Disconnections upon logging into a characterFollow

Copied from the O-Boards Tech Support forums, since it's after 11 and I won't get a response now:



Also, the things he asked me to find (OS, firewall, network adapter - driver date/version, router, modem, ISP, wired/wireless, location):



In that thread, an agent told me to update my wireless adapter, which I did, and to try a wired connection instead of a router. Neither of those things helped my issue.

Thoughts?

you are dropping a fairly large amount of packet data. I suspect your ISP or one of the routers in between you and your ISP is having technical problems at the moment. You may want to call them. Could aslo be a cabling issue, especially if it is raining or especially cold at the moment.

edit: also you might want to remove your IP address. I've left it for now since you have it in the other thread as well.

Edited, Dec 18th 2010 11:02pm by Kaolian

Is this a known issue Kao? Because my latency and speed suck when it's cold, rainy, or god forbid both outside. My ISP claims that it's not the problem.

Yeah, usually that indicates that somewhere between your computer and the cable company, there is a piece of line exposed to the elements, or a damaged bit of cabling. In most cases, if it is on the main lines, they get a large number of calls about it and fix it. If it has been going on for a while it may just be the run to your house. The issue is that water can infiltrate the lines, usually at the cable box itself and cause small fleeting shorts that disrupt your signal. Cold temperatures causing metal to contract and therefore lose contact can also be an issue. usually in that case a fitting is loose, or they didn't cut the coax line correctly and the inner conductor is just bairly too short and is not making good contact.

To troubleshoot, do the following:
1. check your cable modem end, if the coax cable fitting is at all loose, finger tighten, then use a crescent wrench to tighten it a further 1/8" of a turn.
2. Check your wall plate. unscrew the cable from the wall, check the exterior section for any signs of corrosion. Now unscrew the wall plate and check the same thing inside. Ensure that the fitting inside the wall is also tight. Reattach the wallplate and then reattach the cable line, ensuring it is good and tight.
3. Now check your cable box on your house. If it is outside, check and see what kind of cable box you have. if it is a newer plastic one, chances are it is pretty water tight. ifit is an older metal style one, you will want to replace it with the plastic type. Open the cable box up (may take a special torx screwdriver) and check for any signs of leaking water, leftover water trails, discolored spots, corrosion, etc. Ensure that all the connection fittings are tight.

Hopefully that fixes the issue. If it doesn't, chances are its on a feeder line to your house. What you need to do then is start calling the cable company repeatedly every time you see the issue, and keep mentioning to them that it only occurs on cold and or wet days, you suspect they have a worn out insulation on a cable or a loose fitting, and that they should please send a tier II or III technician out to diagnose the issue because you are tired of dealing with it. Get 3 of those calls on the record, and if they don't do anything, report them to the better buisiness buero. Usually by that point they are willing to fix it.

Same basic information would apply, just different mechanisms. With DSL, if you're in a house at least, you can probably bypass the internal wiring for your house by going to your phone connection box outside and plugging your DSL modem straight into the phone line coming into that. If you try it doing that and don't see a problem, then it's likely something with your internal wiring. If you still see it, then it's likely outside your house.

A few years ago I had an issue with my DSL being very flakey - I had to badger the support a lot, since it was apparently up enough that their simple diagnostic passed most of the time. When it finally failed, however, they came and looked at it, and found that there was a grounding problem in their box outside. Fixed that, and it's been solid ever since.