Fault on phone line- help!

davecon1 · 30 Jun 2011

Hi there

A few days ago my phones went 'dead'.By that I meant that there was no dial tone and when you called the phone it was engaged.

The internet still works luckily but according to SKY there is an internal fault on the line. I've removed the faceplate on the master socket and get a dial tone which I think confirms there is an internal fault.

Question is how do i know go about finding where the fault is and fixing it- I don't fancy a £200 call out from BT!

The system is set up with one master socket downstairs installed by BT and a second master socket upstairs (also installed by BT). They are both on the same line.

The socket master downstairs leads straight to an extension which has been chased into the wall, There is also another feed into the house (where the original master socket was) which is now a regular junction box which leads upstairs to the second master socket. That feeds two more extensions- one in the loft and another one on the same floor. Just to confirm the master socket upstairs does not have a dial tone when the face plate has been removed so I'm fairly sure this should just be an extension box which feeds the other two boxes.

Here's how the wires were looking:

downstairs master socket:

green (2)
orange (3)
wht/orange (4)
wht/green (5)

upstairs:

blue (2)
orange (3)
wht/blue (4)

As far as I understand you only really need the correct wires to go into number 2 and number 5 as 3 is for ringing and 4 is not normally used.

Now I have just connected 2 and 5 downstairs and unplugged everything upstairs but no luck which is not a big surprise!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Is there any chance the faceplate could be faulty or will I have to open up every extension and check that the wires are in connection number 2 and 5? Am really hoping i will not have to hack into the wall!

Thanks

Alarm · 30 Jun 2011

1, you should only have 1 master.
2, the line will support only 4 devices with a REN of 1

davecon1 · 1 Jul 2011

Alarm said:
1, you should only have 1 master.
2, the line will support only 4 devices with a REN of 1

I think I can take care of the false master socket but what do you mean by 4 devices with a REN of 1?

If an extension has nothing plugged into it at the moment how does that affect the number of devices? Also if I unplug every extension (most are) and I still do not get a dial done when the faceplate is on, what does that mean?

Thanks

Paul_C · 1 Jul 2011

The REN is nothing to do with your present problem.

The symptoms suggest that you have a short on your internal wiring somewhere. It could also be a device plugged into the extension wiring, so make sure that you have unplugged everything from the line, except a known-good phone with which you are testing (don't forget an answering machine, satellite receiver which connects to the phone line, and so on, and don't forget your ADSL modem as well).

If the fault is still there, you'll need to start breaking down the extension wiring into sections to see on which part the fault lies. By the way, do you have separate microfilters for DSL around the house, or do you have a single "faceplate style" filter at the master? If the latter, it's just possible that the fault lies there (checked by plugging it into the master jack with the extension wiring disconnected from it).

There's a hint that something might have already been changed to cure a problem:

downstairs master socket:

green (2)
orange (3)
wht/orange (4)
wht/green (5)

Normally the blue/white pair is wired on 2 & 5 and in a regular residential single line the green/white pair is spare. It could be that somebody just picked the "wrong" pair there at some point, but it could also indicate that a fault on the cable developed which affected the blue/white pair so the normally spare green/white pair was substituted. As a first step, I'd be inclined to find the jack or junction box to which that cable runs and isolate at that point to see if that cable is causing the problem (it's quite likely that if past damage affected one pair it's now deteriorated and is affecting another).

upstairs:

blue (2)
orange (3)
wht/blue (4)

I assume you meant 5 for the white/blue?

As far as I understand you only really need the correct wires to go into number 2 and number 5 as 3 is for ringing and 4 is not normally used.

Yes - 2 & 5 connect to the incoming line, and are all that's needed to get you dial tone. The ringer connection on 3 isn't used by a lot of current model phones, but be aware that a lot of slightly older phones won't ring without it.

davecon1 · 1 Jul 2011

Thanks for the in depth reply!

So far I have removed every jack around the house but still no joy so I guess it must be the actual junction box itself.

I took photos of both master sockets so you can see the wire configuration. Please note that for the downstairs socket i had already removed the green wire into connection 5.

Master socket downstairs

davecon1
1 Jul 2011
1

master socket upstairs

davecon1
1 Jul 2011
1

Paul_C said:
upstairs:

blue (2)
orange (3)
wht/blue (4)

Click to expand...

