Erratic Internet speed

[Mnfisher]

My internet sometimes and sporadically slows to virtually a stop.  This seems to happen when I've been away from it for a few days.  I monkey around trying to clean it up and turn it back to a previous date which sometimes seems to help but usually it seems to just start up again on its' own, and then faster than ever!  I talked to my provider, Century Link, and they said my modem is 10 years old so they (and I) assumed this was the problem.  Before I got my new modem, it started working again, faster than ever so I haven't installed the new modem yet.  What gives?  Any idea?  Should I install my new modem or wait until it goes slow again?  I am happy with my current speed right now and my feeling is why fix if when it isn't broke!!

[bobbymalone]

I had a similar problem for weeks and I fixed it by turning WMM (wifi multi media) off in my modem/router settings.  Not sure what the deal was though.

Another time we kept having this problem at home and it turned out everytime my wife switched on the WiFi on her phone it basically dropped the speed to zero for every device connected to the network. No idea what the deal was with that but it was fine after she reset her phone to factory default and deleted everything.  

[delcecchi]

There is a lot of Cacheing going on....  So if the data is nearby or can be predicted, then it is fast.   No way that a ISP can deliver 60 Mbits to thousands of customers.  That would be terabits per second of bandwidth....

[leech~~]

We have been having an issue on the home PC-Comcast service. Got a new router from them and re-cabled the house right to the router with no splitters. Speed is at 117 upload and around 9 down load and still having issues!

[delcecchi]

A couple of things... sometimes scripts or ads are slow to load and it looks like the internet stopped.   And sometimes the browser, firefox in my case, seems to have bloated out due to a "memory leak" or something and is just sitting there wasting a lot of cycles and memory.  Check the task manager for something using a lot of resources.  

Does it happen on more than one device at the same time?  

Also sometimes the modem is used to throttle the speed,    The pipe coming to your house can be capable of more than you are paying for so it slows things down.... If I run a speed test I can see it go way up and then come back down..

Just a couple things to check. 

[Moon Lake Refuge]

I don't know if its the perfect solution but mine used to drop every day or two and a restart would bring it back to my faster speed.  Rather than unplugging it and plugging it back in every day I set it on a timer to shut off for 15 minutes every night when I was sleeping.

[Mnfisher]

Thanks guys!  It has been fine for a week or so and now slower today!  I think I'll try that new modem too!

 

[rundrave]

another thing to check is the companies lines to the house etc. I live in a rural area but fortunate enough to get high speed internet. I typically work from home so I knew exactly when it was happening as i would lose connection. I was experiencing the same issues would work great for weeks and then randomly get worse and then better again.

I had a new modem and router and still had issues. Turns out something in the cables buried underground were old and not properly able to handle the switch from older  technology to the newer stuff. They were able to determine this by looking at the info in my modem and see how often it was happening. 

[Mnfisher]

This certainly sounds similar to what is happening to me.  I still haven't replaced the modem but that will be my 1st step and then check with the phone company.  I think they will come out and look for no cost if they think that might be the problem.