Computer network issues...

[Lorn]

Heyhey.

I brought my desktop computer back from uni yesterday. Since then, I've had constant trouble with the home network.

The connection is wired, using a set of power socket network adaptor thingies to share the internet throughout the house. There is also wireless, allowing a laptop to work.

I can connect to the network easily.

The problem is that the internet keeps cutting out. This typically seems to happen when my brother's desktop either joins or leaves the network - either he joins and it boots me off the internet, or he leaves and it boots me off the internet. Resetting the router, turningthings off and on again, nothing seems to be getting us anywhere.

As far as I can tell, the router settings are fine. Nobody else is having this problem.

Does anyone have any idea at all what the problem could be and/or how, precisely, to fix it?

Thanks :)

[Phishfood]

Thats an odd one. Any error messages? I'd be guessing along the lines of ip conflict.

That or its just a really ****ty router.

[factotum]

Never been a big fan of these power line networking gizmos--electricity cables aren't really designed to carry signals! Could it be some sort of power surge that happens when he turns his machine on or off that's interrupting the network?

[Lorn]

Phishfood - not much in the way of error messages. On here I just spontaneously lose internet connection, the router doesn't appear to say much. Will be checking it again tomorrow. Thing is, it's not had a huge problem before this.

Factotum - aye, it's the way my family is doing things, sadly. I don't normally live here, just during uni breaks, which is why it's not come up as an issue before. Might be a power surge or something, though what he tends to do is use a switch on his plugboard to just switch the network plug on. Current line of thought is that it might be the way the house circuits are wired.

At the moment, I'm considering looking into a wireless network adaptor, which should help. Thanks a lot for the suggestions, will check things again tomorrow :)

[Rawhide]

No idea on your specific problem, I've never used them and live in the wrong country anyway, but I did find this article which may help:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/power-network.htm

[Erloas]

Some routers don't seem to give up IP addresses like they should. I know ours has some issue with my computer and the one in living room, where if they are connected and disconnected from the network (ie turned off and on usually) in the right order then one will stop being able to connect until the router is reset.
Its usually easiest to just take a few seconds to turn off the router and turn it back on then it is to really figure out what the problem is. I think its trying to assign one computer the IP the other was using and doesn't straighten it back out when the other is added back to the network, but it doesn't seem to be an issue with the 2-3 other computers that are on the network.


The other possibility is that your network settings have something changed from being on the university networks compared to your home network. Maybe one of the computers has an assigned IP where as the others are acquired via DHCP.

[Lorn]

The other possibility is that your network settings have something changed from being on the university networks compared to your home network. Maybe one of the computers has an assigned IP where as the others are acquired via DHCP.
That's something I hadn't thought of, thanks. Will email the tech people at uni and hopefully, at some point, get a response...



E: Ok. So, network issue sorted by rearranging the plugs a lot. Turns out the network doesn't like going through surge protectors in this room, but has no problem with any of the other rooms in the house. Wow.

Sadly, my graphics card may have died. Find out when the heatwave is over and done with, because it might just be way too hot and/or humid or something, and I really hope it is just that...

[shadow_archmagi]

CO OPTING THIS THREAD FOR MY OWN ISSUE:

I have two computers, both of them running Windows 7. One of them has been experiencing an odd problem for about six months now, and now that school is out I have time to mess with it. When I try to do certain things, the download speed periodically drops to zero. Specifically, I've noticed it when using Firefox and Steam, but also for IE and a few other browsers I installed for the sake of testing. I know I'm not *losing* connectivity, because everything that isn't specifically downloading a file works fine. Skype calls work fine, Utorrent streams at a steady rate, but for some reason Steam and Firefox have speed graphs that look like the heart rate monitor of someone with a very weak pulse. It starts off strong, a nice solid 1 MB per second, and then after 10-30 seconds it'll slowly decline to 0, and sit there for anywhere from 10 seconds to half an hour before picking up to full speed again.

I've tried reinstalling drivers, I've tried buying a new network card, I've tried running antivirus scans, and I've tried uninstalling my antiviruses. The only thing that works for sure is putting it into safe mode. In safe mode, the downloads proceed smoothly. I tried making a list of everything that ran in safe mode, and then rebooted into normal mode and closed each nonessential process and service, but that didn't help either. I tried disabling every program that runs on startup to no effect.

[factotum]

Did logging in with a different user profile do anything for it, as I suggested on Steam chat a few days ago?

[shadow_archmagi]

Did logging in with a different user profile do anything for it, as I suggested on Steam chat a few days ago?

