Internet Situation

[OcR cha0s]

So, the reason why I haven't been accepting invites or anything is because my internet has been fucking up big time. However, this is not the usual internet fuck-up situation.

I use Earthlink, and am usually used to about 6000 kbps down/450kbps up. However, over the past week, this has all changed. As of the last speed test, I've been getting 760kbps down/450 up. It was as low as 400 kbps down/450 up, but it's rebounded a little bit since then.

I really don't know what's wrong. I'm going to try resetting my internet connection soon, to see if that helps, but I doubt it will. I've already inspected my router and firewall settings and everything seems normal. The only other possibility I can think of is that Earthlink has limited my rates due to Bittorrent, but they have never done that in the past and I have only torrented once or twice in the past few months. Any help on this situation (especially from Envy, the computer whiz) would be greatly appreciated.

[OcR Thryx]

Someone is eating your bandwidth.

[OcR GamePlayer]

Ya double check and make sure no 1 is feeding off your router wirelessly.

[OcR cha0s]

Probably not, since my network is secured, but it's the weaker of the two (WEP/WPA), so I guess there is a slight possibilty.

[OcR GamePlayer]

Slight? With all the hacking going on today, it would be to easy.

[OcR Thryx]

Mice are eating your Ethernet cords.

[Hunter501]

That's sucks, be careful of hacks

[OcR Envy]

Could be many things cha0s, although I know your into computers yourself here's some things it may be.

It could be someone hacking your wireless connection, although the chances of them constantly using that much bandwidth are unlikely. Try logging into your wireless router and see how many ips it has assigned at any given time. If it's more than what YOU have connected to your router than someone hacked your shit and it's time for a router reset/change password.

Spyware: Spyware may rip off your internet bandwidth for not so great reasons. Run a spyware detector to see if it picks up anything, even better run 2. Also keep in mind if you have more than one comptuer scan all of them.

Signal strength, Did something in your house recently change? Did you move your computer or your wireless router or maybe you added a new wall with lots of lead paint in it? Try running a hard line and testing your speed. Wireless really does suck the life out of your bandwidth, if possible always use a hard line.

Thyrx jokingly may have hit on something. Are you using DSL or Cable? If it's Cable have you recently added another Cable TV Box? Or have you recently split your cable wire another time? The more times you split the cable line running into your house the weaker the cable signal gets and the weaker your internet connection will be. If possible try pluggin the line that runs into your house directly to your cable modem. If you can't directly plug it in try doing it with the least amount of splits. Also adding another Cable TV Box will take away from your overall speed. Remember here with Cable your TV and Internet run on the same line, that line can only hold so much information. If you have 2 people watching cable tv both on say HD channels your internet connection will suffer.

Hope that helps, let me know :)

[OcR cha0s]

Well... it's up to 1300 today... still less than 1/4 of what I'm used to getting, and still not enough to get on Xbox live. I checked my router's log, and there was nothing out of the ordinary.

I also ran a spyware scan that came up negative.

Wireless would be an issue, but my speed is slow on my computer that is connected by wires.

I haven't changed anything about my actual cable since I got it, so that's out of the question

Hopefully I can figure this out sometime soon and be back on Xbox Live in time for Halo 3.

[OcR Thryx]

GEEK SQUAD!

[OcR cha0s]

HELL NO! Never call Geek Squad... ever.

[OcR Thryx]

Why not?

[OcR Envy]

Again I would still try looking at your splitters, splitters fail over time it's something that happends and they do need to be replaced every so often.

Suck it up and call your ISP, tell them you have very limited connection and it appears to drop very often. They'll send someone out to check your cable "signal strength" don't let them leave without running a speed test. Your paying for a service cha0s get your moneys worth.

[OcR ROCKETR]

Again I would still try looking at your splitters, splitters fail over time it's something that happends and they do need to be replaced every so often.
Suck it up and call your ISP, tell them you have very limited connection and it appears to drop very often. They'll send someone out to check your cable "signal strength" don't let them leave without running a speed test. Your paying for a service cha0s get your moneys worth.
I agree, the exact same thing happened to me and it was a dead splitter. I would definitely check it out as a possibility.

[OcR Thryx]

Also if you have a lose splitter make sure it is not open to air if it gets inside it can screw with your connection.

[OcR cha0s]

I just tested it a few minutes ago and, right now, it's up to 6800/500, which is about what it is regularly. I didn't even change anything. Maybe it was just a problem with Earthlink for a few days.