You may remember last week that I posted about my Internet Issues with losing my connection all the time. The strange thing about my problems is that I would lose ‘web’ access while my other applications would stay connected. I was with AT&T using DSL on a network with a wired and wireless router. The wireless router is being used as an access point set up as a pass through. I am now using Cox Internet with the same configuration. I took a picture above of my current system after the changes. The big difference in the above system is the new cable modem on the left. I checked the speed on Speakeasy’s Speed test and the download speed was 23847 kbps and the upload speed was 3644 kbps, fairly impressive.
Unfortunately my problem has not gone away. I have more than one router and I have tried both of them with the same results. When the system is working, it works very well. The problem is that I have times where my web access just fails to load after timing out. When it happens, it does it to all connected computers. It is clear that my problem is with the router because it works smooth with the computer connected directly to the modem. I am just not sure what is wrong with the router settings. If anyone else has had this problem before and has any suggestions, please let me know. You can either post here, or email me directly at paul [dot] mccord at gmail (dot) com. This is quite frustrating and I am very confused. The router is set up with default settings for a cable modem with the exception of certain ports being forwarded to specific computers. This is absolutely necessary because I have a ham radio linking system that uses several ports. I also have several programs that are used on specific computers that use special ports. All of our computers are set to static IP addresses so that port forwarding is possible.
I guess the single characteristic that makes this so interesting is that we do not lose Internet connection on our other applications such as Skype, and other audio streaming programs. It is only the web that is being affected. Also this seems to happen when we are accessing the web simultaneously on more than one computer. I know the web uses port 80 and so I am inclined to think that multiple accesses to the same port are confusing the router. Usually if I stop all web access for about two full minutes, the problem goes away. I do not even have to reboot the router, or the modem. Does this sound familiar? I am very interested in any suggestions others may have. What really gets me is that it happens on two separate routers. Also it does not happen all the time. For example at this moment I am trying to put stress on my system by streaming IRLP audio, watching Hulu.com on another computer, watching TWiT on another computer all at the same time. It is running flawlessly at this moment. I am very concerned about what is causing this because when it happens, my web is stopped cold. There is no access at all and in some cases, it is very slow. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
Tags: cable, DSL, problems, undependable, web