Changing profile did not help

[BlackSheep]

How long does it take for the transfer rate to dwindle to zero? Could it be a power saving setting? We had some network issues here at work that were cured by disabling the ability to turn off the network card to save power. I'm not certain how this is done under Windows 7, but in XP you open the network connection properties from the control panel, click Properties, click Configure, then switch to the Power Management tab and uncheck the box next to "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power."

[shadow_archmagi]

How long does it take for the transfer rate to dwindle to zero? Could it be a power saving setting? "

Usually around 15-30 seconds. It'll randomly restart for 3-5 seconds on a very infrequent basis; TF2 has almost finished the small update that was released a few days ago.

I don't think it's a power saving issue, but I went ahead and changed the setting from "balanced plan" to "maximum performance"

[leafman]

Can you do something for me? Log in to the admin account for the PC, try downloading something (to cause the issue), open the command prompt (start > search/run > command prompt) and type "netstat -b 5 >> C:\netstatlog.txt" wait about a minute and press ctrl + break. Post the contents of the netstat file here (you can edit out TCP/IP addresses and computer names where necessary).

What that will do is create a log of every active connection during that minute and will show if there might be something hogging the connection.

[shadow_archmagi]

Can you do something for me? Log in to the admin account for the PC, try downloading something (to cause the issue), open the command prompt (start > search/run > command prompt) and type "netstat -b 5 >> C:\netstatlog.txt" wait about a minute and press ctrl + break. Post the contents of the netstat file here (you can edit out TCP/IP addresses and computer names where necessary).

What that will do is create a log of every active connection during that minute and will show if there might be something hogging the connection.

Done! I think I let it go for a bit more than a minute, but during that time I started a download which complete 22 MB and then stopped. Actually, the little firefox window is still open and still says 372 KB per second, but the progress bar is not moving. (Nor is the time remaining.)

Rather than try to figure out what needs to be edited out and what would actually be helpful, I've decided to just PM the whole thing to you and assume you're not a serial killer or an identity thief.

[leafman]

Done! I think I let it go for a bit more than a minute, but during that time I started a download which complete 22 MB and then stopped. Actually, the little firefox window is still open and still says 372 KB per second, but the progress bar is not moving. (Nor is the time remaining.)

Rather than try to figure out what needs to be edited out and what would actually be helpful, I've decided to just PM the whole thing to you and assume you're not a serial killer or an identity thief.

lol PM'd you back. Just want to see if I can help, looks like it's gonna be over my head to fix if what I suggested doesn't work. Then again there's always threatening the computer with violence, that seems to work about 50% of the time :smallbiggrin:

[TheAbstruseOne]

To the original poster: How old is your router? I've had my Linksys wireless router for about eight years and it still works perfectly...as long as there's only three wired connections. I've got two computers, two laptops, two iphones, a Kindle, and an XBox 360 in the house all on the same router and everything works perfectly so long as there are only three ethernet cables plugged into the thing at any one time (with everything else on wifi). Might be a similar problem to yours, where the router kills the IP address when there's a new connection it can't handle. Maybe look into that aspect if it's still not working?

To the second poster: Your firewall's probably the culprit in that one, especially since the Safe Mode works fine. If you have a commercial anti-virus software (McAfee or Norton), there's probably a firewall that came with it that might be throttling your connection. Especially if you have Windows Firewall turned on (likely if you haven't changed the settings). It's common for the Microsoft Firewall and third-party firewalls to, for lack of a better word, throw hissy fits at one another. Try turning one or the other off and make sure the settings are correct for what you need on the other and see if that helps.

Also, if anyone else has any issues, please feel free to send me a private message. I've got over 5 years experience as a desktop technician and helpdesk agent at every level, from consumer to corporate to government.

[leafman]

^ Take his advice over mine, he knows alot more than I do.

[TheAbstruseOne]

^ Take his advice over mine, he knows alot more than I do.

Take my advice in addition to his. I specifically tried not to retread ground from other posters. Also, vodka.

[shadow_archmagi]

To the second poster: Your firewall's probably the culprit in that one, especially since the Safe Mode works fine. If you have a commercial anti-virus software (McAfee or Norton), there's probably a firewall that came with it that might be throttling your connection. Especially if you have Windows Firewall turned on (likely if you haven't changed the settings). It's common for the Microsoft Firewall and third-party firewalls to, for lack of a better word, throw hissy fits at one another. Try turning one or the other off and make sure the settings are correct for what you need on the other and see if that helps.

I've tried disabling all firewalls including the natural window's firewall. Even running with no security at all doesn't help.