Something wrong with my internet?

Right now, my internet works fine and everything. Its just that during the evening, around about 6:00 or 7:00, my internet starts to get slower, and slower, and slower, until it finally stops working all together. It says "limited or no connection" when I check the connection status. My father contacted our service provider, Road Runner, and they said they would send over a technician, but I am wondering if anyone here knows a fix for this. I wont be here during the evenings for a while I guess.

Cable works like this:
More people that are on, the slower your connection. In the evening, at around 6-7pm, is when 90% of the population in your area that gets on the net, gets on. You will expiriece slow downs. But shouldnt be that much. Unless everyone around you has Roadrunner, and their are hundreds of people around you...unlikely. Thats the only thing that this sounds like though.

Cameron

By six or 7 pm EST people are done eating dinner and go on their computers. CST also kicks in around that time period. By 7 to eight there goes PST. Also our friends in Europe who are 6 or 7 hours ahead of us probably check in on the computers before bedtime. I have no way of proving this except I notice certain websites just crawl around that time period.
Aren't they also just waking up in China around 7 pm EST our time? Your computer may still have problems but I do notice a slow down on the internet during early evening hours.
But, I could be all wrong about this. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

There is no way to diagnose this problem with the information that's been given. The problem DOES appear to be local, since the connection status says ""limited or no connection". This can be due to 100 different causes.

Wait for the tech, and hopefully you can duplicate the problem while he is there.

Daniel

They should be able to status your modem as well as the CMTS in the cable company's headend to see how congested that segment of the network is or isn't for that time period.

The other possibility though is that you've got poor RF at the modem. Depending on the modem brand, you might be able to go to http://192.168.100.1 and see the local stats from your modem. Look for things like "uncorrectable errors" in either upsteream or downstream paths.

Where did he say he had a cable modem? I thought that RR had DSL and cable, depending on the area.

But that's moot. By now the tech has been there. Hey, Mags! What did they find?

Daniel

I personally assumed it. His problem sounds like a cable modem that is hitting a lot of traffic.

Cameron

Sorry, the tech isnt here. The earliest he can get here is friday. Yes, I use cable modem for roadrunner (to prevent myself from committing suicide when using 56k...) Also, there is an automatic fix at the push of a button, when I access the connection status and stuff. the button says "Repair" and it says that it is trying to renew my IP address /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif whatever that means. Anyway, it doesnt work even after doing that, because it says something like "Failed to: renew IP address". I have a new phrase for these kind of things. I call 'em, "wtf situations". My friends laugh at that one... Its starting to get slower again..... Ill check in on this tommorrow.

Maybe downloading the Roadrunner Medic would help to see what's going on. .

If it's failing to renew your IP address, that could be another sign that there's an RF issue preventing the modem from seeing the DHCP server. It's also possible that the TCP stack on your computer is messed up. If you're up for it and you have the original Windoze CD handy, try uninstalling and reinstalling TCP/IP. ometimes this fixes a broken or corrupted stack.

Strange, it works right now, but rather slowly. It took me more than 25 seconds to load this topic.

At least twice now, at differing parts of the day, our cable modem or something fails to hook up to the net.

SUCKS! when trying to do a business related web search!

DSL ain't great, but it whoops cable from what I've seen.

Our Comcast has been off and on for the past week. One minute it will be working fine, the next minute it is totally dead. 30 minutes later it may be working again. If I try calling the phone numbers for service they are busy or they have a recorded message that they are having technical difficulties.

Comcast went dead for me this afternoon too. I set up alternate DNS servers, and it works fine. I think I'll just leave it that way until they get their problem corrected.

This doesn't help anyone, but is an amusing Cable modem anecdote.

I got my cabel modem way back in '97 from TCI. It worked great. I had 8 Mbps up and down load. I was in heaven.

Then AT&T took over, things started slowing down as the network got more congested. I expected that, so I accepted that.

After a couple years, the technology for Docsis cable modems had matured enough that AT&T requested that everyone trade-in their old modems so their DHCP would work better with their new windoes programs. That's the program that assigned IP addresses. I had a grandfathered static IP from the TCI days, and did not use DHCP nor windows, so there was no benefit to changing. I did not want to have to wait for an appointment. I did not want to lose the Static IP that I was given as part of my TCI contract. I simply left it the way it was.

Over the next 6 months I had several discussions with the techs at AT&T asking me to trade in my old Motorola modem for a new docsis complieant one. Each time, the tech would grudingly agree that there is no technical reason that I had to change and that there was no benefit to me. Each time the tech agreed to leave things alone and make a note on my account.

Suddenly, one day, my modem crapped out. No sync. I accessed the modem's control software and verified it had no signal. I checked everything in the house. All was OK, signal wise. I finally called tech support. They went through the normal gyrations, then declared that my signal was too low. They sent a tech within an hour!

The tech immediately replaced my modem, then chose a piece of cable where the service entered the house and declared it substandard. No tests, no investigation, no justification. He cut off the connector and replaced it with an identical one. Then he called the activation center. Like magic, everything worked, but I lost my static address.


It was not until the guy left that I realized that they had taken care of the "problem customer" who was perfectly satisfied with his old equipment. They had simply turned off the authorization for my old modem and blamed teh connection. The new modem was DHCP only (or so they said) and was capped at 1.5Mbps down and 256K up.

And to think I once worked for AT&T.

Daniel
(side note... They once turned off my TV's cable box because it failed to reply to their queries. My son, an AT&T cable rep at the time,told me that it was disabled so that I would schedule an appointment to get it fixed. It seems people aren't too willing to sit around waiting for a cable guy when the box works fine from the customer's point of view.)

Comcast had issues last night and is flakey right now. I'm getting the same "www.whatever.com could not be found. Please check the name and try again." error msg. Fortunately, CPF seems to be be ok. Last night some recently-posted pics wouldn't display, like I was getting a partially-cached page or something. When Comcast bought the local service from ATTBI, they immediately jacked the rates to FIFTY-SEVEN BUCKS a MONTH! I'm sure they have super-competant Engineers working on it! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif (Sorry for the rant!)

Larry

Three nationwide outages in a week! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
I love Comcast! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/xyxgun.gif

Of course, their technical service is "Internationally-outsourced" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif (I just failed to access my ISP's freekin homepage!) (But at least I'm here /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif )

Larry