Internet Problems While Staying with Relatives?

I've been staying with relatives for three days each week so that I may be closer to my campus as I am attending a graduate program. Since arriving here, I've noticed issues with their network (or maybe my computer, I don't really know)

What's been happening is I will try to surf the web and pages will either not load entirely or will be stuck loading forever (ie the spinny wheel at the top of the firefox browser going on and on endlessly with no movement) . Facebook for some reason seems to be the worst offender not loading at all most of the time or loading incompletely and not loading all of the newest timeline stories. I've also noticed problems with google loading occasionally... Okay, pretty much anything loading at all whenever this issue happens. This is bothersome because a lot of my assignments are posts online to discussions and different things and my school affiliated webpage for that does not load each time either.

I've tried restarting my laptop to no avail, but I've found that occasionally, disconnecting and reconnecting to the network works... But only for a few minutes. I am becoming frustrated because this means disconnecting and reconnecting to the network some days at least every five minutes of my computer usage.

Whenever the network IS working, the speed is good, so that is not the issue. I tried to get diagnostics on speedtest, but that page would not load. -.- I am also copying the entirety of this message as I'll more than likely have to try again... And again... And again...

EDIT: Also adding, if I am signed into skype during these episodes, it seems to be unaffected, but I have since stopped using skype here as it's probably annoying my contacts that I'm in and out every few minutes from the disconnecting process.

Whats the speed?

Years ago I had the worst internet of my life ATT DSL in ft worth....

youtube videos wouldnt even stream...

Are you able to use your phones hotspot connection?

You could reboot the router... That thing that connects your house to the internet service. Other then that, call the internet company.

The speed is fine when it's working correctly so no complaints there. And, maybe I'll have to try restarting the router. I was talking to a tech savvy friend though and he mentioned something about packets being dropped? Whatever that means.

a reply to: Myomistress

Packet loss is often due to network congestion.
As someone suggested, try rebooting the router.
You might also try a free optimizer program like Adanvced Sytem Care.
I use it all the time. It optimizes system performance by freeing up resources, and cleaning the registry, etc...

You could also check to see if any of the devices on the network is miss configured. By that i mean the IP address of all the devices should be set to automatic, both IPV4 and IPV6. Also check DNS servers are set to auto assign.

Those things are the biggest issues i find when digging into network problems.

If all the steps listed in this thread don't help, i would call the ISP. I had DSL many moons ago, there was a bad wire on the pole that was loose, causing noise on the line. Same can be said for cable ISP as well.

a reply to: Myomistress

If it is a MacBook & on WiFi, it could be an incompatibility with the access point.

I find that manually setting the MTU size to 1492 on the MacBook sorts things.

I keep seeing you say that speed is fine but do not see the actual speed of the connection at your house listed. If you have anything less than a 3mbps (mega bits per sec) connection i can start to see where speed issues are becoming a factor especially for ad and app heavy sites like Facebook. This will become even more of a factor if multiple devices and people are using the link at once.

1. What is the actual speed of the connection ?
- Running a speed test will usually give you a good idea. You will want to run it with nothing else in your browser open and no other devices connected. Run it 2 times to get a good measure. Speedtest.net is good if you're not using that one

2. How many people actively use it at once?
Like i said above, if you have a slow connection to start and 2 or 3 people are using it at once, you will consume the available bandwidth very fast. You say the issue is intermittent, what r the factors the lead to good perf over bad ? Any trends like time of day , etc?

3. Make and model of your computer - Is this a new computer or something older?

4. Browser type ( Firefox version 40, Internet Explorer 9,10,11, etc ) - If its all older, try upgrading them to something newer. Some webpages no longer allow you ot view them in older browsers

5. How does your computer connect to the internet? Wireless or wired? - Having same issues on both types? Wired will typically give you a better connection over wireless due to many factors.

6. What is the actual type of connection? DSL, Broadband through cable provider, Satellite, etc?

On some of these connection types, you pay for a certain speed like 3mbps or 6mbps but in fact you " share " the bandwidth with the rest of the neighborhood so during peak times 4pm - 12am you will typically see a perf knock because everyone in the neighborhood is drinking the river dry so to speak. obviously with connection types like satellite things can get spotty just because of positioning or weather.



a reply to: Myomistress

There's a zillion and 1 things to check.

Plug into the router with a network cable. If everything works fine the issue could be wifi congestion.

Wifi congestion is a killer. At my house there are so many overlapping signals that my wifi speed will not go over 24mbps.

I used a program called inSSIDer to see how congested I was and there were about some 10 wireless routers around my house.

The overlapping wifi channels caused the slow down. Plus whatever other consumer electronics that broadcast on 2.4 ghz.

www.metageek.com...

a reply to: Myomistress

Whole lot of computers are infected with competing Trojans and viruses

Standard anti virus programs are not enough, you gotta be more sophisticated now a days