Internet Diagnosis

PingInfoView is a small utility that allows you to easily ping multiple host names and IP addresses, and watch the result in one table. It automatically ping to all hosts every number of seconds that you specify, and displays the number of succeed and failed pings, as well as the average ping time. You can also save the ping result into text/html/xml file, or copy it to the clipboard.
Click to expand...
https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/multiple_ping_tool.html
 
Update

Well I’ve refamiliarized myself with pinging and found an app for my iPad. Clearly something is wrong. So the update is that I had my grandson bring a laptop over to the house because he’s the only one with a laptop that has an Ethernet connector. Of course I never experienced any issues over the weekend. Now, Monday morning, the internet is dropping out like crazy.

The only information I get is when I run the ping app, it get nothing and after a few seconds it shows an error message “can’t resolve host”. Not sure if that helps, but I had that issue before (it showed on the browser) and replacing my router seemed to fix it. I hate to just start replacing parts, but I’m thinking I’ll just have to go get a new router.

First, I’ll get grandson to leave his laptop here during holiday break. He uses it for school so I can’t just keep it for awhile. Or, I may just go ahead and move my desktop into the family room (where the cable modem is) and keep that connected there until I can get a test using a direct wire when it drops out.
 
Can't resolve host means bad IP. you can do this without an app, but from a cmd prompt on any windows desktop (probably works on a mobile device too but I've never tried. in the search bar in windows, just type cmd and it will open up the default app. then ping to an IP or web address like www.comcast.net and add a "-t" at the end to make it keep going (normal requests stop after 4 tries).

If it's normally ok on weekends and not on weekdays that might hint that the issue is neighborhood traffic/bandwidth as usage is heavier with everyone WFH these days.
 
Jerry1 said:
... The only information I get is when I run the ping app, it get nothing and after a few seconds it shows an error message “can’t resolve host”. ...
Click to expand...
What you are getting there is a test of the whole chain between you and your desired site. Roughly, the chain is:

WiFi radio or Cat5 interface on your computer.
WiFi radio on your router or Cat5 cable & interface on your router
Router connection to cable modem
cable modem connection to your provider
provider's connection to the internet
internet connection to Domain Name Server (DNS)

Lots of stuff. What the message is saying is that your desired host name (I.e., google.com) cannot be resolved by a DNS to become the numerical IP address that actually does the heavy lifting. But from the ping you can't tell where in the chain the problem is.

So now you can read about the "tracert" command, which will show you all the IP addresses/aka hosts between you and your desired host. With luck you will be able to figure out where the inquiry is dead-ending. Where there is a numeric address shown but the text isn't helpful, searching Google for "whois <ip address>" may provide clues. The first thing I'd look for on the route list, though, is to make sure that your inquiry is getting to your provider. For example, here's a snip:
--------------------------
Tracing route to google.com [172.217.8.174]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Linksys08773.hsd1.mn.comcast.net [192.168.2.1]
2 8 ms 8 ms 10 ms 96.120.49.117
--------------------------
using "whois 96.120.49.117" I find that is a server at Comcast, so I know my side of the world is good all the way to them. (And I don't have to buy a router!)

In our case, not often, but we see that Comcast temporarily loses its connection to the internet. Usually it is healed in a few minutes.
 
pb4uski said:
Wouldn't attaching the old laptop directly to the modem eliminate the modem as the culprit? IOW, if the old laptop works directly attached to the modem then it would have to be something after the modem... and vice versa.
Click to expand...

This is the obvious, and most simple, test. Cannot understand why you "resist" this suggestion.

Also, renting a modem is so expensive. Much cheaper to buy rather than rent.

I prefer having a seperate router and modem. Not a "combo". Much easier to
figure out connectivity issues with separate modem/router.
 
It really sounds like you have a layer one problem. (IOWs either ethernet or COAX connections) Any correlation between wet weather and poor Internet connectivity?

I think I'd replace the RG-6 coax cable from the modem to the wall. If that doesn't improve your situation, I'd replace the RG-6 (COAX) connections at the box outside your house. Exposure to weather conditions does tend to deteriorate these cable connections.

Worse case would be the underground cable from the street to your point of presence (the cable box) on the side of your house. If the street side is a problem then that's on Spectrum.

This was the case for me three years ago and the tech from Cox simply re-terminated the connections. Last year I had the same problem in my RV. I purchased a crimping kit and replaced all the COAX connections. Problem solved.

