical difficulties. We only said 'up to' 24MB, if you care to examine the eleventh page of the contract."
Now, you are considerably more proficient than the average Joe Public, but unfortunately it's cheaper to piss the 1% of Birks-like creatures in this world whilst reeling in the 99% of total brain-dead idiots.
Re: The USB Secret Garden
Date: 2008-05-24 03:22 pm (UTC)There are 256 spectrum "buckets" on ADSL, and 512 spectrum buckets on ADSL2, which is what I'd assume ADSL Max is giving you. I don't actually know the spectrum range for each bucket, but it's pretty tiny (because of the characteristics of copper wire) -- something along the lines of 500 Hz, I'd guess.
In order to maximise throughput, the DSLAM at the exchange examines your 512 buckets and says, in effect, "this one is fucked. I'll move that part of the datastream to one that isn't fucked."
This is quite a clever way of adapting to weaknesses in your local copper, eg interference from your fridge, semi-semi-semi untwisted pairs, dirty great electromagnet down the street at the local exchange boost box, etc.
In fact, it's so clever that, all by itself, it appears to put BT engineers to shame.
Re: The USB Secret Garden
Date: 2008-05-24 03:54 pm (UTC)I'm close to the exchange. I want the IP line configureation to improve to 6MPBs. What do I do that I haven't done already? How do I get my wiring upgraded if it's the wiring's fault? How do I establish what exactly IS the fault? I've followed every bit of advice given on the web to the extent that I reckon I'm now capable of installing a telephone connection in a house from scratch. The insides of phone sockets hold no dfears for me. Wiring diagrams, pshaw. But how, technically, do I get my wiring ripped out and replaced if that is what is necessary?
I suspect that the answer is to go to a non-BT operation (say, Pipex Business) and to speak to someone on the phone about how money is no object if and only if a 6MBPs rate can be guaranteed, because, like I want to trade 100 pairs of currencies, play 12 tables of poker on three different sites, and enter an international World Of Warcraft contest all at the same time.
Then the people at that company can talk to BT Wholesale direct (which I guess they are used to) and they can sort it out between them before I sign my life away on a contract.
But it's the changing of my e-mail address that frightens me the most about that option.
From what you describe, the physical wiring probably needs fixing (this would make sense, because looking at the phone wiring in this house gives me a headache), but I have no idea how to get a complete telecommunications rewiring organised. BT doesn't seem to have the facility for ordering such a thing. If it does, can anyone tell me what number to phone? I'm pissed off with 500kpbs something rotten.
PJ
Re: The USB Secret Garden
Date: 2008-05-24 03:56 pm (UTC)And that, to my mind, is a "fundamentally flawed" system.
PJ
Re: The USB Secret Garden
Date: 2008-05-24 03:58 pm (UTC)PJ
Re: The USB Secret Garden
Date: 2008-05-24 04:09 pm (UTC)But yes: I can't see how moving back to vanilla ADSL could possibly cause you apin, at this point.
Re: The USB Secret Garden
Date: 2008-05-25 11:53 pm (UTC)Re: The USB Secret Garden
Date: 2008-05-24 04:08 pm (UTC)Thank God for Mrs Thatcher and the privatisation of BT, that's what I say.
It's so much more competitive now.
Re: The USB Secret Garden
Date: 2008-05-24 04:04 pm (UTC)There is, as yet, no evidence that the physical wiring is at fault. Indeed, I very much doubt it. This is a Hound of the Baskervilles situation we have here.
Not knowing your contract with BT, I would nevertheless suggest that your email address is a teeny, tiny, nonexistent problem. I've been working off my Californian one for six years before it got cut off. Basically, your email server (and thus address) does not depend upon your ISP. Unless BT have screwed up big-time, which wouldn't necessarily surprise me.
If you can access your email address away from home, then you can access it via a different ISP at home. Copper wire doesn't make that big a difference, y'know.
Being "close to the exchange" is, unfortunately, a relative thing (unless you're living in it, of course.) But that's probably a good start.
YES YES YES, I would have been talking to Pipex and co at least six months ago. I'm obviously not so much of a masochist as you are. They will indeed be dealing with BT Wholesale (owing to local loop unbundling) and the almost certainly have more clout with these nincompoops than you do. That's basically what you pay the money for.
At this point I would look on the Web for alternatives, but I'm too depressed, so I'll leave that option to you.
It'll go through the same wires (fucked or not). It'll go through the same technology. It'll be based at the same exchange. It'll just work better, and be less hassle-free. That's what not dealing with BT direct does for you.
This WoW stuff, though ... I'm still worried about that.