Is someone downloading huge files, eating up bandwidth, and making my internet connection sluggish?
Asked by
Snarp (
11272
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January 1st, 2010
I have DSL internet through my local phone company. Occasionally at certain times, usually at night, my internet will largely stop working. Sometimes it simply becomes sluggish, sometimes no sites will load at all, sometimes one or two sites will load, but not others. I have tried everything I know to fix the connection, I have released and renewed my IP address manually, I have used the Windows network connection manager to check the connection, everything says it is fine, except that hardly any packets are being sent and received. I have restarted the computer, unplugged the DSL modem and the router to allow them to reset, all the right lights show on the modem and router. The same problem happens with my machine plugged directly into the router, or with a wireless connection on a laptop or an iPhone. I have turned off my firewall and get the same problem. I assume the problem is the phone company’s, but what exactly is going on? Is there some huge bandwidth hogging activity happening at night? Is there some standard server I can ping to check my connection? Frankly, I hate to call the phone company because they don’t actually give a number specifically for internet customer service and I can’t imagine the parade of idiots I’ll have to go through to actually get someone who can even understand my question, let alone help me. Any thoughts?
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13 Answers
Sounds like a case of leech. Is your modem encrypted?
Most of the time my connection bogs is due to either an update running in the background or my roommate’s Linux box (which is always on) doing something. And if he is torrenting like he does to pick up new versions then the other two PCs we have cannot use the ‘net period since the ping times go from ~60msec to >3200msec.
Who else is using your wireless anyways? MAC filtering helps a bit ;)
Nobody else is using my wireless. It is encrypted.
Hopefully not with WEP since that is basically worthless. WPA is a step up but WPA2 is really the minimum.
BTW – Are you sure you are alone? I mean, does the router log verify that fact?
Also, I have heard odd cases of DSL fritzing out due to moisture in the lines running around the town, but that would affect more people (like entire neighborhoods) and would also be more common during/after a good rain.
@jery: I know that WPA is stronger than WEP, but can you really say WEP is “basically worthless”? I mean, I don’t know how to crack an encrypted wireless access point—do you? I might not trust it at the White House or Pentagon, but isn’t WEP good enough to protect you from the deadbeat snoop in the next apartment looking to tap an unencrypted connection?
WEP can be cracked at this point with no know-how at all. All you need is a quick google search, and an application download. It’s mostly automated at this point and really doesn’t require any knowledge of the inner workings at all. Yeah it’ll still keep a completely computer illiterate person from joining your network by accident, but it won’t keep out someone with an even passing interest in using your network at all.
The phone company may be running maintenance at night. My cable connection seems to frequently go out for a few seconds in the middle of the night. I just have to unplug and replug the modem and it usually works again, but maybe that is what they are doing.
Like what @jerv said (and someone please correct me if I’m wrong) – I think you can find out who’s online and connected to your router by going to your local address. Mine’s 192.168.0.1, but I think sometimes it’s different for other routers.
All this assumes that there’s someone within range of my wireless router with the knowledge and motivation to crack it. Since I live in a house, not an apartment, the likelihood of some neighbor even being in range is pretty low. I’m pretty sure none of the neighbors close enough have the knowledge or the motivation.
Download Network Magic from Cisco, and it will tell you whenever there is an intruder on your network.
@Snarp I’ve only ever lived one place where I can say that might have been true (it was in the middle of the woods) and even then, a “cantenna” could’ve picked up the signal if I ran at full-power were my immediate neighbors so inclined.
@jerv Oh sure, anything’s possible, but it’s highly unlikely.
@Snarp Fair enough. It’s just that I’ve seen too many weird things in my life to discount things that are merely unlikely.
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