Internet Connection keeps going down

Heedtheadvice

....I defer to the wise....:) and those who can read!

I should have not skipped reading your post a bit as it had not registered that you have connectivity with ftp etc. so yes agree a check for malware is first option!
(I trust you run a good virus checker, have a firewall and have taken regular backups, made restore points, made a recovery boot disk.......OK, rant over!)

with that speed though it looks like you must be on fibre at least to the cabinet!

GunJack

Heedtheadvice wrote: »

....I defer to the wise....:) and those who can read!

I should have not skipped reading your post a bit as it had not registered that you have connectivity with ftp etc. so yes agree a check for malware is first option!
(I trust you run a good virus checker, have a firewall and have taken regular backups, made restore points, made a recovery boot disk.......OK, rant over!)

with that speed though it looks like you must be on fibre at least to the cabinet!

he's on Virgin cable service....(several posts above )

Chomeur

AndyPix wrote: »

Agreed

This needs to be done in an elevated command prompt (run as admin)

This, combined with your other issue that only seems to be affecting browsers, points to a malware issue.

Run this (free version)
https://www.malwarebytes.com/

And then this.
https://www.malwarebytes.com/adwcleaner/

Let us know what was found

OK I ran the first one overnight (it takes a long time). It tells me I have 60 potentially unwanted programs and two Malware registry keys in the name of Adware.Hicosmea. I'll quarantine them all and see how it goes.

Chomeur

GunJack wrote: »

he's on Virgin cable service....(several posts above )

Just checked my account and apparently I'm on SuperFibre 50 and Vivid 200 Optical Fibre. But the actual line that comes into my flat is the same as it has been for years and always used to be cable. I'm not sure what the "cabinet" is, but it sounds like I have fibre to that and cable from there.

Heedtheadvice

The cabinet is a local box close to a group of properties that terminates the fibre optic cable. That fibre then runs for the majority of the distance from the network communications equipment to your house. It is known as fttc (fibre to the cabinet). There is then a shorter copper cable link to your premises that can handle the higher speeds- overall considerably faster than copper cable from the exchange.
Fibre to the Premises (fttp) is being rolled out that gives even greater speed of communications. Mainly in the past that has served business premises and the infrastructure but domestic installation is becoming more common if still quite rare.

[Deleted User]

Chomeur wrote: »

Just checked my account and apparently I'm on SuperFibre 50 and Vivid 200 Optical Fibre.

Isn't that two different products?

AndyPix

Chomeur wrote: »

OK I ran the first one overnight (it takes a long time). It tells me I have 60 potentially unwanted programs and two Malware registry keys in the name of Adware.Hicosmea. I'll quarantine them all and see how it goes.

Good - remove those, reboot and then run adw to clear up and your machine should behave a lot better (and be faster)
Let us know if you need any more info

Chomeur

AndyPix wrote: »

Good - remove those, reboot and then run adw to clear up and your machine should behave a lot better (and be faster)
Let us know if you need any more info

Thanks for your help. It didn't freeze yesterday. But there is still a problem where Chrome loses its connection for 5-10 minutes about 15 minutes after I start the computer up every morning. It would be nice to stop that if I can but if the malware scan hasn't stopped it, I don't know what would.

AndyPix

Its ok, we will get you sorted.
The thing we need to do is diagnose the actual problem.


Please run ADW cleaner first, just to rule out any roughe reg keys left by the malware.
Then reboot


Then, next time this happens, click the start flag, then type CMD and press enter.
then, in the black box that appears, type


ping 8.8.8.8 (press enter)


and tell me, do you get "reply from 8.8.8.8 :bytes ..." etc four times ?


or do you get


"request timed out" four times


or do you get a mixture of the above ?

Chomeur

I ran adw cleaner yesterday.

I restarted just now and didn't have the problem, it only seems to be first thing in the morning. If it happens tomorrow I'll let you know how the ping test goes.