I assume you meant 5 for the white/blue?

You can also see that the white/blue wire is in connection 4 upstairs which is incorrect. Since then I have removed all the wires!

Alarm · 2 Jul 2011

Paul_C";p="2036905 said:
The REN is nothing to do with your present problem.
/quote]

~But has a lot to do with it as described.

Paul_C · 2 Jul 2011

Let's see if I've got this straight. The incoming line is to the downstairs NTE5. From the removable faceplate there are two extension cables, one which runs just to a downstairs jack, and one which runs via a junction box to the upstairs master. Two further extensions are then wired from there.

Is the cable which runs out of the downstairs NTE5 to the junction box the one which had the green/white pair connected?

You have two sets of cables on the IDC connections of the upstairs NTE5, but as terminal 4 was in use instead of 5, I'm assuming that one of these cables is actually the incoming line from the junction box and that there are no other cables into this unit (and also that you didn't use the jack on that upstairs NTE5 because it didn't work).

If you don't have any sort of test meter, you'll have to locate where the fault lies by a process of elimination. For example, starting at the downstairs NTE5, connect just the extension to the downstairs jack and refit the faceplate, then test. If you have no dial tone, then you have a fault somewhere on that downstairs cable run. If you have dial tone at the NTE and at the downstairs extension, then reconnect the cable which runs to the upstairs via the junction box, but disconnect everything else from the upstairs NTE, then test again. No dial tone means the fault must lie somewhere on that run you've just connected. And so on.

Alarm said:
~But has a lot to do with it as described.

The fault as described is no dial tone and the line showing busy. That's indicative of a short.

Europlex · 2 Jul 2011

Looking at the poor state of the connections, I'd suggest that they and any others not shown are all remade using the correct Krone Tool for the job, NOT a plastic throw away version or a screwdriver.

Bodgeitandleggit · 2 Jul 2011

When you removed the faceplate from the nte5 have you checked for dial tone in the test port of the nte to make sure dial tone is there first ...it could be a problem on the bt line and you could be doing all this for nothing

Paul_C · 2 Jul 2011

Bodgeitandleggit said:
When you removed the faceplate from the nte5 have you checked for dial tone in the test port of the nte to make sure dial tone is there first ...it could be a problem on the bt line and you could be doing all this for nothing

davecon1 said:
I've removed the faceplate on the master socket and get a dial tone which I think confirms there is an internal fault.

Bodgeitandleggit · 2 Jul 2011

Paul_C said:
Bodgeitandleggit said:

When you removed the faceplate from the nte5 have you checked for dial tone in the test port of the nte to make sure dial tone is there first ...it could be a problem on the bt line and you could be doing all this for nothing

Click to expand...

davecon1 said:

I've removed the faceplate on the master socket and get a dial tone which I think confirms there is an internal fault.

Click to expand...

that will teach me to readit all properly..

............cheers paul

Paul_C · 2 Jul 2011

Easily done!

davecon1 · 4 Jul 2011

Thanks for all your input.

Given the fact only one extension has a jack in it (downstairs running off the master socket) I have to assume that the fault is with this. Only problem is that when I remove the phone jack the line does not come back on when the face plate is screwed back on!

All the rest of the sockets have no phone jacks in them. Is it possible to have a problem with an extension even though there is nothing plugged into it?

Hopefully I've got a telephone engineer coming on wednesday and will post up what the problem is. He's not BT (£££) but should be able to fix with all the right tools!

Paul_C · 4 Jul 2011

davecon1 said:
Is it possible to have a problem with an extension even though there is nothing plugged into it?

Yes, if the cable itself has been damaged it can still short out the line, causing the symptoms you're experiencing.

davecon1 · 7 Jul 2011

Thanks for all the advice from everyone.

The engineer came yesterday and the fault turned out to be a faulty extension socket (the type with adsl filter built in). After testing each extension ne by one he thought he had found the fault in a different junction box upstairs as the wire was twisted around so it was trimmed back and connected to another point. That did the trick until the he reconnected the false master socket upstairs (now replaced) and everything went off again.

As soon as the other extension was replaced everything came back on. It's possible I could have found it by process of elimination but then again that could have taken a while!

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Fault on phone line- help!

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