Cable speeds drop DRAMATICALLY during the day

[Loke]

I just did all the tweaks with Monosteele over in the Tweaks section. Things were looking great. Speeds were 1400/80 and I was pretty happy. However, these last few days have been exasperating. During the daylight hours, my download speeds have dropped down in to the 300-500 kbps range! Basically, I've lost a third of my capability. At night, it seems to return to normal.

I haven't made any changes to my system or changed anything since I tweaked the system. I get the feeling that the problem is in the local node. I wrote Comcast stating such. I don't expect much back though. It isn't like they'll come back and say "yep, we sold to many subscriptions and as a result service now sucks."

Is there a way I can test my connection/modem to see whther or not the problem is the node or if somehow, in less than a week, I corrupted something in my system?

[Kip Patterson]

The local node is really not a digital device, so the problem isn't apt to be exactly there.

If the connectivity varies from day to night, you should be suspicious of something happening in the cable plant that has a dily cycle, such as expansion/contraction of cable joints, gain changes in the system, etc. If the connectivity was worse at night, then one would really expect traffic to be the problem.

Try running some trace routes both during the day and the evening, and post them here. If your modem has an internal web page, take a look at the signal levels as well.

Kip

[Loke]

Quick question. How do I keep the tracer window open under XP? I actually ran tracert yahoo.com today but, once it finishes running, XP immediately closes the window. Never had that problem with Win98. It doesn't give me a chance to look at or cut and paste the results.

[carage]

Originally posted by Loke
Quick question. How do I keep the tracer window open under XP? I actually ran tracert yahoo.com today but, once it finishes running, XP immediately closes the window. Never had that problem with Win98. It doesn't give me a chance to look at or cut and paste the results.

run cmd, that will open the command prompt mode, then you can run it like DOS.

[carage]

My cable modem seems to be running on an opposite schedule, performance actually peaks around noon, and probably has its worst between 7-9PM.

[Loke]

Well, it's consistent. Got back on about 9:30 pm or so. Well over the 1 megabit barrier again. Speed tests now showing cinsistently in the 1300-1400 kbps range. Wanted to cut and paste the tracert result, but couldn't highlight the text. All speeds were in the 10-17 ms range. During the day, those numbers jump by about 100.

[Respice]

to be able to highlight the text type this into your command prompt.

C:\>tracert xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx > trace.txt

where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is an IP address

or

C:\>tracert www.someaddress.com > trace.txt

Open the .txt file in word pad or your preferred text editor and you should be able to cut and paste.

[Loke]

Thanks Respice, I'll do that. Just a side note. Comcast told me to ping the default gateway and let me know what I got. What I got was 4 attempts, all which timed out. He then tried to ping me and couldn't even get a reply. They havce admitted to doing some work due to the AT&T merger or whatever. I don't doubt that it is tied in to that. I'll post some trace times in a bit.

[Loke]

Here is a ping at 7 pm EST. These times are pretty good. Not optimal, but much better than the 200ms results I have been getting during the day.

Tracing route to yahoo.com [64.58.79.230]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 91 ms 28 ms 49 ms 10.118.224.1
2 157 ms 8 ms 13 ms 172.30.120.209
3 27 ms 70 ms 72 ms 172.30.120.251
4 17 ms 30 ms 70 ms 172.30.120.186
5 13 ms 67 ms 102 ms 172.30.119.187
6 40 ms 33 ms 24 ms 172.30.119.250
7 57 ms 34 ms 145 ms 68.46.144.166
8 85 ms 17 ms 35 ms sl-gw40-pen-11-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.191.21]
9 34 ms 85 ms 66 ms sl-bb21-pen-6-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.16.102]
10 74 ms 70 ms 133 ms sl-bb22-pen-15-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.16.30]
11 67 ms 31 ms 56 ms sl-bb27-pen-9-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.16.54]
12 51 ms 81 ms 72 ms sl-bb21-nyc-2-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.96]
13 18 ms 18 ms 26 ms sl-bb24-nyc-11-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.13.185]
14 47 ms 128 ms 92 ms 144.232.9.118
15 133 ms 211 ms 63 ms dcr2-loopback.Washington.cw.net [206.24.226.100]
16 97 ms 139 ms 54 ms bhr1-pos-10-0.Sterling1dc2.cw.net [206.24.238.166]
17 43 ms 21 ms 42 ms csr11-ve241.Sterling2dc3.cw.net [216.109.66.90]
18 46 ms 51 ms 135 ms 216.109.84.162
19 102 ms 85 ms 81 ms vl43.bas1.dcx.yahoo.com [216.109.120.190]
20 22 ms 186 ms 82 ms w1.rc.vip.dcx.yahoo.com [64.58.79.230]

Trace complete.

