I haven't followed all of the symptoms carefully, but here on Cox Cable in Annandale, VA, with 3 Mbs service I frequently get instances when nothing accessing the Internet works, or else is very slow. I just attribute it to WAN congestion, whether it be bots doing their thing or neighbors downloading a lot of stuff simultaneously. I do blame it on Cox. I have a couple of older computers attached to my router as well as my primary computer, and all are affected, so it doesn't seem to be the configuration of my particular computer. I don't really know the neighbors well enough to talk to them about their experience.
My D-Link router has a feature to write to a log file all blocks (incoming packets that are intentionally dropped because they are not in response to a request from the computer they are directed to, i.e., Stateful Packet Inspection) and then, when the log file is full (or periodically) e-mail that log file to me. It's very interesting to watch the density of blocking activity wax and wane. It gets very intense at times. Even more so on the router at my son's house where my grandkids computers are attached. I haven't had a slowdown in some days now, and the log files have been very empty. Maybe the ostracization of that rogue ISP in California has shut a lot of stuff down. Fred Holmes At 09:10 PM 11/28/2008, Ranbo wrote: >I really don't know. What would be periodic bit torrent traffic? Wouldn't >the RCN tech have been able to notice this when I called Wed. night? > >However, mysteriously, yesterday (Thursday) I suddenly can access internet >with IE and pages are loading fast again. Using Firefox seems somewhat >slower, but also faster (fingers crossed) than when it really slowed down >for a day or so (though in retrospect seems that it may have been gradually >slowing down). I tried various things including changing the DNS and >changing back to automatic detect, cleaning "private data" and defragging, >but none of these seemed to make more than maybe a slight improvement at the >time. Guess I have something to at least temporarily be thankful about. > >All of this is so strange and mysterious. Why are there not better >built-in, automatic diagnostics for these things? If something - anything >of possible significance - changes from time 1 to time 2, why can't my >computer track and indicate this, with indication of possible signficance or >problems? Why, that is, should the average or naive user be just as much in >the dark about what is possibly going on with the operation of their >computer and/or their internet use as was the case 10 years ago and maybe 20 >years ago? Why no advancement in this area, at least that I can see or have >access to? > >Randall > > >On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 5:48 PM, db <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I haven't been following this thread closely ...if you are on a cable modem >> connection it is possible you have some periodic bit torrent traffic nearby >> which is robbing your bandwidth. ? >> >> db >> >> >> Tom Piwowar wrote: >> >>> Called RCN tech support. Tech said not to mess with DNS settings and had >>>> me >>>> restore to detect automatically. Either way, doesn't seem to make >>>> loading >>>> much quicker. He said download speed (5 mb) was okay so he couldn't help >>>> beyond that. I'm about to give up. Have had this problem recurrently >>>> and >>>> can never seem to figure out what the damn problem is. >>>> >>>> >>> >>> What this tech told you indicates that this tech does not know very much. >>> Try again with a different tech. Or ask for a smart one. ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
