pub said:
When I start to download large files, such as video, from the internet on my home computer,
the internet breaks down and none of my three home computers can browse the internet.
The only thing I can to get the internet back is to restart both the Tims Warner cable box
and the router. I've called Times Warner and they say everything is OK on their side.
However I insisted on replacing their cable box and that didn't help. I also tried a
different router, it didn't help. I've tried different usernet service providers, the
same thing happens.
This problem started about one month ago. It was all fine before this. and I have been
with Times Warner for years.. My take is Times Warner is doing something to disrupt my
internet connection because they probably think I've been downloading too much stuff.
What troubleshooting can I do to find out the real problem?
Is there a network monitoring app that I use to see what brings my internet down when
I'm downloading lots of files? Thanks.
When the failure occurs, have you tried power cycling the router ?
It could be the router that has stopped routing packets. If cycling the
router fixes it, then it could be a router issue.
*******
Only certain routers are good for Bittorrent. In the past, the
problem seems to have been too many "stale" connections in a
router table, leaving no room for new connections. Some of the
sites that discuss Bittorrent, may be able to give a better
idea of routers with a larger table. (The stale entries in the
table are supposed to "age out", so that the table space
is recovered. The design isn't that brain dead - there is
some logic to it. It's just the sheer number of short
term connections that Bittorrent uses, is too much for
the aging interval used.)
I'm not aware of any other protocols, that "tip over" home
router boxes as a function of level of usage. You can FTP
"until the cows come home", and the router won't care. And that's
because most FTP clients use relatively low numbers of connections.
If it is a Time Warner problem, maybe you'll need to find a forum
with other Time Warner users in it, to see if there is a
recent policy change. Maybe other people are seeing this too.
ISPs have plenty of other options, besides stopping a service dead,
such as throttling it, or charging exorbitant fees for overages.
They don't really need to stop the service dead, to get their
message across.
Do the Time Warner staff have access to the monthly "byte count log"
for your service ? Perhaps they can tell you how close to your
transfer cap you are.
You'd be surprised what details of the operation of the ISP, that
the tech support aren't familiar with. For example, when my ISP
put our mail server in a "black hole", the tech support refused
to believe me when I described how I narrowed down the technical
issue to that fact. I was able to restore service from my end,
by changing a MTU setting. But the guy on the other end of the
phone, swore up and down, that no recent changes had been made
to email. So they just don't know. As another example, ISPs
have automated mail relay detection on their equipment, and
can detect the usage of mail relays, but if you ask the
tech support, they'll again swear there is no such function.
But people who regularly handle a lot of email with that
ISP, have observed the automated feature closing ports when
ports other than a regular email port are used in that way.
So there are a few problems, that people have been able to
characterize from the "outside" of the ISP. But if they
were just cutting you off, I mean, you'd have a hard time
distinguishing between Time Warner "policy", versus some
dead equipment on their end. It's up to them, to confess.
Paul
