The annoyances of cable internet

[Frost]

Just to vent off some frusteration I and possibly help someone (who knows)

How many of you have cable internet?

Ever gone through a phase of your internet dropping every 10 minutes? I have and I finaly tracked down the problem I think.

I have a 3mb cable connection that has been good for over a year but lately my connection just drops about every ten minutes of if I try to download anything. You can imagine how annoying it is to post a message or try to upload changes in a theme or forum via ftp only to have it stop about 1/4 of the way through because the connection dropped. In the meantime it drops from 3mb to about 400kbs during the 10 minutes. Throughout the 3 or 4 weeks of this constantly happening I tried everything. I got a new modem, I got a new splitter, I cleaned the wires, I changed routers, I tried USB... Nothing.

Then one day while I was trying to manually go down the wire to see if there was a damaged spot, I disconnected the coax leading to my tv and it shocked the hell out of me. I also noticed as it shocked me that my internet connected quick... So I connected the wire back and started using the net again. About 10 minutes later it dropped again. So I took the wire off again, got shocked again, reset the modem and it worked fine. This time I left the wire off, but again after 10 minutes the connection dropped. Again, I reset the modem, took the wire off, let it shock me, and it connected back.

Now to clear things up, if you reset the modem with the wire connected, it would not connect. If you reset the modem with the wire off it would not connect. You could do this for hours and it wouldn't work.

So, it seems like when it electricutes me it works, like it's being grounded or something. But even though I know how to make it connect it still drops every 10 minutes or so.

So, tomorrow I'm going to my cable company to upgrade (to the new 8mb

I'm going to tell them to try these...

1. Replace all lines inside and outside of my house
2. Replace the modem (again cause it's free lol)
3. Put a booster on the line
4. Provide me with a splitter that is efficient for the new 8mb cable

hopefully this will permanently fix the problem and save me from some static and messed up hair...

Anyone else having similar problems can see this link, it helped me http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/41778

[Michaelo]

Mine has worked perfectly since I got it... er! except... during downloads it can go up to 400 or even 500k which, you might have thought was great.... no it isn't every time it downloads in excess of 350k I can expect crc errors in the zip/arc :#:
Mike

[Frost]

Yea I know what you mean, I don't know how many "corrupted" archives I couldn't decompress, but I'm still not 100% that it's due to the download speed...

Now they cable company has come and replaced every wire in the house and put a high pass filter between the tv and splitter (turns out my tv was sending a return signal it wasn't supposed to) and everything works perfectly

[Fubie]

You wouldn't be using a download manager of any kind would you?

[Michaelo]

All downloads ramp to max or near max then settle down to average. This is due in part to repeats due to error correction and software whos job it is to share bandwidth...

I never use download manager because I don't know where they have been

[Helter]

limewire is extremely invasive spyware. Once installed, it is a reall chore to uninstall it. It keeps reinstalling itself

[Michaelo]

Helter I can get rid of it.... nothing I can't do with a PC....

[Helter]

lol... <img>

[Frost]

You wouldn't be using a download manager of any kind would you?

No, I've always heard they don't work, and that's just one more thing I would have to get rid of later lol

As far as limewire goes, I've been using it for over 2 years now and I have never had a problem with it... of course I have the most recent version of Pro at all times... lol

I've never wanted to get rid of it, so I've never tried. You'd be suprised at all the stuff I've found on limewire... but then again, that's another topic <img>