surfing speed varying widely

HermitJohn · #1 05/10/05, 07:46 PM

I think it maybe time to shop for new isp. Today was worst but has happened before. At times I am breezing along at 24k and then suddenly its crawling, and web pages, even simple ones can take 15 or 20 minutes to load. I just was froze out of two ebay auctions I was very interested in that ended half hour ago because it took 25 minutes just to load "myebay" page and then snowballs chance in warm place I was going to get to the auction pages to actually bid. Here just little later I am surfing normally. Grrr....

And no, not virus/spyware or at least very unlikely as I use linux and just to be sure I even booted from a live cd version. Absolutely no way that could be tampered with.

Dang, I was pretty happy with LZY.net at $6.75 per month. Had been very reliable until recently.

homebirtha · #2 05/10/05, 08:08 PM

I wonder if there isn't something more widespread going on. I had trouble with ebay yesterday. It wouldn't load the my ebay page. Then when it finally did, it said "some of your information is unavailable at this time". So maybe it's ebay. Our ISP was also down for several hours this weekend. When we called, they said it was a three-state outage. Maybe it's sunspots.

WanderingOak · #3 05/11/05, 06:11 AM

As homebirtha said, it may not be the ISP. There could be problems with the phone line. Then again, $6.75 per month sounds ridiculously cheap, even for dialup. I could say that you get what you pay for, but I use Debian linux myself and didn't 'pay' anything for it.

CraftyDiva · #4 05/11/05, 07:02 AM

eBay had some problems with a server going down because of a storm, that could explain the eBay situation. Seems everything is back to normal now. I know on another board they were complaining about not being able to get in and they had auctions ending that they were unable to check. This is what they were told when they phoned eBay to see what's what.

As far as ISP, well

Gary in ohio · #5 05/11/05, 07:05 AM

I would wait a few days and see if it doesnt clear up. There has been a wide spread slow down on the internet the last 4 or 5 days due to DNS and DOS attacks.

oltex · #6 05/11/05, 08:23 AM

I have broadband cable ISP & had same problem with E-Bay.

**Ross** · #7 05/11/05, 08:27 AM

I thought I heard there was a new virus slowing things down Internet wide?! I had a similar problem and found my modem was slowly dying, or at least popping in a new one speeded me up 1000% Oddly HT was one of the most affected sites to slow down with my old modem. Clicks along fine now.

bgak47 · #8 05/11/05, 08:58 AM

I think it may be a combination of things. ebay has had some problems lately with hackers. You need a good firewall & an anti-spyware program. You might try ZoneAlarm & AdAware. They're both free for personal use. $6.95/mo seems very cheap to me for even a dial-up ISP.Your server is probably overloaded during the times when you are trying to use it. If you really want to do Buisness on the Internet you need a highspeed server & very good Security on your PC. How old is your PC?

mamajohnson · #9 05/11/05, 09:38 AM

I have been on Access4less forever at 5.95 a month dialup. Got a notice the other day that we are being transferred to earthlink and access is gone....
Rats! Well, since I dont want to do that and pay 20 bucks a month, I am going for the big guns.... Satellite. Since I do business online and cannot get dsl out here, I am gonna go for it! (besides the elec co-op has a special offer-free install!) Soooo tired of the slow crawl,,, and I usually get 42 to 48 kbps on access.... 24 would make me nuts!!! Yep, upgrade the computer for better response, and I LOVE adaware, made a huge difference in my life online! And AVG is a great free virus protection, very reliable.
Doesnt XP come with a good firewall? or should I look into something else???
I find yahoo and ebay to be frustrating a lot of times.... especially if your bidding on an auction.
anyway, my 2cents on that one...