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I was hoping someone might have a clue as to what's causing my Internet problem, since Comcast is clueless, despite two visits from “technicians”. I am seeking some advice as to what I can tell Comcast when the third technician arrives next weekend.
I am currently on my third modem/router in three months (so I doubt the problem is with the modem/router). The current modem/router is a Netgear C3700. Prior to that I had two Motorola SBG6580 devices. My Internet connection behaves the same regardless of which modem I use.
I’m running two Windows 7 machines and a Windows 8 machine. The problem I see occurs on both wired and wireless connections and on all three machines.
Let me describe the symptoms and the experiment I've run.
The symptom is that web pages take a very long time to load and very often timeout before loading completely. Often, when a page does load, it only loads partially, with images, JavaScript or CSS files failing to load.
Let me describe the “experiment” I perform.
I open a Google page and search for, say, "national news". Then, I open about 15 of the search results, each in its own browser tab. As the 15 tabs are loading, I open the “Networking” tab in Task Manager to watch the networking activity as these 15 tabs are loading. What I see is virtually no network activity. My “Networking” activity is almost completely flat-lined as these pages attempt to load.
Of the 15 tabs loading, usually 2 will load completely, another 3 will load partially and the rest will time out completely.
If I take my laptop to a local Wi-Fi hotspot or to a friend’s house and run the same experiment, everything works fine – all the pages load to completion. Similarly, if my friend brings her computer to my place, she has exactly the same problem – nothing loads.
If I run any of the many Internet Speed Tests, I see I have good speed – always over 25Mbs. Sometimes, however, my browser cannot connect to the Speed Test web site, which is consistent with the problem I’m having. When it does connect and I’m able run the test, the speed is great.
My intuition tells me that my machines are having problems establishing connections. Once established, however, the speed is great. The problem might have something to do with the initial TCP/IP handshake or something.
I’ve had two Comcast techs here to troubleshoot and they could not find anything wrong. They said the signal is strong and the speed is good. They have no idea. Another Comcast guy is coming next weekend and he’s bringing his own Comcast modem. If anyone has an idea of what might causing this problem, please let me know. I feel this problem must have something to do with Comcast since I’ve had three modems and the problem only occurs at my place.
Thanks very much.
Tom Baxter
Posted 2014-09-27T16:48:56.297
Reputation: 181
Honestly this is a problem that has to be solved by Comcast, it's not your hardware, have them go check the node if they have to – Ramhound – 2014-09-27T16:55:14.820
1From your description, it points to the router setup. – fixer1234 – 2014-09-27T17:41:21.580
Your not alone, the new speed method, with the new DOCSIS 3.0 & 1 modems and method has caused problems for others of this same type, I use the old modem and get the old speeds and have had zero problems. I was waiting till they sorted out the beta phase :-) If your getting thier help for free, feel lucky. Could find more info here dslreports.com/forums/all – Psycogeek – 2014-09-27T20:16:55.583
1**I have the answer. The first three modems I was using were all the modem/router gateway type of devices, where the modem and router are built-in. Theoretically, there should be nothing wrong with this since Comcast blesses it and even blessed the specific devices I was using.
Reality, however, proved to be different. The Comcast technician yesterday replaced my all-in-one with a stand-alone modem and everything worked like a charm.
I exchanged my all-in-one device for a separate modem router and now life is good.** – Tom Baxter – 2014-10-05T15:45:30.763