Hulda wrote:
>Now to add to my misery. My sister next door has exactly the same setup=
> since we bought the same kind of computers on the same day and she also=
> has the same satellite from a different installer.>>
You do seem to be tackling the problem in a very methodical way, and seem
to have narrowed down the possibilities with those comparisons.
Everything is pointing strongly to an overloaded server at your Provider.
Let me explain a little. I don't know how Satellite broadband works, so
I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that it's the same principal as other
connections.
Each ISP (Internet Service Provider--in your case WildBlue) connects you to
a server, which is a computer handling your connection. In the old days,
the ratio of servers to customers was about 1/10. That is, for every
10 customers, there should be one server. They assume that not everyone
will be online at the same time. The ratio for cheaper ISP's could get up
to around 1/15 or worse. Then at any one time there are likely to be more
people using your server than it can handle, which slows the service to
each customer down by restricting bandwidth. This will be more noticeable
at peak times.
Your tests and symptoms seem to point in this direction, as it seems that
peak hours are having an effect on your internet performance.
Are you and your sister both paying the same ISP rates? It might be worth
asking WildBlue what their server/customer ration is, if indeed that's
relevant for Satellite. As I said before, I'm not sure whether it is. And
the cutrate ISP's usually won't admit it anyway. It's the only explanation
I can think of to account for the differing speeds at different times of
the day coupled with the comparison with your sister in an almost identical
situation.
It's a long shot, and not really logical, but try turning your firewall off
and see if that makes a difference in the evening. Perhaps it's getting
overloaded with more traffic then, thus slowing down general performance.
There's an obvious risk, of course. If you get badly infected while running
without a firewall, you may have to be prepared to reformat, or reload the
system partition if you have an Acronis or similar image backup of your
system partition.
Don Penlington
From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials, local scenery, and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html
The NOSPIN Group Promotions is now offering
our special coffee cups and mouse pads
with the PCSOFT logo... at a great price!!!
http://freepctech.com/goodies/promotions.shtml
|
