Internet problems, games wont connect or are laggy...PLEASE HELP ME :)

[AmdEmAll]

Ok I have some weird problems and hopefully you can give me and "Comcast" (My Cable ISP) some idea's on what the problem is. Ok I have 3 computers hooked up to a router, Linksys BEFSR41 router/switch. Then from that to a Motorola cable modem. Everything has worked fine for months. My internet, email and online gaming was fine. One day I go to play counter-strike and it takes unusually long to connect. It was counting down the seconds, and it said it couldnt connect to server. Ok so I tryed 10 more servers that all showed pinging in the green and finally one connected once it got down to like 40 seconds from 120. Ok I got in and I watched my ping climb from 50 to 100 to 300 to 3500 and I was totally lagged. Ok I thought "WTF" and I tryed quake 3 and had the same problem, pings in the 1000's and unplayable then i tryed Medal of Honor, same thing, firearms, day of defeat 2, even diablo II which is run on battle.net was actually working but with 800ping. Note that I have also tryed playing games on my parents computer which is on a totally different cable modem and a different IP address. They have the same exact problems. Oh yeah I forgot to tell you, my webpage browsing is perfectly fine and email through outlook express is normal. It is only games. This has happened for about a week now and I have talked to about 15 different people at comcast and they have tryed everything. They said the account was screwed up so they reset the whole account I call back they said they reset it and from over there everythign looks fine. Well it ISNT FINE. And I'm really getting pissed. They told me to reset the modem, i did that, and it didnt nothing. They said it was windows xp and there was a patch for it. I told them the problem is on a windows xp , win 98, 2000 and ME computer so it cant be that. They said it has to be. So I tryed that and the patch did NOTHING to fix it. They reprovisioned the modems and that didnt work. I don't know what to say now that I call them and wait 40 minutes on hold. I just get someone telling me that it's not there problem and to contact the server administrators. Yeah ok, I will contact 50,000+ game admins and tell them that I can't connect. ARE YOU DUMB?!?!?! OMG I hate comcast. Anyway... Do any of you have any idea at ALL of what the problem could be. I am pulling my hair out over here. Also am having counterstrike withdrawl PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

EDIT: Mabey this shows something but when I open command prompt and I tracert a game server or a website it list 1, 2, 3 ect. The first line shows 57ms 60ms 58ms "IP" for example and the second line and so on all time out. I don't know what is up with that but i know it's not suppost to do that.

 

[billyjak]

Maybe you have a virus attached to your computer draining the bandwith.
Check for virusus.

 

[AmdEmAll]

I don't think it can be a virus, I ran one computer at a time while the others were off and still the same problem.

Didn't even have the internet all last night, modem kept resetting it self... mabey comcast is trying to do something?

 

[Lalakai]

cable is fast, but it's similiar to the phone system, in that if you're closer to the "hub", you get the best speed. If you're on the "end" of the cable run, your bandwidth is gonna be very poor (something you're not generally told when buying cable for 'puter). Also, run a "ping" and see what your return speed is, that will give you a base line to look at and compare to others.

 

[AmdEmAll]

I pinged www.amd.com and got an average of 65ms and I pinged www.yahoo.com and got an average of 121ms. That doesnt seem to bad. Take note that this happen all of a sudden one day. I have had cable for over 2 years and have never seen this problem. Either it worked or it didn't. It had it's slow times but I have always been able to play games online until now.

 

[Lalakai]

if you have comcast, remember that they changed bandwidth allocations and now certain customers have reduce capabilities; you may want to contact your cable company and see if they modified your access. this primarily hit businesses but some individuals got bit also.

 

[Czar]

If you are running winxp and halflife (dod, cs, whatever) then go to the audio thing in control panel and click on audio panel there and advanced and remove all hardware assist, helped me ALOT.

 

[AmdEmAll]

I see no advanced audio panel in half life... But it doesnt matter anyway because it's not just that game having the problem. It's quake 3, return to castle wolfenstein, Medal of Honor, Diablo II, every online game is messed up on 3 different computers and 2 different cable modems.

 

[Akaz1976]

i am in canada with rogers cable with some what similar setup. I got 2 (sofar) PC attached to a US Robotics cable/dsl router and tachyon (or somthing) cable modem. Every thing was fine till 2-3 days ago (monday night) when my usuall DoD ping of 50-200 climbed to 400-500 range. I have done a lot of testing (will do so on weekend) but its no going away.

May be i got another heavy user on my node or something but its pissing me off

AKaz

 

[AmdEmAll]

Doesn't it suck akaz WellI just got off the phone with someone that actually new what a ping is. He had never seen this problem before and he was baffeled. He saw something wrong with a file for my modem though. It was using a generic modem driver and he said that could be the problem. The driver could make the modem work for the most part but not with games. So he reset the account and he said it is a clean account now. I thought they already did this... Anyway he had me ping his server and my game server simutaniously and it showed averages of 50-70ms which is good. He told me that it takes a while for the modem to fully reset and get the new information and drivers. All things said "null" over there so it isnt setup yet. He said if it doesn't work in about 3 hours then that didnt fix it. He gave me his phone extension and to call him in the morning if it's still fuct up. Hopefully this will fix it I doubt everything they tell me now though