I have had a persistant problem since mid-October with Comcast. For
about 5 weeks I have been experiencing some serious latency issues.
My connection will be very fast and then all of a sudden the
connection will drop down below 56k modem quality. I know this
because I ran the broadband tests at dslreports.com and
broadbandtest.com.

Telephone support has been useless there solution is to restart the
modem/computer, and of course everything starts right back up again
just fine so they think the problem is solved.

I have had 6 technicians to the house the first 3 were useless. One
actually said 'Geez I don't know what is wrong. Why don't you wait a
few weeks and see if the problem goes away'. I was so shocked I
almost laughed in his face. The last time at the house there were 3
techs that thought the degradation was because of my router, so I
bypassed the router and know have the cable modem connected directly
into the computer. For the past few days, I have now been
experiencing disconnects where I cannot navigatet the net. I simple
restart of the computer solves the problem (why????).

For some reason, I suspect someone else has the same IP address as I
do and this is causing the disconnects. Why, I don't know... Can
anyone help me prove/disprove this?

Is there a way of my troubleshooting this problem.

Using Win2000 as OS.

Thanks in advance.

post some traceroutes

Mark Graveline wrote:
What happens if you use a different NIC? This has been my experience
with failing PC-Card NICs, especially the restoration on restart.

Q

That is what I was thinking. I am going to try a different computer
to see if the problem is resolved.

When everything is working fine there are the results of 'tracert':

Tracing route to pcp03884585pcs.clintn01.ct.comcast.net
[68.46.213.100]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms pcp03884585pcs.clintn01.ct.comcast.net
[68.46.213.100]

Trace complete.

When the problem occurs these are the results:

Tracing route to pcp03884585pcs.clintn01.ct.comcast.net
[68.46.213.100]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms DBRQW900 [68.46.213.100]

Trace complete.

'DBRQW900' is the local computer name.

Any thoughts??

"Quaoar" <quaoar@tenthplanet.net> wrote in message news:<0badncuApt3lME2iRVn-gQ@comcast.com>...

"Mark Graveline" <mark_graveline@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:495505de.0312061603.78afbd15@posting.google.c om...
at least trace to your default gateway or points further.

Mark,
Where are you located. Very similar issues at my location (Northern
Connecticut), but I can see a lot of packet loss going on, and the
technians at the 888 support have also been able to see the packet loss
at the modem. Have tried 3 different modems and all the same results,
tried two different machines, likewise.. I also have had the tech out
to the house several times. He is completely frustrated by the problem,
and lack of execution on some of his recommendations. In my case, the
packet loss is documented.

Jay S.

Mark Graveline wrote:

Hi Giles..

Thanks for you replies. I was just disconnected again and tried to
tracert to my default gateway, and received 'Request Timed Out' below
are the details. Any other thoughts?

Tracing route to 68.46.213.9 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 * * * Request timed out.
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.

"Giles Harney" <gharney@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<9PednX3SNsNP7E-i4p2dnA@comcast.com>...

Hi Jay,

Thanks for the reply. The techs did say there was packet loss when
the router was plugged, so I by passed the router itself. Could
packet loss be causing a disconnect?

thanks again.

Jay Sottolano <sottola@noattbispam.com> wrote in message news:<3FD2AA36.1010000@noattbispam.com>...

"Mark Graveline" <mark_graveline@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:495505de.0312070720.5233b58b@posting.google.c om...
you may have mentioned this before but refresh my memory;

are you directly connected to your cable modem? (ie- no router)
what type of modem? (usb?)
when you experience the problem what are the status of the lights on the
modem?
do you have a firewall? (software or hardware)

"Mark Graveline" <mark_graveline@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:495505de.0312070720.5233b58b@posting.google.c om...

Mark,

How do you figure that 68.46.213.9 is your default gateway?
To me, that looks like an IP that is assigned to a user.

I would think that your gateway is 68.46.213.1

Please double check.

In article <495505de.0312042202.1e7f5036@posting.google.com>,
mark_graveline@hotmail.com (Mark Graveline) wrote:

Please describe, in detail, your configuration - both your coax runs and
your computers & routers.

Coax enters home, goes to splitter -- then what's connected on each fork
of that splitter? etc...

Does the problem occur if you:
1. totally disconnect the fork to your televisions
2. connect your modem as close as possible to the other fork
3. connect your PC directly to the modem.


Exactly which test sites are you using? Are you talking to a local
server or one that's clear across the country? ...You can't judge a
local traffic jam based on your round trip from one ocean to the other.
Nor can you use a java-based test with a slow computer. :\ IOW, these
tests are not terribly useful when telecom problems are occuring; they
simply introduce more variables.


Doubtful.

The connectivity from the CMTS to your modem is encrypted, and routing
is done to your modem, not to you. If someone hijacked your modem's IP
or your public IP, you or he would loose all connectivity (+/- CMTS
configuration issues).