UPDATE: Just read pb4usk's post #3. I agree with him.
 
Last edited:
wolf said:
This is the obvious, and most simple, test. Cannot understand why you "resist" this suggestion.

Also, renting a modem is so expensive. Much cheaper to buy rather than rent.

I prefer having a seperate router and modem. Not a "combo". Much easier to
figure out connectivity issues with separate modem/router.
Click to expand...

Not actually resisting this. I recognize that’s what I need to do but I don’t have a laptop with an Ethernet connection. As I indicated, my grandson brought his over this weekend, but the problem never surfaced. So, I guess I’m going to have to drag my desktop out to the family room or find a really long Ethernet cable. Working on it. In the meantime I figured I’d try other things. The real problem is that the problem is intermittent and therefore a pain to get a good read on what’s going on.
 
OldShooter said:
What you are getting there is a test of the whole chain between you and your desired site. Roughly, the chain is:

WiFi radio or Cat5 interface on your computer.
WiFi radio on your router or Cat5 cable & interface on your router
Router connection to cable modem
cable modem connection to your provider
provider's connection to the internet
internet connection to Domain Name Server (DNS)

Lots of stuff. What the message is saying is that your desired host name (I.e., google.com) cannot be resolved by a DNS to become the numerical IP address that actually does the heavy lifting. But from the ping you can't tell where in the chain the problem is.

So now you can read about the "tracert" command, which will show you all the IP addresses/aka hosts between you and your desired host. With luck you will be able to figure out where the inquiry is dead-ending. Where there is a numeric address shown but the text isn't helpful, searching Google for "whois <ip address>" may provide clues. The first thing I'd look for on the route list, though, is to make sure that your inquiry is getting to your provider. For example, here's a snip:
--------------------------
Tracing route to google.com [172.217.8.174]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms Linksys08773.hsd1.mn.comcast.net [192.168.2.1]
2 8 ms 8 ms 10 ms 96.120.49.117
--------------------------
using "whois 96.120.49.117" I find that is a server at Comcast, so I know my side of the world is good all the way to them. (And I don't have to buy a router!)

In our case, not often, but we see that Comcast temporarily loses its connection to the internet. Usually it is healed in a few minutes.
Click to expand...

Cool. I’ll try that and see if I can get a “mapping” and see where it’s failing. Then, as stated above, I will probably start dragging my desktop out to the family room. Thanks.
 
Jerry1 said:
Not actually resisting this. I recognize that’s what I need to do but I don’t have a laptop with an Ethernet connection. As I indicated, my grandson brought his over this weekend, but the problem never surfaced. So, I guess I’m going to have to drag my desktop out to the family room or find a really long Ethernet cable. Working on it. In the meantime I figured I’d try other things. The real problem is that the problem is intermittent and therefore a pain to get a good read on what’s going on.
Click to expand...

How about just going to Walmart or Best Buy and buy a USB to Ethernet dongle?... about $20 or so... or you could order from Amazon and they woudl deliver to your door... that way you won't need to work around your grandson's schedule.
 
pb4uski said:
How about just going to Walmart or Best Buy and buy a USB to Ethernet dongle?... about $20 or so... or you could order from Amazon and they woudl deliver to your door... that way you won't need to work around your grandson's schedule.
Click to expand...

I was thinking about that. I was surprised that the older laptop we have (DW’s) doesn’t have a Ethernet connection. Must have been ahead of it’s time.

I’m not certain yet. But it went out yesterday long enough that I got to my desktop and the desktop seemed to work while my iPad was not. I want to see if I can replicate that again as that would tell me that it’s something with my equipment. The desktop is wireless in a sense but may not fully function like a wireless connection. The desktop is wired to a satellite on my mesh router and the main unit of the router is plugged directly into the modem. So, if the desktop works, then I’ve isolated the problem somewhat. We’ll see what today or the next few days bring. It’s not really acting up much so far today. Yesterday was terrible.
 
Update

I’ve basically just been putting up with my intermittent internet issue but I did finally call the cable company. First I tried a new modem. No change. Then a tech came out (today) and I was very hopeful. He said I had a great signal but he did find some wiring issues. The cable comes in the house and then was being split. It was a amplifier/splitter from when we needed a cable run to multiple rooms for cable tv. We don’t need that any more with smart tv’s so he disconnected all that and connected directly to the modem. He also said the main wire was loose. Hopeful as I was, about 1/2 hour after he left, the internet went out. I reset everything but it didn’t change anything.

