Has this happened to anyone else?

[Occhidiangela]

When I get home. Glad to hear there is some hope that it might be the right answer. There is hope.

Moral: sometimes, maybe ya gotta throw parts at it!

[Nastie_Bowie]

When I get home.  Glad to hear there is some hope that it might be the right answer.  There is hope.

Moral: sometimes,  maybe ya gotta throw parts at it!

I understand your hesitancy with parts. It would suxxor the biggie to put a new mobo in, and boot the machine and it still flips you off. :lol:

NB :rolleyes:

[the Langolier]

You just need to have your son turn on your computer each time. :P

[Nastie_Bowie]

You just need to have your son turn on your computer each time.  :P

I'm thinking the same thing. :P

NB :rolleyes:

[Occhidiangela]

He has tried for the past three days, and no luck. He is most frustrated at his inability to kill the Evil Zergs . . .

[LochnarITB]

Hey Occhi, this is specifically pointed to you but anyone else is free to chime in if they have an experience to add. Occhi, this thread started with you having problems with downloading with your new cable internet access from Road Runner. Now that you figured out it was a hardware problem, what have been your impressions of the service? Do you have many problems with connections dropping? Do you get the advertised speed (3 mbit down, 384 kbit up here)? Any problems with latency? Is it a fixed IP or dynamic? Are you networking your comps with the connection and are there any problems sharing the IP? Do you use news servers at all and does Road Runner provide news servers? I have asked these questions of their phone center but would like to hear how it does for you in everyday use. I used to love my DSL from Qwest but lately I have been having random drops and half speed connections. Calls to their tech support result in 30-45+ minute hold times, line tests showing no problems and even having them send a replacement modem, all to no avail. It has become a large annoyance that I don't think I need. Being one shot away from the kill in Gunbound only to have it stripped away by a drop is no fun (boy, does that say where my priorities lie or what?). At $44.95 for Time Warner/Road Runner, it is slightly more expensive than my current DSL/ISP but is 5 times the download speed. If I could keep my current ISP and pay just for the cable connection without the Road Runner ISP, it would be a done deal. Your input please?

[Bun-Bun]

Hey Occhi, this is specifically pointed to you but anyone else is free to chime in if they have an experience to add.

Bong!

Do you get the advertised speed (3 mbit down, 384 kbit up here)?

The best I've gotten is 2.5 mbps down, but it's usually limited by the far end. That's plenty good enough for lil 'ole me. They claim to have boosted the speed recently, but I haven't downloaded anything big enough to tell the difference yet.

Is it a fixed IP or dynamic?

Dynamic, although I don't think it's changed in over a year. I wouldn't run a server on it, though.

Are you networking your comps with the connection and are there any problems sharing the IP?

Yes, I've got the G4, the G5, and a Linksys wireless access point hooked into a Linksys 4-port cable modem router. The PowerBook hooks in through the AP. The AP uses DHCP to serve out addresses when I have a LAN party, and I have the others on fixed 192.x.x.x IP's. Works like a champ.

Do you use news servers at all and does Road Runner provide news servers?

Yes, I use austin.rr.com's news server. It's tolerably fast and reasonably comprehensive. At least, it gets ARS. :)

I used to love my DSL from Qwest but lately I have been having random drops and half speed connections.

No drops, and no slowdowns. There is an interruption in service about every other month for a few hours for no reason I can discern. That's _much_ better than when they started, when they would drop off the face of the earth for a day or two every month. For an ISP, they seem to have their act together in most ways.

If I could keep my current ISP and pay just for the cable connection without the Road Runner ISP, it would be a done deal.

Only if you're using Earthlink or AOHell. I think those are the only options available. I hate AoHell and can't abide Earthlink. so I had to go with rr.com. Actually, I got the service when rr. com was all there was, so my choice really wasn't. :) What I did was switch to a telnet-only access with my old ISP (io.com) for $10 a month so I keep my io.com mail account active. I just set up my mail reader to check io.com as well as rr.com for incoming mail. And it also checks my domain host too, since I use that for some e-mail addys (mainly throwaway spamtraps). I think I have too many e-mail addresses. <_<

That's my $.02. I'm using Time-Warner in Austin, Texas.

