TalkTalk Broadband Problem

Hi all,
my parents laptop has started to have issues with their internet connection. It was OK up until the middle of last week but now it seems to be very slow. They like to go on Facebook and although they can get to the homepage they can't play the games, etc.
I've connected their laptop to our network and it seems fine with typical download speeds of 6.5 MB/sec and it will access everywhere much the same as our pc/laptop.
However, when I went to their house and connected it all up the internet seemed very slow. I ran the TTB speed test and observed a sort of cycling where the speed would be around 2 to 3 MB/sec for a second or two, then it would drop down to pretty much 0 for a few seconds and then back to normal again and so on and so on. Sometimes the TTB test would drop out saying it couldn't get a connection.
I accessed the router and it had these settings:
Bandwidth 6912 / 608
SNL Down/Up 13.5 / 14.0
Attenuation Down/Up 33.5 / 17.0
Power Down/Up 19.5 / 11.0
I tried the above connected wirelesly and connected directly via ethernet cable.
The only other thing I noticed was that when I had the router page (192.168.1.1) up it kept disapearing and reappearing, i.e. it was there for a few seconds, then would disapear for a few seconds then come back again.
Any help appreciated.
I've done all the normal things like disconnect the phone, change the filter, restart the pc, restart the modem, etc.
Many thanks
Chris

Edited by chrisgr1962 (Sun 14-Mar-10 18:16:55)

If the router page was behaving oddly like this when using Ethernet then suggests the router may have an issue.

Further update: I tried another Modem (Belkin) and although the ADSL (2+) light came on the Internet one didn't. When you run the TTB speedtest it seems to run at about 3.8 MB/sec but you do see it drop to virtually zero sometimes. If you manage to get on the Internet Google works fine but if you try and go to one of the resulting websites it never gets there. I even tried going straight to the BBC one but it never made it. Weird thing is speed looks OK but you just never get to access a website (apart from Google).
Anyone any ideas
Thanks
Chris

MTU setting in router ?

Further update. Having just been on the phone to Talk Talk for an hour they seem to be stuck on getting the speed test done three times. Unfortunately we can't get to the speed test page most of the time but in summary, speed (when it runs) is about 5 to 6 meg all the time. The MTU settings are correct 1432 (and I've tried dropping them) but when you go to a web page it is very very slow to load and for about 95% + of the time you end up getting the web page not available message. When accessing emails it does so but again very slowly and usual bangs out before it completes. I've tried my router, my laptop, new cables, new filter all to no avail. As for Talk Talk all they want to try and do is three speed tests before they'll progress onwards. They have now suggested I try a different browser to carry out the speed test but I've already told them a million times that the speed is fine, its something else. Any one any ideas?
Thanks
Chris

Clutching at straws a bit here, as you have said the laptop is fine on another connection, but what firewall software is the computer running (if any) and have you tried disabling it?

the 1432 MTU is set in the router? try it at 1500.

If the PC is at its default of 1500 and the router at a smaller number odd things can happen.

hi chris.

ok, i too am on talktalk, and on thursday just gone, my service crumbled in the exact same way you describe. its gotten worse and worse. you get the odd 10 seconds where it will work, but , google works fine, its results are rapid as normal. i can run a search on anything at all, but cannot click the links. they do not load. if i have patience, and refresh about 100 times over 20 minutes, they might load (this is how i found your post, via google, and yes, its taken a LONG time to register and reply to this thread!)

so, i have covered everything i could, its not a virus, not spyware, not firewall, not router settings, everything is as it should be, and the same as it all has been since sep 09 when this talktalk started running wireless. its been fine, until now.

so any progress chris? just being able to use google search gets boring after a few days (i can use hotmail, sometimes, but, takes me about 20 mins of waiting and refreshing to do so..) i'm in brighton too.. im wondering if you are in the same area with the same problem..

i have a very similar problem since Thursday, 18th. I can solve this problem doing a system restore to an earlier restore point. After some minutes, my antivirus software (AVG free) performs an update, which asks me to reboot the pc. After reboot, the internet connection is broken again.
Bernhard

chris...


do your folks use AVG?

after days and days wasted hours, i have finally sussed it.

the very recent AVG update has messed up loads of peoples internet.
I have now got rid of AVG and installed free 'avast' antivirus, and my net is 100% back to normal.

im quite annoyed AVG didnt inform any of its users that the loss of all net (apart from google) could be their fault, they are blaming zone alarm firewall, zonealarm say its AVGs fault, either way, no news of a fix, so like all the other angry users, AVG is off my machine now and i am enjoying my broadband once more.

I am using the free version of AVG and the latest definitions update without internet problems.

It may be that AVG and ZoneAlarm are currently incompatible with each other but fine individually. (*1)

If you have multiple software firewalls enabled, although it's not a total no-no like 2 resident anti-virus together, it may lead to internet access issues if one of the firewalls is not learning which programs to enable for internet connectivity.

For example a problem with an earlier version of Norton firewall was that it would not automatically update its outgoing rules when Firefox updated; one would have to re-add it as an "allowed program" or "program exceptions"

This problem does not seem to affect the Windows firewall even for versions of Windows with outgoing rules.

Edits:

1. via The Register:
   

   In reference to forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2010/03/22/bitdefender_dodgy_update/:

   A recent AVG 9.0 update didn't brick systems, but it's still incapable of working nicely with Zone Alarm and caused browsing problems for a lot of people.
   
   The only way I found to get it working properly was to re-install it but remove the Link Scanner.

   
   
   I don't bother with the link scanner because Firefox already checks against a list of malicious sites
   (see Tools > Options > Security)
   
   Historically link scanner had a problem where the method it used to check links on Google Search results caused massive traffic spikes on the listed sites but I think that was fixed too.
   

Edited by prlzx (Tue 23-Mar-10 01:10:58)

Zone alarm and AVG have worked as programs side by side fine for year. this new AVG update means alot of AVG/ZA users could not doing anything apart from look at google results. no fix that i have heard yet. some say enabling link scanner in AVG means everything will work again, but, reason i disabled that in the 1st place is it slowed down browsing for me.

anyhow, my nets perfect since i got rid of AVG. once they fix it, who ever fixes it, i will probably install AVG again....

I used to use both the free avg & ZA together. this stopped being a working combination late 2009 for me. I bit the bullet and paid for ZA full an all workng again.....

At the time the problem hit us, I had one PC configured with Avast! rather than AVGfree (both with ZA free) - this continued to work normally.
Now they all have Avast! rather than AVG.

I was with talktalk and getting the same crappy slow speeds like 512kbs or around that 24/7, when I called Talktalk support I was on there for nearly a hour while they were giving me pointless things to try so when I said I was going to cancel my broadband with them she stupidly said why would you want to do that, all the other ISPs will be the same. Anyway couple of days later the slow speed was fixed by leaving talktalk and joining another ISP, in my case Xilo which are 100,000, 000 times better then them and my speeds never drop below 3.5mb, upload of 0.6mbs and ping of around 15. So happy I left the joke that was Talktalk

Matt