Router intermittently loses signal, why?

Question

My ADSL signal comes into my house by copper wires, reaches a tripolar socket where a filter is plugged in (the filter has a tripolar plug, a tripolar socket for the phone line and a RJ11 socket for the ADSL line). A single phone is connected to the filter via a tripolar-RJ11 adapter and a RJ11 cable, while another RJ11 cable goes from the filter to my NETGEAR modem/router/wi-fi repeater. A PC is plugged to one of the RJ45 sockets and my laptop uses the wi-fi connection.

Some days, most noticeably when I'm playing online games with what I suspect to be a huge amount of exchanged data (but this could just be because I immediately notice lag and disconnections while gaming than otherwise) the router's green blinking like that signals internet connection repeatedly goes off.
Typically, the connection comes back on its own after a couple of minutes, and the problem repeats itself every hour for 3-4 times, or every 10 minutes or so.

I tried contacting the ISP. They told me they were working on the central, then a technician came and also suggested me to change my phone model since it was known to cause interferences. I couldn't for a long time, then I did it. Meanwhile, problems seemed less frequent. Changhing phone did not modify the occurency of these events by any amount I could discern.

Then the problem started happening more frequently. At the time of these events I was jobless and often home and connected, so I was able to monitor the frequency pretty accurately. I could no more play with my online friends because I almost always disconnected during games. Some guys from a technical forum told me I had a high packet loss on teamspeak. They suggested updating the firmware which I did. Now when the light goes off a red light appears instead. I had the impression the router lost connection less but took more to find it again when it had to.

I called the technician again. He fixed a unsleeved wiring right outside my house, in the derivation box, and things got better. He also told me my router was unusually hot and suggested renting one of theirs (I don't want to). Next day, it was raining cats and dogs and the connection was unusually slow. Problems started manifesting again. Was it just a lucky day like it sometmes happened or did the rain just broke their systems again?

I tried a different router (a KRAUN a friend dismissed) and a different filter and cables (tripolar socket into tripolar/RJ adapter, then cable into the kraun filter). It was still hot. It still had problems, albeit sometimes slightly different ones. I don't really trust that router as a benchmark.

Now the problem seems to be less frequent, but I don't play mmorpgs anymore. I'm still asking myself if I was overheating it with too much data, if the problem is with my house lines or if it's the ISP fault.

Considering that I want to spend as few money as possible, what should I monitor to understand where the problem really is? I already used a website called isp monitor to figure out my wi-fi connection is ok, even during these connection problems. The second technician said my connection stats are good and the ADSL central is about 3.5 km away from my home.

Answer 1

I can't call this an answer, but maybe my adventures will help you.

I had precisely this same problem. They've replaced my wiring outside and I've replaced it inside to the point of having only a single 10 foot run. The issue you're having is likely exterior.

Try the follwoing:

1. Post on their wall on facebook. (this got me some attention!)
2. Get it down to a wire, their equipment (their modem) and demonstrate the condition.

   This is important. Remind them that you have never had stable service. They'll continue to accuse your wiring/equipment. Have them run a second line just for the DSL (be nice, but assertive with the guy/gal on the phone and escalate to a manager if required). You should not be paying a penny for any of this. They were willing to rewire my line at their expense due to (at that point) one year of this.

3. I noticed you specifically mentioned it "raining cats and dogs" and your connection going south. Was this a one time thing or was this common? I observed many cases where cold snaps caused my connection to be unusable, but when the weather was consistent, it was consistent. If you're seeing something similar, that's at least the plural of anecdote. :)
4. On their equipment, my ISP (AT&T) had the option of a Motorola modem and another provider. Unfortunately, that house is 2 hours away so I can't get its name, but it was an AT&T branded modem. This modem had the added benefit of logging every connection drop/reconnect. When the techs would arrive, they'd say exactly what you said: "Your stats are good and everything looks good". Out of 4 visits, only one tech ever saw the problem "actually happen" and he described it as "everything is perfect, and then you get a hundred thousand errors in a row". He saw the problem, but was no closer to solving it.

Don't be surprised if your modem is being damaged by all of the reconnecting. I'm not sure why, but we also went through 3 modems in two years. Each time, at some point, the modem would just stop reconnecting. Factory resetting and such had no effect. Replacing it would instantly fix the problem but the longer term issues we faced never went away for more than a few months.

If you get a better answer than this, I'll test their findings up north with my flaky connection and verify them as well.