So, I just ordered a connector so I can hook my laptop directly to the modem with an Ethernet cable as pb4uski suggested awhile ago. I’ll also download a program like a few people mentioned so I can capture ping activity and log it.

Unfortunately, I think my mesh router may be the issue. I really hope not given how expensive it is to replace. Time will tell. This will be my project after Christmas.
 
Further Update

So I got the connector and hooked my laptop directly to the modem and was able to catch the problem at that point. So, the good news is that the problem is definitely somewhere from the modem out. I call and talked to the cable company and they put some sort of data capture on the equipment and a few days later, I called and they did confirm that they are seeing the problem. They sent out a different technician today. Once again, the guy traced the wire from their equipment on the pole into my house. He changed connectors and ensured that the wiring was all right and tight. He even saw interference while he was here. And that's the new problem. Anyway, he left and about a hour later, same issue.

While he was here, he said he saw the interference and asked me if I had any other equipment running in the house other than the refrigerator. He was trying to rule out weather or not there was electrical issues that were causing the modem to have noise. I did have a couple things running and unplugged them, but no changes. When he left, the signal on his equipment (the internet signal) was showing good.

So now I believe that if I call him back he will blame my electrical service. I discussed this with my brother (an electrician) and he said to get a ups system. That a ups would provide clean power. While we both think it is unlikely this is the issue, we both agreed that it was a reasonably inexpensive way to rule out my home electrical system as the issue. So, I guess I'm off to Amazon to buy a ups unless I can figure out an easier/cheaper way to ensure that the power going to the modem is clean. I believe that once I do that, they will have no other alternative but to accept that it is something in their equipment that is causing the intermittent internet disruption. I guess there's also the remote possibility that it is my power and that's a win too because that will resolve the internet issue and then I can go from there to figure out what's going on with my home power.

If anyone has any advice on diagnosing a power issue or an piece of equipment that will provide clean power (cheaper than a ups), I'm fully open to suggestions.

Thanks for coming along for the intermittent internet outage circus. Any help to get off this ride is appreciated.
 
So, just to confirm, do you have this issue when connected directly to the modem, or does it happen when connecting via router?
 
This is quite a long shot, but since the tech mentioned "interference" I wonder if you might have a neighbor who is active in amateur radio. Any big beautiful antennas that you can see around your home?

If that should be the case, the FCC can be your friend.

Amateur Radio Complaints

Consumer Complaint Center
 
This a head-scratcher for sure.

I believe I would run a direct (homerun) RG-6 coax cable from the box on the side of your house from Spectrum's connection directly into your modem. Run it through a window if you have to.

This would eliminate all COAX wiring problems within your house. If the problem persists after that, I'd call Spectrum back and point the finger at them.

COAX does have issues and can glean interference. Perhaps your current COAX wiring is lying across live electrical wiring in your attic and creating excessive noise. It is foil-backed and should be resistant, but many installers use couplings to connect runs of the cable and these are prone to failure and noise absorption.

Like I mentioned previously, I had to replace every COAX connection in my RV to eliminate snowy pictures on my TVs. That kind of noise would bring a cable modem to its knees.
 
Last edited:
MichaelB said:
So, just to confirm, do you have this issue when connected directly to the modem, or does it happen when connecting via router?
Click to expand...

Yes. I hooked a laptop directly to the modem via an Ethernet cable and when the issue occurs, I run to the laptop and run a program that captures "ping" activity and confirmed that it's no different if I'm on my wireless equipment (iPad) or if I'm directly connected to the modem.
 
braumeister said:
This is quite a long shot, but since the tech mentioned "interference" I wonder if you might have a neighbor who is active in amateur radio. Any big beautiful antennas that you can see around your home?

If that should be the case, the FCC can be your friend.

Amateur Radio Complaints

Consumer Complaint Center
Click to expand...

I will look around, but I've never noticed. Also, I've never noticed any interference when I use my OTA antenna to watch local channels.
 
Are all your cable connectors in the house connected to a piece of electronics equipment or are there any which are not?

If the latter is true, putting 75-ohm terminators on them.


.
 
davismills said:
This a head-scratcher for sure.

