Internet connection issue

[peacetilence]

I'll start off by welcoming myself to 2001... it seems these types of issues were all but sorted out by then. Than again my ISP is Millenium Digital Media, just do a search om them and see how much their customers love them.

Alright enough with the sarcasm. I'm extremely infuriated at my cable company right now. For the last two days every 10-15 minutes my internet stops responding, this makes online gaming and more importantly work, the thing I do in order to afford this terrible service, impossible. I called up the cable company and they told me perhaps it was my IP address so they changed that and it didn't help at all. I call them back and they tell me since the cable modems lights aren't going out than it has to do with my PC. He gives me some runaround trying to get me to fiddle with some internet explorer settings (I use firefox) I had to specify again that the entire internet stops responding, not just my internet browser.

So I've spent the better half of tonight trying to figure out if it's a problem on my end. I pulled out my old 7500 Inspiron, wiped off WinMe and installed XP pro. Searched and searched over google for anyone else experiencing the same problem and came across a program called "PingPlotter" so I set up PingPlotter on my desktop, ran a test and got multiple errors about five minutes in, I notice huge amounts of packet loss. Hoping that the onboard lan card in my pc was just f'd up I tried it out on my laptop and got the same exact problem. About 10-15 minutes I get a big chunk of lost connection and terrible packet loss. The modem lights stay on though (I noticed they installed new firmware to my modem the first time I called them...)

So I'm at a loss at what to do. If the cable company won't own up to the problem and fix it I'm f'd because they are my only option for broadband in the area. It's essential to my livelihood that I have a steady internet connection... I've requested that a technician come tommarow to check out the lines but they kept saying my lines look fine on their end (if it's coming it bursts how would you see it the 10 seconds you check the line) and kept trying to pin the problem on my PC. I know tomorrow the guy is just going to give me some bullshit and tell me the lines check out ok. Does anyone have any advice on what I should say to let him know that there is definitely a huge problem and it's their f''ing fault? I'm so sick of this ghetto ISP. I wish comcast or charter would just kill them already...

[[true]First_Strike]

I had the same problem where I live. Sprint DSL is my ISP. The DSL lights would stay on but no connection. For weeks they kept saying I messed something up, I would respond "How, it worked in the morning and 3 hours later it stopped?" Of course, none of their equipment fails!

Finally, after several conversations, letters and threats to change companies to do business with they finally came out to where I live. We live in a complex, apparently they used some inferior cards and everytime there was a moderate load the cards would fry. It didn't make it any better since we were on the same "grid", or whatever they called it, with a major corporation who backs up info to a database across town. So, every night when they "backed up" it would fry some card they used for our "grid". Maybe it was a bunch of bullshit but whatever they said they changed and changed to superior "cards" it fixed our problem.

Just my $0.02

[millhouse]

Try a new modem yet?

[Geef01]

Try finding out what the IP is to pull up your modem's information in your browser. I know several modems Comcast uses, use the 192.168.100.1 ip. If you have the manual for the modem or internet access you should be able to locate what the IP is. If you can get that information up you should be able to see what the signal strengths are at the moment and then ask the tech what it SHOULD be for the network.

[peacetilence]

Here's a screen cap from PingPlotter

http://webmail.cablespeed.com/~robertmcf/Packet%20loss.JPG

Whenever the connectivity issue occurs it is always on the second hop onwards. This definitely indicates the problem is outside my home right? I've sent a few emails to customer support with these log files and the log files from the modem status page of it losing sync. A few weeks ago I was having an issue with latency and spoke to a tech person and they mentioned they were having an issue with their T-1 carrier. I wonder if this is related, i notice the first hop address is now different than it was before... I wish they would come forward with these issues and not lie to their customers and make them think it's all a problem with their pc. I'm not sure what to do now. I've thought about calling them up each day and asking when they plan on fixing their network but I shouldn't have to go through these troubles.

[peacetilence]

:confused:

[peacetilence]

Things I've done

-Went over the coaxal and refitted all connections
-Hard reset the modem multiple times
-Changed the network cable
-Tested on two different PCs
-Made a log of the severe latancy and packet loss spikes causing me to lose connection
-Sent three angry emails to their tech support office. No reply
-Called tech support. No reply.


What can I do except continually piss and moan? Surely the problem has to be in their network right?



About the new modem, I had a sufrboard 3100 that they replaced about 5 or 6 months ago with a 4100. It seems doubtful this modem would become faulty so quickly.

I mentioned before that I was having severe latency spikes about two weeks ago. I contacted a tech person via live chat and they mentioned they were having an issue with their T-1 carrier so I think this is related. It just angers me they won't own up to it and fix it but instead try to put the fault on my PC.

[Komataguri]

I use Roadrunner.


Only time I've ever had a problem like this, it was a faulty groundwire outside. It took them 5 minutes to fix it, and I've been rock stable ever since [ Well, except for the crappy netgear router that requires hard reboot atleast once a day, but that has nothing to do with the line itself [

[peacetilence]

This is very odd. It seems to be happening every 10 minutes on the mark. Has anyone ever heard of an ISP trying to regulate bandwith use in such a way? This all started happening after a week long binge of CS:S... I notice my ISP is bitchy about hosting game servers and they seem to be going out of their way to not help me :(

[peacetilence]

I've bought a 6 pack of Black Butte Porter to regain my nerves :D damn I hate these monpolizing cable companies. You get crap for service and they could care less because there is no alternative.

http://webmail.cablespeed.com/~robertmcf/aaa.JPG

[Lethal]

It might acutally be that the signal strength is too strong. See my post here (http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027934236&postcount=4). A splitter might help.

[peacetilence]

I will try that out since I'm only using cable internet.

[peacetilence]

whoa I added another splitter and I think it fixed it! My latency seems lower now as well. This seems really odd though because before I added the splitter the power level was registering as 53 dBmV when now it reads at 56 dBmV which I believe is the proper level for a stable net connection. Thank you so much, you have just saved me a lot of hassle if it turns out this fixes the issue.

[peacetilence]

spoke too soon :(