At 11:45 pm:

Tracing route to yahoo.com [66.218.71.198]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms 10.118.224.1
2 8 ms 64 ms 7 ms 172.30.120.209
3 13 ms 8 ms 9 ms 172.30.120.251
4 8 ms 7 ms 8 ms 172.30.120.186
5 10 ms 9 ms 8 ms 172.30.119.187
6 10 ms 10 ms 8 ms 172.30.119.250
7 10 ms 12 ms 18 ms 68.46.144.162
8 75 ms 25 ms 25 ms sl-gw40-pen-11-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.191.21]
9 10 ms 27 ms 25 ms sl-bb25-pen-6-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.16.98]
10 17 ms 10 ms 10 ms sl-bb20-pen-9-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.5.173]
11 12 ms 9 ms 10 ms sl-bb23-pen-14-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.16.26]
12 14 ms 51 ms 26 ms sl-bb26-nyc-4-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.94]
13 19 ms 19 ms 17 ms sl-bb20-nyc-15-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.13.10]
14 21 ms 32 ms 15 ms pos1-3.core1.NewYork1.Level3.net [209.244.160.185]
15 16 ms 44 ms 64 ms ae0-56.mp2.NewYork1.Level3.net [64.159.17.162]
16 128 ms 104 ms 86 ms so-0-0-0.mp1.SanJose1.level3.net [64.159.1.133]
17 83 ms 87 ms 110 ms gige9-1.ipcolo3.SanJose1.Level3.net [64.159.2.73]
18 97 ms 83 ms 88 ms unknown.Level3.net [64.152.69.30]
19 85 ms 83 ms 82 ms w1.rc.vip.scd.yahoo.com [66.218.71.198]

Trace complete.

[Loke]

Today's numbers:

Tracing route to yahoo.com [64.58.79.230]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 150 ms 80 ms 28 ms 10.118.224.1
2 59 ms 24 ms 137 ms 172.30.120.209
3 114 ms 89 ms 44 ms 172.30.120.251
4 73 ms 34 ms 29 ms 172.30.120.186
5 61 ms 31 ms 45 ms 172.30.119.187
6 69 ms 69 ms 61 ms 172.30.119.250
7 77 ms 54 ms 50 ms 68.46.144.166
8 18 ms 15 ms 44 ms sl-gw40-pen-11-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.191.21]
9 34 ms 191 ms 61 ms sl-bb21-pen-6-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.16.102]
10 59 ms 204 ms 129 ms sl-bb22-pen-15-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.16.30]
11 76 ms 223 ms 110 ms sl-bb27-pen-9-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.16.54]
12 22 ms 19 ms 31 ms sl-bb21-nyc-2-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.20.96]
13 26 ms 147 ms 26 ms sl-bb24-nyc-11-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.13.185]
14 31 ms 17 ms 92 ms 144.232.9.118
15 140 ms 60 ms 48 ms dcr1-loopback.Washington.cw.net [206.24.226.99]
16 245 ms 36 ms 33 ms bhr1-pos-0-0.Sterling1dc2.cw.net [206.24.238.34]
17 134 ms 55 ms 89 ms csr11-ve241.Sterling2dc3.cw.net [216.109.66.90]
18 111 ms 72 ms 97 ms 216.109.84.162
19 151 ms 57 ms 42 ms vl43.bas1.dcx.yahoo.com [216.109.120.190]
20 96 ms 61 ms 38 ms w1.rc.vip.dcx.yahoo.com [64.58.79.230]

Trace complete.

Any thoughts anyone????

[Kip Patterson]

I still think it is in the cable plant, although there could easily be an interference source that is only on during the day.

The pings are erratic enough that the difference between night and day may be a matter of chance. Something is definitely wrong somewhere, though.