[bigmike504]

The apartment complex I recently moved into has internet provided by Hotwire Communications. It's somewhat decent throughout the day but during the night 10pm - 1am (which I'm guessing is peak usage time) it gets horrible.

Here's a ping test I ran from one of the nights that I saved, but I don't even think that does it justice.

http://i.imgur.com/qZrqI.png

It seems like I'm experiencing closer to a whopping 2 second input delay in online games. I'm guessing this is a bandwidth related issue considered it only occurs during certain hours, but I'm not sure I don't know as much as a lot of the people on this forum

Anyway, besides getting the apartment complex to do something on their end (they really suck), is there ANYTHING I can do to improve performance on my end? Any tweaks or anything?

Thanks so much!

 

[Stancestans]

You could disable automatic updates of both windows and programs that you have installed coz these access the internet from the background and sometimes you don't even have to run them for them to auto update. The same applied for your browser. It could be checking for program, search engines and add-on updates without you knowing it. Go through it's preferences and disable these auto updates. Then you could use tools such as Advanced System Care to optimize your network connection settings as well as browser settings.

 

[bigmike504]

Thanks so much, I'll try to disable auto updates on a lot of my programs.

Then you could use tools such as Advanced System Care to optimize your network connection settings as well as browser settings.

Could you explain a little more about what you mean by this?

 

[ReviverSoft]

As far as Network Optimization is concerned, you could give TCP Optimizer a try.

Here's a quick guide: SpeedGuide.net - TCP Optimizer

decent throughout the day but during the night 10pm - 1am (which I'm guessing is peak usage time) it gets horrible.

Unfortunately, this happens all over the world, unless of course you have a dedicated line.

 

[Fred Garvin]

None of the above suggestions address the (most likely) root cause of your problem -- network congestion. If you've got an entire apartment complex sharing an underpowered connection, the only fix is a faster line or your own dedicated connection with an ISP. Do a tracert to an outside destination to see where the slowdown occurs.

 

[Wand3r3r]

most likely its gamers saturating the link.

router needs to have QoS and someone needs to configure it so the gamers don't grab all the bandwidth.

 

[Stancestans]

This means your network connections and browser settings can be optimised to suit the type/speed of your connection. "Advanced System Care" is just an example of utilities that can do these optimizations. "TCP Optimizer" is another example utility that does the same. There are several out there, some come in a pack of more other tools, such as Advanced System Care. It's true u cannot do much about network congestion, but u can tweak your connection settings so that your browser accesses the net much smoothly, with the same jammed internet connection, feel me? An example of these settings is "the number of simultaneous connections" by your browsers. A slow/congested connection would work better if the number of simultaneous connections is smaller. Likewise, for a fast connection, the number of simultaneous connections should be bigger for one to enjoy the fast connectivity. It's almost similar to bandwidth regulation. Imagine you have a 512kb/s internet connection, but your browser is limited to 20kb/s, you won't enjoy the fast connection, compared to another user of the same connection whose browsers are limited to say 256kb/s.