I believe I would run a direct (homerun) RG-6 coax cable from the box on the side of your house from Spectrum's connection directly into your modem. Run it through a window if you have to.

This would eliminate all COAX wiring problems within your house. If the problem persists after that, I'd call Spectrum back and point the finger at them.
Click to expand...

I may do this. As unlikely as it seems, I get what you're saying. Plus, nothing else has worked. Currently, the most likely place this could be happening is when the COAX comes down from the attic inside the wall. There may be an AC line in that same cavity. I don't think it would be too difficult to run an uncut/connected line into the house. Plus, if the electrical is interfering in this way, cleaning up the AC electrical at the outlet, may not solve any problems.
 
retire-early said:
Are all your cable connectors in the house connected to a piece of electronics equipment or are there any which are not?

If the latter is true, putting 75-ohm terminators on them.
Click to expand...

There are plenty that are not capped off, but between the two technician visits, there are no open ends on the wire that goes to the modem. Originally, the COAX came into the house and was split and amplified to send cable tv to other rooms in the house. Now, we only stream so none of those lines are used anymore. The first tech removed the splitter and now the line comes in from the outside and goes directly to the modem. There are a few splices. One at the top of the wall plate in the attic before it drops down in the wall. Then another splice at the connector plate where it comes out of the wall. All those connections have been checked by both technicians. The second tech made a point to make sure there were no open connections in the system.
 
Jerry1 said:
I may do this. As unlikely as it seems, I get what you're saying. Plus, nothing else has worked. Currently, the most likely place this could be happening is when the COAX comes down from the attic inside the wall. There may be an AC line in that same cavity. I don't think it would be too difficult to run an uncut/connected line into the house. Plus, if the electrical is interfering in this way, cleaning up the AC electrical at the outlet, may not solve any problems.
Click to expand...

I wish you the best! I pretty much did the same thing at my house as well.

My experience has mostly been with fiber optic to the desktop as I previously worked for the Defense dept with classified networks. The military was anal about copper and its propensity for crosstalk on copper-based circuits. If you can ever get fiber from the street....don't hesitate. I love fiber and now that I'm old, I love it even more.:flowers:
 
davismills said:
I believe I would run a direct (homerun) RG-6 coax cable from the box on the side of your house from Spectrum's connection directly into your modem. Run it through a window if you have to.

This would eliminate all COAX wiring problems within your house. If the problem persists after that, I'd call Spectrum back and point the finger at them.
Click to expand...
That was always my solution when testing our Comcast/AT&T/TCI/United Cable system. We had a window right next to where the cable came out of the ground into our property. We would eliminate all splitters and connect directly through the window. 99 times out of 100, the fault was with Comcast's installed portion of the system. The only splitters were on the outside of the house, with home run lines to the two rooms with TVs and the other for the cable modem. I would bring down the modem and connect directly to the outside. Comcast's techs frowned at this because they knew the problem was on *their* end and not with anything inside the house.

While I doubt this has to do with your situation, I'll bring it up just in case you run out of options troubleshooting your system. We started having devices lose the Internet connection when we increased the number of devices inside the house.

For the longest time, it was just my PC and DD's PC (both Ethernet). Then we added a laptop for DD (wireless), then a laptop for myself (wireless), then a printer (Ethernet), then a tablet (wireless), then two TVs (wireless streaming), then DD's smartphone (wireless), and then two smartphones for us (wireless).

We would have random issues with our Internet connection. It would be fine for a device, then come back several minutes later and the device needed to be rebooted in order to get an Internet connection back. To make a long story short, the cable modem/router was raising havoc with DHCP assignments.

A certain device would be assigned an IP, then along the way (maybe when the device was idle or in sleep mode), the router would assign that IP to another device, so when the first device tried to connect to the Internet, the IP assignment would be in conflict with the second device currently using it. Got so frustrating, particularly with the wireless devices, that I forced IP assignments on all devices. Doing so stopped the problem for us. At some point, Comcast got wise and implemented a better DHCP protocol and I stopped doing this.
 
Last edited:
statsman said:
To make a long story short, the cable modem/router was raising havoc with DHCP assignments.
Click to expand...

The second tech thought of this too. He shut off the wireless router on the modem so that router and mine were not conflicting. I never used their router, and that didn't really make sense, but the irritating thing is that I've been paying for that router the whole time. No one ever asked me if I needed it. Now I think I'll save about $10/month with it being shut off.
 
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