Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA
 ·Charter Pipeline
|  [HSI] Tech help please...
Greetings,
Techs out there, I could really use some help please. Here is what's happening:
1 - I just moved to a new address. My cable is correctly provisioned at 10 Mb/s.
2 - The cable operates fine in the morning hours, but drops to 1 or 2 Mb/s in the evenings. This happens all the time.
I've had a tech support call or three (all pretty useless). I finally got a real technician to come out. He was very helpful, tried swapping modems (no fix), tried testing all lines in the complex (good signal on all lines). He exhaused all he could do and said he'd have to turn in a maintenance request.
So far, no fix yet. He said I might call CS and ask about a TAM ticket?
Any techs out there have any idea of a cause? This sounds like a problem that cable used to have with laod sharing... is it possible there is very old hardware around here somewhere that isn't sharing the bandwidth well?
I'm in Pasadena, CA.
Thanks!
Gerdofal |
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psafux
Got Grep?
VIP
join:2005-11-10
Rochester, MN | »Charter Pipeline Forum FAQ »10 steps to help others help you. |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA
·Charter Pipeline
| I didn't mention most of the questions in that FAQ because they have been hammered relentlessly by myself and the techs... no problems. But if it makes you feel better:
•Have you called Charter support at 1-888-GET-CHARTER (438-2427)? Yep... no help at all. The tech I had just couldn't understand English mostly.
•The hardware -- What make and model of equipment are you using? Have you power cycled your equipment? If you're having connectivity issues and there is a hub, router, or switch in place, does the problem remain if you bypass any of these devices and connect your cable modem directly to your PC's NIC? No router, power cycled multiple times, last tech put a completely new modem in. Nothing here changed the problems reported at all.
•Have you made any changes to your hardware configuration recently? If so, please describe. As I said above, I moved recently. The problems are all at the new address.
•Have you performed a:
•traceroute? Yes, no latency at any time, even when speed tests show less than 1 Mb/s
•modified tracert (if tracert does not work)?
•line quality test? Yes. 0% loss at all times, low latency. Latency is never the problem.
•tweak test? Yes, no changes needed.
•speed test? Yes, speeds are the problem. Good in morning, bad in afternoon and evening. See above.
•checked your signal levels? Perfect, with both modems, see above.
•Your software. Are you running a firewall or intrusion detection software and if so, what is it?
Yes, Windows Live OneCare... problem exists when active and deactivated. State of firewall has no impact on speed tests.
•Viruses. What, if any, anti-virus software are you running and is it up to date?
Same as above, and yes. No viruses at all. Also, this wouldn't have an impact on the problem having to do with time of day.
•Spy-ware. What, if any, antispyware software are you running and is it up to date?
Same as above, and yes. No spyware at all. Also, this wouldn't have an impact on the problem having to do with time of day.
•In what City and State are you located?
Pasadena, CA
•In your opinion, what is the connectivity problem? (speed issue, loss of sync, dropped packets, other)
Speed, specifically some problem in the cable system not proving enough bandwidth at some times of the day. Maybe due to old technology in some part of the neighborhood which is causing poor bandwidth sharing.
•Provide any other information that you think will help others help you.
That's just about everything. |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA | My ZIP code might help any local techs... 91106. My closest cross street is Chester and Green. (Right near PCC, south of Colorado.) |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA | One other thing I should mention... I keep meaning to say then it keeps slipping my mind because it's not a problem.
My upstream is always okay... only the downstream slows.
Thanks! |
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sudogreg
join:2002-01-12
Washington, MO | reply to Gerdofal
are you using a speedtest site to test, or a real life test? if speed test site are you using a few different ones to see that its not the site? (just trying to help until a real tech finds this thread.) |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA
·Charter Pipeline
| Thanks for asking. I've tested using about 4 different speed test sites as well as actually downloading large files. During the downloads I've tested by trying to get large files from known fast providers as well as downloading files from multiple providers at once and just looking at my bandwidth meter.
In all cases, the results are close matches.
Thanks |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA
·Charter Pipeline
| To any tech out there... I was able to get the ticket number for this maintenance request, but couldn't get any details (like did maintenance come out yet or not.)
The ticket # is 99543 (I think the tech said it was a TAM ticket?)
Thanks! |
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budone
join:2002-09-07
Traverse City, MI | reply to Gerdofal
I simply suspect you are on a node that is over sold. It is fine during the day due to others being at work. Then in the evening everyone and their brother are online downloading their bit torrent files and hosing the line up. |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA | That was my thought at first... but they should have plenty of available bandwidth overall these days... that kind of problem really ought to be a thing of the past. |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA | ... that's why I was thinking this may be an equipment problem... something that is broken or really old that isn't parsing out bandwidth properly. |
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budone
join:2002-09-07
Traverse City, MI
·Charter Pipeline
| reply to Gerdofal
said by Gerdofal  :That was my thought at first... but they should have plenty of available bandwidth overall these days... that kind of problem really ought to be a thing of the past. It 'Ought' to be, but it isnt. It is rather common. |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA
·Charter Pipeline
| said by budone :It 'Ought' to be, but it isnt. It is rather common. Well, in that case, my hope is there is some technical problem or old piece of equipment in some box somewhere. Them fixing that might make it operate as it should.
Funny thing is, I was just three blocks away before my move and never had trouble. |
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CBN Tech
Premium
join:2006-11-10
Louisville, KY | PM me your MAC address if u want and I can maybe take a look for
--
CBN TECH |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA | Thanks, on its way. |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA | For those interested, here are my test results:
»/testhistory/982971/5cf78 |
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gryphon_73
join:2008-01-24
New Albany, IN
| The first thing you need to make sure you do when you are running these speed tests is to use the charter speed test site..... speeedtest.charter.com, otherwise you will not get the correct results....try that site and then post the findings...also 3rd party software could play a part in this..try running a netstat -a from your command line and count the number of UDP and TCP connections you get in the morning, and then the number at night to see if there are more in the evening.....also, what brand of virus protection are you using?? |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA
·Charter Pipeline
| I've used the charter site. Speeds are comparable. I use this site because they log all the results. (and also because Charter used to use such a small test file the results weren't worth while.)
If you like, here are the Charter results (And yes, inbound is actually lower than outbound)
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 854.50Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 733.54kb/s
All TCP connections are the same, morning and night. There are no UDP connections. Nor is there any network traffic to speak of. Turning the firewall and virus scan off has absolutely no impact on the tests at any time.
Any other ideas?
Gerdofal |
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useless
join:2006-07-16 | Thanks for reading the helper thing and answering the questions.
I have some ideas, please send me the mac address. I can address the comment of budone, who normally has very high quality feedback. |
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Gerdofal
join:2004-04-03
Pasadena, CA
·Charter Pipeline
| reply to Gerdofal
Will do 
Fun fun fun... here are my current scores:
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 858.52Kb/s
running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 445.02kb/s
(Yes, upstream is twice down ) |
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