[SOLVED] Supposed High-Speed going SLOOWW

[Jazzfish]

I've had my desktop computer plugged into a cable modem via a router, and over the past view days I've had major performance issues.

The connection will spurraticly tell me I have "limited or no connectivity," and attempts to repair the connection have failed. The network is my parents, and it says that the network has not assigned an address(?) to this computer.

When attempting to use Internet Explorer, any kind of java or video application will either take a looong time to load, or not load at all.
My online game will either load at normal speed, or tell me I have no Internet connection and refuse to load at all. Then, once loaded, I never know when I'll be suddenly logged out, with a message telling me that the connection was lost.

According to BelArc, this is my hardware setup:

VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter
primary Auto IP Address: 192.168.1.104 / 24
Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Dhcp Server: 192.168.1.1
Physical Address: 00:14:2A:65:A4:BC


Occasionally the router has screwed up, but when that happens I get a message that the network cable is unplugged, so I don't think that's the problem. Unplugging the router and then plugging it back in solved that problem.

Any ideas?

[johnwill]

Have you tried a couple of things.

Download and install the latest firmware for the router.
Reset the router to factory defaults and reconfigure.

If that doesn't do it, try connecting the cable directly from the computer to the cable modem (power cycle the modem to change the connection), and see if that works properly.

Finally, if all that fails...


Register at DSLReports and run their Line Quality Tests. Post a link to the results here.

[raichle]

Sounds like a virus or spyware to me....I would run this:

http://housecall.antivirus.com whenever you can get online again.

Resetting the router will erase all settings, forwards, etc and usually is a last ditch effort move.

In addition, flashing the router's firmware can often destroy the router and should only be done as a final option..

Run the bandwidth speed test on another computer on the same network to rule out problems with your computer.

[johnwill]

I disagree that upgrading the firmware is a bad idea, it frequently solves such issues.

One thing you didn't mention, did you connect directly to the cable modem to see if it works that way?

[PockyBum522]

Originally Posted by raichle

In addition, flashing the router's firmware can often destroy the router and should only be done as a final option..

Are you joking? I've upgraded firmware hundreds of times, never had a problem. I think you meant to say "in very rare cases" where you said often.

[raichle]

Eh it probably happens about 5- 10 % of the time. Still often enough to warrant using it as a final option and not frivolously when every other computer can connect. Just cause it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it won't.

It's more likely to happen if there is something already wrong with the router however, which makes it a bad option to take on lightly.

I have a computer repair business and have run into many of these "bricks" due to Linksys talking a customer into doing exactly this.

Sometimes you can recover, but usually it's a bust.

[johnwill]

I've upgraded probably several hundred routers firmware and never bricked one. As long as you follow the pretty simple instructions, this is not a significant issue. If you have it happen 5-10% of the time, I can only assume some extreme carelessness about the procedure, that simply doesn't happen to the rest of us.