[kupan787]

So I am having a rather bizarre internet issue. First let me say I have cable, and things have been fine up until about 2 months ago. When trying to surf the internet, I get really slow speeds (slower than dialup). It takes forever to connect to a webpage, and when it finally starts pulling it down, it takes forever for the whole page to load (images and all). Now, the odd thing is that I can ping websites no problem (15ms ping times to comcast.net, 85ms ping times to macnn.com), and when downloading in BitTorrent, I see speeds around 60KBps (so not great, but not horrible).

My first though was DNS, but I tried changing it to point elsewhere, and have had no better luck. And DNS would only help with connecting to the site, once connected it should then be pulling the content down at a very fast rate, which it is not. I get the same results if plugged in directly to the modem, or via my router. The last bit in the puzzle. When "power-cycling" the modem, sometimes it wont "reconnect". The cable light just flashes, like it can't find the headend (or whatever it is called). I may have to try power cycling the modem 5 or 6 times and leave it for 5-10 minutes after each one before it finally connects, and gives me an IP.

Here is a link to some DSL Reports Tests. I am not sure how much can be gleamed from that, you would really have to be sitting in my seat to understand my pain. My IP has changed, because at one point me requested a new modem and the IP address changed. Comcast is supposed to be sending a line tech out in "24 to 48 hours", but the last two times the appointments were canceled with no call to us because "of an unexpected outage in your area". I am pissed, but thee isn't much I can do, without going back to dialup (DSL isn't available where I am, and neither is FIOS).

[ghporter]

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong from your test results. Has any of your hardware changed between when you had great service and when you started noticing the problem? Have you even moved things around? (Cables can be messed up but work ok in some positions, and they don't show themselves as problems until you move them out of those positions.)

[kupan787]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong from your test results. Has any of your hardware changed between when you had great service and when you started noticing the problem? Have you even moved things around? (Cables can be messed up but work ok in some positions, and they don't show themselves as problems until you move them out of those positions.)

No hardware has changed, and like I mentioned, this happens even when directly plugged into the modem. And I have never had issues with pings (I can ping anything all day long, and get perfectly normal results). The only "issues" is with loading webpages, playing WoW, downloading files (it will ramp up, and then slow down to 0, then ramp up and slow down to 0), and uploading files (sometimes I can connect to my webserver and the uploads either don't work, or crawl slower than 0.5KBps). It doesn't make sense to me at all...I just hope they actually send out the comcast guy this time...

[ghporter]

With cable modems, you often have to turn them off, wait a minute, plug in the ethernet cable, and then turn them back on in order for them to "see" the device you've just plugged in. Have you tried that? Purpose: if there's a consistent problem and the cable company asks you about whether you've done their troubleshooting steps, they will ask if you were connected directly to the modem. Going through the process carefully and purposefully will make sure you have done this properly.

Of course if it's different after this, then there's something else going on, but from your report I doubt it.

[kupan787]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

With cable modems, you often have to turn them off, wait a minute, plug in the ethernet cable, and then turn them back on in order for them to "see" the device you've just plugged in. Have you tried that? Purpose: if there's a consistent problem and the cable company asks you about whether you've done their troubleshooting steps, they will ask if you were connected directly to the modem. Going through the process carefully and purposefully will make sure you have done this properly.

Of course if it's different after this, then there's something else going on, but from your report I doubt it.

Ya, we have done this. I am assuming it is syncing up the mac address, because every time I try a different device (airport extreme, linksys, hardwire to a laptop), I get a different IP. The problem is that sometimes it fails to sync up (I will turn it off for 10 minutes, plug it in and let it sit for 30 minutes, and it never syncs), taking 4 or 5 resets to get it to sync. And then even after it does sync, its a crap shoot if I get a good connection or not. And then the good connection will only last 10 hours to 5 minutes. For awhile I thought it was our modem, so we got a new one and have the same issues.

There is something pretty screwy with our line. Just looking at the dslreport tests, you can see that back on the 17th, we were getting massive packet loss (50% at times). Today it is less, but still not perfect (in the traceroute from west coast to me, I see 4 points of packet loss, 20% or more). When I would run this a few months back, I would see 0% across the board.

The fact that at times it just wont sync (cable light flashing instead of being solid), and yet at other times I will get a perfect connection and perfect speeds by doing nothing, makes me believe that it is an issue with comcast. How else could things be working fine for 5 minutes, and then suddenly (through nothing changing on my part) the connection drops to mud?

I think I was more or less looking to see if anyone else has had similar issues in dealing with comcast support. Getting them to come out seems like pulling teeth.

[ghporter]

Their focus is almost always TV, so if you're getting TV then they figure you're fine. But you're paying for more than TV, and you should get all of what you pay for.