Geeky Gifts List

Startech Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5in SATA HDD
£8.48

Handy for testing or backing up. Requires power from 2 USB ports using ‘Y’ cable supplied
– https://www.pcworldbusiness.co.uk/catalogue/item/P129318P?from=category

Dwynne, we have the same problem here in the foothills of the Lincolnshire Wolds, signal 1½ miles out of Louth has no coverage at all, never mind 3G, from my village to our son and daughter’s village and 3 miles beyond, on the A157, 8 or so miles on a main route to the coast. Many puzzled Grockles park outside the shop and try to get a signal, waving phones up, down and sideways. (Lol, it’s Entertainment!)

Until JCD generously sent me the EE Brightbox, I had no chance, now it picks up 4G! Seriously chuffed with this and much Karma to JCD, but it does mean I am now pinned to EE. Well worth it atm, though. EE made a big mistake in stopping production and sale of the Brightboxes, but if you take EE, Connects via Ethernet to your router, mine is high on a bookcase top, about 1½ metres away from the router. Working well still with my miserable 2.5+ Mbps.

Edit: looks like you get it free now with EE Broadband only: –

http://tinyurl.com/yafxresl

pob lwc

Bob.

Bob Williams wrote:

Until JCD generously sent me the EE Brightbox, I had no chance, now it picks up 4G! Seriously chuffed with this and much Karma to JCD, but it does mean I am now pinned to EE. Well worth it atm, though. EE made a big mistake in stopping production and sale of the Brightboxes, but if you take EE, Connects via Ethernet to your router, mine is high on a bookcase top, about 1½ metres away from the router. Working well still with my miserable 2.5+ Mbps. Edit: looks like you get it free now with EE Broadband only: – http://tinyurl.com/yafxresl pob lwc Bob.

Last year a friend of mine, who has been with EE since the Wanadoo days, was having intermitent problems with his original ADSL, single ethernet port orange router – never whilst I was there though. I set up a TalkTalk router that I had spare & left him to it.

Earlier this year he phoned to say that the Orange router, which he had reverted to, had finally given up the ghost & would I come & swap it out for the TalkTalk router.

He had lost the logon details that I used previously to set the router up & had reset the router back to its default settings. A phone call to EE had elicited no help, thus the phone call to me.
He had no paperwork other than an ancient letter from Orange that included his account number which we took into the local EE shop.

All I can say is that they were brilliant. My friend answered the personal questions  & explained the situation then I took over for the more technical answers. The assistant got on the phone & within a few minutes had got the technical department to text my friend with the details needed to set up the TalkTalk router & also arranged for a new EE Brightbox router to be sent out.
Of course I got the job of installing the Brightbox & setting up the laptop, printers & Ipad to connect via wi-fi.
The TalkTalk router is tucked away in a drawer, just in case.

I’m lucky in my village being higher up, but walk down to the pub, 500m away (that’s the 3rd one too) and it’s a black spot, as is my Inlaws that are even lower down at the base of our hill. Though wifi calling has all but sorted the issue out. Even in the pub ?

My brother in law has a EE box in their home, I’m sure they had a vodka phone one years ago (like 6/7 years maybe) in there older home. But when they moved back home, they was in ee and got a box put in. Again I don’t they use it anymore, now wifi calling is a thing, and they have full coverage via home plugs. Old build, thick walls, stange layout. Home plugs I put in 4 years ago, and like mine, they just keep going. I don’t even need mine, (or didn’t till last week) but glad it was all left in place, as the talk talk router, isn’t great at all. Reminds me of all the providers WiFi  we’ve had since wanadoo, won’t reach half the house. And that ain’t me bragging about having a large house. Old Welsh houses are small, but are solid. (and cold, and drafty, and sometimes leaky,……)

Bob Williams wrote:

I hope you firmly instructed your friend to leave everything alone to get on with it.

Out of reach is good, sole exception being the one who turns it all off before going to bed. Wonders why he does not get the speed he should all the time.

My friend is the type that lays under a car with you at gone midnight, with frost on his legs, to change a clutch, because the car is needed for work later that morning. Thus it’s easy to forgive his mistakes.

I’ll help anybody who is willing to learn. It doesn’t take long to work out those who think you are a free service to save them money.

To that end, I got a phone call one evening from a chap in the RAF who’s daughter went to school with mine & who’s PC I had fixed. The conversation started with, ‘My mate’s got this laptop’. I stopped him there & told him that I wasn’t a free service for all his mates in the RAF. Funnily enough, I haven’t had a phone call from him since, but as he’s an aircraft technician, he (& his wife who is very quick on the uptake) only needed a little guidance before realising that they could do most things without further help.

Once I understand something, I seem to have a knack of breaking down the information & passing it on in a way that others can comprehend.

Not sure what you mean by ‘wonders why he does not get the speed he should all the time’. Did you mean because his mobile is using the normal 4G rather than his hub?

I know ISPs state that an ADSL router should initially be left on for 7-10 days to ‘sync’. I suspect this is as much to do with fending off phone calls from new customers rather than for technical reasons.
I have always turned off the modem/router at night & back on in the morning but I’ve been on fibre for 6 years & don’t recall having variable speed problems other than the standard contention issues.

I think the syncing is true – I also think “get the installer out the door” is a factor. My ex-neighbour who I still bump into was persuaded to upgrade from normal Sky to Q. The internet connection didn’t change (although of course the Hub did). the speeds were shockingly bad (for FTTC around 6MBs down – should be pushing 40). Bloke told them it was because of syncing and b*ggered off. Scarcely got better since even though speeds were fine before the Q upgrade. They ended up cancelling.

I think the syncing is legitimate but the ISPs can also hide behind it to cover up other failings on their side.

Yeah Dave they jumped through all those hoops with Sky and ended up cancelling as Sky werejust fobbing them off. Completely agree about the re-training but I’m sure there are cases where the ISP uses that as an excuse. When my original FTTC was fitted it came with a HomeHub (v3 I think). I swapped it out for a Billion router, speed dropped, not drastically though, and the came back. Likewise when that router was replaced with the Asus…..small drop but then back in ship shape very fast.

Sort of regaled to the current topic, was at a friend’s over the weekend who has vergin media fiber, doing a speed tests over WiFi I’d get 108 down, 6up, 5ms ping, so all great on paper. It was awful to try an watch bt sport today. It just kept buffering, and rubber banding all the time, in the end I turned my 4g on.

I have no idea how it was so bad. There was on me on it too.