Internet grinding to a halt

N9eav

I wonder if anyone can offer a solution to my Internet issue.

I have my internet with aol. I have their wireless echolife router which gives me about 5-8 mb

It works fine mostly, but after a few days it gets slower and slower and eventually won't connect. I turn the modem on and off and everything is back to normal again, until a few days later when it does the same thing over again.

I complained to aol. who have tried several things and eventually sent me a new router (same type). It has not solved the problem and does the same thing.

My computer is hand built to my spec. Win 7 64bit. SSD drive, 8bg ram, I-core 5. etc, so plenty fast enough...

Any thoughts? My aol contract is up in May, so I may well change anyway, but they offer me such a great deal it's hard to move.

martin57

I have dumped aol years ago, same problem as you. A bit surprised that it has taken so long for all the problems to catch up with you.

Dump them asap.

Just amazed that aol have managed to limp along for so long as they are a terrible isp, was with them for years but gradually got so bad in evenings that the web pages wouldn't even load

Martin57

N9eav

I stuck with them as they offered such a cheap deal for me. I had to put up with a BT only exchange and so there are not too many ISP that had kit in there, hence few deals.

For £15 a month. I get (when it works) 8mb broadband unlimited. Unlimited phone calls 24/7 line rental and international calls. So hard to beat as BT line rental is £15 almost on it's own.

I can switch in May, so hopefully superfast will be installed by then...

So you think it's aol and not the hardware?

kwikbreaks

Think about it. How can it be AOL if rebooting the router brings everything back to normal?

Moneysaving way to fix this is to put the router on an electronic timeswitch that turns it off and then on overnight. Alternately borrow a different router to see if it fixes it. (Hint - Argos do 16 day no quibble returns and sell ADSL wireless routers.....)

Im_just_careful

How does the slowness show ?

One thing to try (on the computer not the router) is to set the DNS to Open DNS or Google.

http://use.opendns.com/ or http://208.69.38.205.

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using

spannerzone

Could be a faulty adsl modem router (complain to AOL to get another one? but watch out they don't sign you up for another 12months at the same time) or get a replacement modem router for cheap.... I just got a TP Link 8968 from Amazon for £35 and it's better than the Netgear and Thomson modems I have previously used.

Could be a dodgy telephone wiring issue, check out Kitz site for info on improving troublesome adsl connections (ie try the modem directly into the master socket if possible)

N9eav

spannerzone wrote: »

Could be a faulty adsl modem router (complain to AOL to get another one? but watch out they don't sign you up for another 12months at the same time) or get a replacement modem router for cheap.... I just got a TP Link 8968 from Amazon for £35 and it's better than the Netgear and Thomson modems I have previously used.

Could be a dodgy telephone wiring issue, check out Kitz site for info on improving troublesome adsl connections (ie try the modem directly into the master socket if possible)

This is a new router and it does the same as the last one. I did complain and they sent me a new one for free. (no contract extension)

It is plugged in to the master socket

N9eav

Im_just_careful wrote: »

How does the slowness show ?

One thing to try (on the computer not the router) is to set the DNS to Open DNS or Google.

http://use.opendns.com/ or http://208.69.38.205.

https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using

How does the slowness show?

First you notice things like pictures not loading on Facebook for example, or web pages taking longer to load. THis can happen any time of the day. Right now (6am) everyone else is asleep and all their devices are turned off, so no bandwidth competition, yet is is getting slower as I speak and I will have to re-boot soon.

Eventually the pages take an age to load until the message appears that I have lost connection. Sometimes the internet led on the router goes red. I reboot the router and everything works fine and fast again.

This happens about every 24-48 hours. I can always tell when it is getting slower...

It's a mystery

Pinkypants

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Think about it. How can it be AOL if rebooting the router brings everything back to normal?

Moneysaving way to fix this is to put the router on an electronic timeswitch that turns it off and then on overnight. Alternately borrow a different router to see if it fixes it. (Hint - Argos do 16 day no quibble returns and sell ADSL wireless routers.....)

Just also remember the Argos refund on 16 days, is for items still in original packaging.

If buts missing or not fit for resell then they may not issue a refund.

giraffe69

So hard to beat as BT line rental is £15 almost on it's own.

£10.75 if you pay a year in advance

spannerzone

N9eav wrote: »

This is a new router and it does the same as the last one. I did complain and they sent me a new one for free. (no contract extension)

It is plugged in to the master socket

Sounds like a line or exchange issue, did you remove the front of the master socket and plug directly into the Test socket behind? (Doing this disconnects any internal phone extensions in your house, sometimes dodgy phone extensions cause all sorts of issues)