Erratic Connection

darkadelphia · 08-27-2009, 10:17 AM

I live in an apartment with three other people and a regular guest. There are six computers and a gaming system with access to the network, but it's very rare that more than one or two is making use at any given time. We are using comcast (it is the only high speed option available).

The connection has been erratic since shortly after we moved in. I have tried various restarts to no effect. When we moved in, I got a speedtest.net result around 15 mbps, it fell to 7 last week, and was only 3 when I tested it today. The connection will often just fail and take several minutes to work again on a given computer, however, it will be working just fine on another computer. The behavior is completely unpredictable.

When I've discussed the issue with comcast, they have told me to take out the router and connect directly to the modem. However, I am hesitant to cut off my roommates from their (spotty) internet while I spend several hours playing around waiting to see if the bad connection happens.

I suspect it's an issue of a faulty router (it's a Netgear WGR614 v7, which I'm aware is not highly regarded).

Anyway, any advice? Or do I need to take the dive, connect directly the modem and see if it screws up?

jonquilmcd · 08-27-2009, 02:54 PM

You need to connect directly to the modem if you really want to find out for sure what the problem is. It's troubleshooting through the process of elimination - if you remove the router you remove the possibilities of the slow connection being due to the router messing up or there being too much network traffic. It's a lot easier and quicker to troubleshoot this way because you're looking at less equipment. Because it's easier and quicker to troubleshoot using this method it also raises the chances of the issue being resolved the first time in intermittent connectivity issues, something that is extremely important if the connectivity is due to a problem on the ISP side (otherwise you can expect months of calling back as you narrow things down to it being the ISP and not your equipment).

08-27-2009, 10:17 AM	#1 (permalink)
darkadelphia Registered User Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 1 OS: PC: XP, Laptop: Mac OS X 10.5	Erratic Connection I live in an apartment with three other people and a regular guest. There are six computers and a gaming system with access to the network, but it's very rare that more than one or two is making use at any given time. We are using comcast (it is the only high speed option available). The connection has been erratic since shortly after we moved in. I have tried various restarts to no effect. When we moved in, I got a speedtest.net result around 15 mbps, it fell to 7 last week, and was only 3 when I tested it today. The connection will often just fail and take several minutes to work again on a given computer, however, it will be working just fine on another computer. The behavior is completely unpredictable. When I've discussed the issue with comcast, they have told me to take out the router and connect directly to the modem. However, I am hesitant to cut off my roommates from their (spotty) internet while I spend several hours playing around waiting to see if the bad connection happens. I suspect it's an issue of a faulty router (it's a Netgear WGR614 v7, which I'm aware is not highly regarded). Anyway, any advice? Or do I need to take the dive, connect directly the modem and see if it screws up?

08-27-2009, 02:54 PM	#2 (permalink)
jonquilmcd Registered User Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: FL Posts: 68 OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit SP1	Re: Erratic Connection You need to connect directly to the modem if you really want to find out for sure what the problem is. It's troubleshooting through the process of elimination - if you remove the router you remove the possibilities of the slow connection being due to the router messing up or there being too much network traffic. It's a lot easier and quicker to troubleshoot this way because you're looking at less equipment. Because it's easier and quicker to troubleshoot using this method it also raises the chances of the issue being resolved the first time in intermittent connectivity issues, something that is extremely important if the connectivity is due to a problem on the ISP side (otherwise you can expect months of calling back as you narrow things down to it being the ISP and not your equipment).