[LochnarITB]

Thank you Bun-Bun! Qwest dropped my DSL a couple more times again today, once just after I found a Gunbound room that actually had people that didn't act like 12 year olds whose 1337 skills outshined everyone else's right up until they fired the first shot. I just couldn't bring myself to spend another 45 minutes on hold to get nowhere so the next call to them will probably be to turn it off. Unless some miracle happens (like they call me to say "You've been such a great customer, let us run this T3 into your house and we'll do it at half the current cost!") the only real question I have left is whether I am going to do the same as you for the email address. I had thought about it but don't know if I am so attached to my current address to justify the added cost. Besides, if I do change addresses, it might take a while for all the pr0n and big sale today only spammers to find me again.

[Occhidiangela]

Now that you figured out it was a hardware problem, what have been your impressions of the service?

LOL, about a month after the power supply replacement, the HD and MoBoard ate each other. MO Board is not dead. Not sure if it was power surges, the "Taiwan Capacitors" thing, or just bad luck. However, on to RR.

===Do you have many problems with connections dropping?

Rarely

===Do you get the advertised speed (3 mbit down, 384 kbit up here)?

No, here in CC the best I ever got was 1.5, rarely get that high. Up is 250-310, at best. However, we are at the rectum end of the Internet Colon, so if you live in a big city, Bun Bun's numbers make more sense.

===Any problems with latency?

Rarely if ever, but unlike DSL, I am on a shared pipe. So, at certain hours, I get some bad gaming speeds, but otherwise, my only heartache is Microsoft outlook's slowing down everything when I open emails. That simply stinks.

=== Is it a fixed IP or dynamic?

Fixed

Are you networking your comps with the connection and are there any problems sharing the IP?

NOt netwoking until I get the New Moboard.

===Do you use news servers at all and does Road Runner provide news servers?

Yes they provide. Don't use them that often.

I used to love my DSL from Qwest but lately I have been having random drops and half speed connections. Being one shot away from the kill in Gunbound only to have it stripped away by a drop is no fun (boy, does that say where my priorities lie or what?). At $44.95 for Time Warner/Road Runner, it is slightly more expensive than my current DSL/ISP but is 5 times the download speed. If I could keep my current ISP and pay just for the cable connection without the Road Runner ISP, it would be a done deal. Your input please?

RR is OK, but I am leaning toward DSL. That, however, has as much to do with local conditions as anything else.

[LochnarITB]

No, here in CC the best I ever got was 1.5, rarely get that high.&nbsp; Up is 250-310, at best.&nbsp; However, we are at the rectum end of the Internet Colon, so if you live in a big city, Bun Bun's numbers make more sense.


RR is OK, but I am leaning toward DSL.&nbsp; That, however, has as much to do with local conditions as anything else.

How important is the speed for you? Being at the rectum end, are you sure you can even get DSL? You have to be within a certain distance of the closest switch (as the wire travels not the crow flies - 3 miles?). Even within this distance, if you are at the outer limits or if the wiring anywhere inbetween is old/questionable, your speed can degrade. The speed packages also vary in price. Here, the base rate is for 256k down which probably gives actual results of ~200k. My connection is $10+/month extra to step up to 640k rating which, at best, gives me ~500k down. If I had brand new copper or even fiber from the switch right up to the house, drops and poor speed probably would not be an issue. However, this is a fairly old neighborhood so I am sure much of the routing is copper with questionable insulation. I know that rainy days can really play havoc with my connection. Cable seems to have more fault tolerant wiring and is considerably newer, in this area, than the phone system's infrastructure. I first chose DSL because I was worried about having to share the pipe. I don't think, though, that this area probably has a high concentration of speed users so that shouldn't be a concern. But, you never know what others do behind closed doors so I might come to regret switching. I think I'm going to give it a try.

Beep Beer, Occhi Coyote

Hmmm... Freudian slip of the finger tips? :lol:

[mjdoom]

Hmm, haven't posted here in a few years as best I remember and not much at all back then either...

I am currently taking a Network Performance class at my college and in so doing have come across a few interesting resources relating to upload/download speeds and performance. If anyone is ever looking for a speed tester for their link speeds this seems to be a pretty good one. It will calculate your uplink and downlink speeds as well as give some additional information for you to look at.

Another interesting site with a bunch of information is this one. Some of the information is a bit technical but there's definitely some interesting stuff there including a brief explanation of how upstream traffic on a cable service can actually affect downstream traffic.

Hopefully someone can find some of this information useful. Meanwhile, I'm going to head back into lurk mode.

- Mark

[Edit: word order]

[Occhidiangela]

Well, it is only in the last 18 months that my own house is within < 3 miles of the hub, the node.

So, it is now an option where previously it was not. SBC advertises just under 1Mbit download rates, I think in the 600kbit speed range, 128 up.

I will have to check that in their literature.