I'm desperate for computer help

[rockymountaindem]

On Wednesday my internet and VOIP phone service suddenly stopped working. After calling my ISP, we thought it was a VOIP problem. After calling VOIP for three hours over two days, I also thought it was a problem with them that they could seem to solve. Then I found out that I could actually get the same service from my ISP for less money, so I switched to them (the actual change will be next week). Meantime, I'm down to my cell phone, and last night the internet was working fine.

Now, despite the elimination of the VOIP service, the internet is extremely spotty. The tech support guy I was dealing with had me ping their website. The speed is normal and there's no packet loss. However, sometimes (like every 5 minutes), pages won't load at all. Nothing. No error message. The address doesn't even appear in the address bar if I click on a link. If I try it two dozen times, then suddenly it loads as if there's no problem. Even when the service is down, the ping test shows no problems. Then, for the next five minutes, I can navigate normally. The ISP guy said maybe I have a virus, so I did a full scan with new definitions and nothing's changed. As you can imagine, this is extremely frustrating.

Does anybody have any idea why my service is fading in and out like this? It's been happening all day. I've rebooted the modem and the computer who knows how many times. It still doesn't improve things. Please help!

(If this turns out to be a triple post or something, or if I don't come back to this thread for awhile, you'll know why...)

[Madrone]

1. virus - or spyware maybe?

What browser? Do you have another browser that you can try to see if the problem also occurs in? Is it a specific website, or all of them?

Do the ping again - this time put a -t switch in. ie: ping -t yahoo.com (the -t makes it continuous) and go back to surfing. When things freeze up again check out your ping and see if it's still going. If so, it's a browser/computer issue, if not it could be your internet service (although I'd say it's pretty unlikely it's your service)

[flvegan]

2. Still have the VOIP modem inline?

Did you uninstall the entire VOIP software package (if there was one)?

[rockymountaindem]

5. I never had VOIP software on my computer

However the VOIP device is now completely disconnected and unplugged. Still with the bugginess...

[TrogL]

3. You need to start eliminating variables.

Figure out how to bring up the display of what your network card is doing and watch the numbers. Bring up a command prompt, pick a website you KNOW is always up (I often use www.apple.com) and ping it while watching the network monitor.

Bring up your performance monitor and make sure it isn't your computer maxing out rather than a network problem.

Do a traceroute and find out where your packets are going. Ping each stop along the route.

Type ipconfig /all and write down the router address and ping that.

[rockymountaindem]

6. I've done all that

There's no packet loss and the times are fine. It's not a processor problem, because otherwise the fan would kick into overdrive, which it hasn't.

[TheFriendlyAnarchist]

4. Browser error?

Browsers can get some weird bugs, esp. with vista.

[leeroysphitz]

7. I'd go with Trogl on this one. I've found that ISP's are QUICK to indicate

3rd party VOIP for any and all problems you may have with your internet tubes. Especially when they've just introduced a competing VOIP service of there own. (Honestly. Ask your cable guy the next time he/she shows up to install/ repair something. Most will be pretty upfront.)