Weird

Over the last 6 weeks or so our Internet connection has been acting weird. When we first noticed it, about 2pm every afternoon our attempts to connect to the web or to download our email thru Outlook Express would fail for several minutes at a time, several times each hour. On the third day of this mess, I contacted our provider, Earthlink. As expected the tech had me try all kinds of things and each showed no problem at our end and his tests from his location showed everything in proper order. As our session was ending, the tech all of a sudden switched into marketing mode and pitched Earthlink's brand new proprietary downloadable software that speeds up internet activity and stops freezes, are we interested in signing up for just $4.95 a month?

These problems have continued in varying intensity ever since first noticed in early March except they have now widened to include a greater percentage of the day. Is it simply coincidental that our internet service has gone to crap the very same time Earthlink rolls out their new software to solve poor internet performance? Am I wrong to think Earthlink, or any business for that matter, would intentionally crap on their customers just to sell additional services? Are the problems which we are experiencing legitimate symptoms of something amiss in our system? Any ideas, comments, or suggestions any would wish to offer in this matter will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, K.

 

Moved to networking to enable a more accurate response.

 

Thanks Sarge.
Appreciate the help.
K

 

I'm guessing that it was PC Finetune that was a part of the sales pitch: http://www.earthlink.net/software/stayconnected.faces but they have a free for members Access Software that appears to have a 7x speed boost for dial-up connections by using compression, caching and "work arounds".

This won't necessarily help with your connection if it still gets interrupted. I suggest starting with the Microsoft dial-up connection troubleshooter.

Can you post more details on your set-up: version of Windows and modem.

 

Can you give a little more info about your internet connection, your network and your computers please.

Earthlink connection is high speed?
Are you connected to the internet via wireless?
Do you use a router?
Is it yours or is it from the provider?

Is there anything that you can do to make this issue stop when it's happening? Such are rebooting the modem, the router, the computers?

 

DSL connection or dial up?
Had much rain where you are? Water on the line is usually the main cause of phone/DSL troubles.
Is the phone line clear?

 

Our system here is 5 individual systems. Each is either a Dell or Acer. The newest is about 3 yrs old and the oldest is something over 6 yrs. There is also a server containing our accounting software and drawings. All are connected through a router. All are running XP or XP Pro. All, except one are running Norton anti-virus. We recently switched one system from Norton to Viper at the suggestion of our local compudoc. That was also our oldest system. Ever since the switch to Viper the freezes and error messages that were continual when that system was working in our accounting software, MYOB, which was most of every day, have gone away. Now we are considering switching all to Viper. MYOB... now there's an inflammatory issue, but I digress, sorry. Our service is DSL thru Earthlink. Today's free internet speed tests (5) range from .53m to 1.46m down and .23m to .31m up. The average range over the past 2 yrs or so for these tests seems 1.3m down and .3m up. Our system is fully wired, nothing running wireless. Earthlink is attached to a Ztxel modem, theirs, then goes to a D-Link router and a Hawking ethernet switch, both ours, to get all our equipment connected. Also connected in the system is a Xerox 3300 all in one which is used exclusively for fax and common printer. Finally there is an Iomega rev drive attached to our server for our daily backups. That appears to be the complete system. When our systems start having trouble connecting to the internet we have never tried anything other then when the Earthlink tech had us do all you just mentioned. While we were working with the Earthlink tech, the symptoms never seemed to appear even tho it was during the time period when the symptoms are usually active. Since the symptoms always seem most active at the same time each day it seemed to us that an outside force was much more plausible and we have never tried any of those procedures since. Does this info help? Is there anything more that may help? Thanks, K.

 

I would like to suggest that you try a few things.

That was a lot to explain but it's a fairly simple network, nothing stands out as being a problem such as having double routers. I doubt it's an earthlink issue, I've had something similar happen on a much larger network with a different connection type. (bonded T1's)

Since you can't get online anyway, try resetting the router when this happens. If it clears the problem it still doesn't mean it was Earthlink. What it was in my case was updating issues. I still haven't traced why, but when XP would check for windows updates, the whole connection would bog down. I turned auto-update off on every computer and it went away. It took about a month to trace it to the updates, very frustrating. I never tested to see if it was one particular system, I was glad to have found the problem. Another way to test the bug is to change all computers to look for auto-updates at 10am and see if your problem moves to a new time. I believe 3pm is default time and generally means it will start anytime from 3-4pm.

There is more to look at to find the issue, but considering the every day at the same time problem, I wanted to share my experience with it.

 

foogoo, yes we have had a great deal of rain lately but the prone lines appear to be a normal as they ever, but it is something to consider, thanks. handygal, your idea also makes sense. We will check into that also. Thanks all, appreciate everyone's help. K.

 

handygal, This issue has been almost non-existant over the past 2 weeks or so, but today it is trying to make up for lost time. I've tried connecting to the web thru IE as well as Chrome. What I get most often is:

This webpage is not available
The webpage at https://webmail.earthlink.net/wam/Login might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.
Here are some suggestions:
Reload this web page later.

Error 101 (net::ERR_CONNECTION_RESET): The connection was reset.

Occasionally I get

Error 102 (net::ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED): The server refused the connection.

or Error 118 (net::ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT): The operation timed out.

Sometimes when it finally connects, everything is in a a different format - empty boxes where pictures usually are, everything is left aligned, or center aligned.

I would like to check on the XP updater but I can't seem to find how to get to XP to see the updater schedule. Any suggestions you may wish to offer will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, K.