In article <495505de.0312070723.64900644@posting.google.com>,
mark_graveline@hotmail.com (Mark Graveline) wrote:
Absolutely. The question is - from where is the loss originating -
within your LAN, your router (if any), your modem, your drop to the
CMTS, within Comcast's local intranet, at the peering point to the
outside, or beyond? That's why we need the traceroutes...


In article <495505de.0312061603.78afbd15@posting.google.com>,
mark_graveline@hotmail.com (Mark Graveline) wrote:
Tracing to yourself is not useful. And note that <10ms figure - that's
because Windoze cannot accurately time anything in that range.

Please show us two complete traces to www.comcast.net -- one taken when
things are working and one taken as soon as things begin to fail.

- Dan.
--
- Psychoceramic Emeritus
- South Jersey, USA, Earth

are you directly connected to your cable modem? (ie- no router)

what type of modem? (usb?)

when you experience the problem what are the status of the lights on
the
modem?

do you have a firewall? (software or hardware)

Again thanks for yourhelp. Another thing to note is the system event
log this messages keeps appearing when the problem occurs.

'The DNS Client service could not contact any DNS servers for a
repeated number of attempts'.




"Giles Harney" <gharney@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<meudnTMwC_dv006i4p2dnA@comcast.com>...

"Mark Graveline" <mark_graveline@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:495505de.0312070958.541726b7@posting.google.c om...

You cable modem has a built in web server where you can look at the signal
levels and the cable modem's log.
Go to 192.168.100.1 and see what it shows.

Post your Downstream Signal to Noise Level, Power Level, and Upstream Power
Level values and possibly you cable modem's log file and others here will be
able to advise if they appear to be "normal".

You might want to capture the values when things appear to be working
normally and when your problems are actually occurring so they can see if
the values are fluctuating.

"Giles Harney" <gharney@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<44ednS83cK05zU6iRVn-uw@comcast.com>...
Yes, you are correct. It is 68.46.213.1 however, I get the same results.

Mark...

Dan Cottler wrote:
I lost contact with this thread. I had a similar problem with a Moto
3100 in the halcyon days of Excite. I had three truck rolls, and on the
last one the tech replaced the modem. He said that there was a run of
Moto 3100's with a firmware error that caused a mystery disconnect that
Excite was pushing Motorola to correct with a download to the modems,
but in the interim, Excite was simply replacing the failed units. I'm
wondering if this might be the same issue. The 3100 has been around a
long time...

Q

On 7 Dec 2003 09:58:08 -0800, mark_graveline@hotmail.com (Mark
Graveline) wrote:

Lack of DNS service can be a major problem. I had that problem with
Earthlink, Telocity, and DirecTV; I actually developed a list of
Telocity DNS servers and pinged a dozen or so periodically to identify
the three best ones for me. My current ISP is local, and they have 2
DNS servers on the same subnet as my default gateway, so DNS is one
thing I don't worry about right now. But I know where you're coming
from.

Did you ask Comcast for a list of DNS servers to use?

I use PingPlotter (http://www.pingplotter.com/) to document network
problems like that, it will show various network problems in an
objective way that can't be beat.

Chuck
I hate spam - PLEASE get rid of the spam before emailing me!
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the input. It is really appreciated.

Right now I am not convinced that the problem may not reside on my
internal with either the OS or it being hardware related.

Is there a way that I can test connectivity between my computer and
the cable modem when the problem occurs? Either via a ping or some
other command, or is doing this pointless?

Thanks again.


"GlowingBlueMist" <nobody@invalid.com> wrote in message news:<br0h45$27cg9i$1@ID-185970.news.uni-berlin.de>...

"Mark Graveline" <mark_graveline@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:495505de.0312081158.29a7e74c@posting.google.c om...
www.pingplotter.com to your default gateway for 24 hours. set ping interval
to 2.5 seconds.

post graph or data file (not to usenet) to either a website or ftp site you
can upload to.

On 8 Dec 2003 11:58:50 -0800, mark_graveline@hotmail.com (Mark
Graveline) wrote:

Mark,

That's the beauty of PingPlotter. It gives you a combination of "ping
-t" and tracert, in a graphical display. What I would do is start
PingPlotter against an external address (say a dns server), leave it
running, and see when it shows no response. Then observe if the no
response occurs between your computer and your modem, or further
upstream.

Cheers,

Chuck
I hate spam - PLEASE get rid of the spam before emailing me!
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.

Ok... I just lost connectivity again. Before I did a reboot I tried
to ping the ip address of the web server on the cable modem
(192.168.100.1). The result was a 'Request Time Out'. That being
said does, that mean that something is wrong between my pc and the
cable modem?

Mark...

"GlowingBlueMist" <nobody@invalid.com> wrote in message news:<br0h45$27cg9i$1@ID-185970.news.uni-berlin.de>...