Internet Freezes

[#1]

Quote from: Crucibleofevil

Sending lots of packets which get rejected may cause firewalls to treat your traceroute traffic as very low priority... Trying a simple ping command (provided the site accepts it - many do, is much quicker.

But if a ping fails you have no idea where the problem lies.  I guess the thing is to not read too much into the result of either the ping or tracert test without knowing what is 'normal'.  For example, if I run a tracert on www.ebay.co.uk I get the same result as Diamond (below).  If I try to ping www.ebay.co.uk the request times out. 
My tracert trace gets beyond Plusnet into the wider internet but then gets blocked/rejected so I start getting a series of 'request timed outs'.  But I can see that I do have a connection to Plusnet and beyond.  I have no problem loading the ebay web site, by the way, so both Diamond and I have a connection into the Internet at large but for some reason he experiences freezes.  Unfortunately, Diamond did not make it explicit if the test result he gave was at the time of such a freeze or when things were working normally.
On the other hand, I would have though that x47c might have some legitimate cause for concern over his results.
   
C:\Users\Reed>tracert www.ebay.co.uk
Tracing route to hp-intl-uk.ebay.com [66.135.200.146]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.0.1
  2    28 ms    27 ms    27 ms  lo0-plusnet.pcl-ag03.plus.net [195.166.128.109]
  3    25 ms    25 ms    26 ms  gi1-6-703.pcl-gw01.plus.net [84.92.0.181]
  4    24 ms    24 ms    26 ms  xe-1-2-0-0.lon20.ip4.tinet.net [213.200.79.233]
  5    34 ms    30 ms    31 ms  xe-8-0-0.ams20.ip4.tinet.net [89.149.185.90]
  6    32 ms    32 ms    32 ms  ge8-0.1000M.asd9nxg1.ip.tele.dk [213.200.75.30]
  7    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  8    *        *        *    Request timed out.
  9    *        *        *    Request timed out.
10    *        *        *    Request timed out.
11    *        *        *    Request timed out.
12    *        *        *    Request timed out.

[#2]

I got:-

Quote

traceroute to www.ebay.co.uk (66.135.217.241), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets 1  ROUTER (192.168.1.1)  1.962 ms  5.427 ms  5.591 ms 2  lo0.plusnet.thn-ag2.plus.net (195.166.128.93)  14.648 ms  15.540 ms  16.228 ms 3  vl604.thn-gw1.plus.net (84.92.4.169)  18.135 ms  18.193 ms  18.408 ms 4  ldn-b4-link.telia.net (213.248.84.201)  18.590 ms  19.066 ms  19.848 ms 5  62.156.138.53 (62.156.138.53)  20.682 ms  22.493 ms  22.906 ms 6  194.25.6.50 (194.25.6.50)  165.204 ms  164.182 ms  161.540 ms 7  * * * 8  * * * 9  * * * 10  * * * 11  * * * 12  * * *^C

Which still fails, but in a different way.

[#3]

Which confirms that www.ebay.co.uk is a bad choice for a trace route (tracert) test.  I notice that the DNS lookup results for the ebay web site were slightly different in each case (i.e. we each got a different IP address).  Is that normal, I wonder?
Diamond, was your test run at a time when your internet was frozen or working normally?  There is nothing strikingly abnormal in the tracert test you ran and it confirms that you did have an internet connection at a very primitive level, even if your web browser was not working.   

[#4]

You did not specify which url to choose, I just happened to notice a slight wobble on that site so it was an obvious one to try.
I had connection...no actual freezes yeaterday, this morning is also ok.

[#5]

Diamond, I suggest you follow my earlier example and try www.google.com .  Run a tracert test and record the result, then run the test again next time your internet freezes.

[#6]

Suspect using a UK based sitre might be a better idea
ping bbc.co.uk is normally one of the best indicators.

[#7]

Quote from: ReedRichards

Diamond, I suggest you follow my earlier example and try www.google.com .  Run a tracert test and record the result, then run the test again next time your internet freezes.

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\****>tracert www.google.co.uk
Tracing route to www.l.google.com [209.85.229.106]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1     7 ms    99 ms    99 ms  dsldevice.lan [192.168.1.254]
  2    36 ms    33 ms    37 ms  lo0-plusnet.thn-ag3.plus.net [195.166.128.80]
  3    35 ms    35 ms    35 ms  vl303.thn-gw2.plus.net [84.92.3.178]
  4    55 ms    41 ms    33 ms  vl23.pte-gw2.plus.net [212.159.4.28]
  5    34 ms    35 ms    31 ms  195.66.224.125
  6    33 ms    33 ms    33 ms  64.233.175.27
  7    39 ms    65 ms    41 ms  66.249.95.170
  8    39 ms    39 ms    41 ms  209.85.251.231
  9    44 ms    53 ms    53 ms  209.85.243.85
10    39 ms    37 ms    41 ms  ww-in-f106.google.com [209.85.229.106]
Trace complete.

WHEN IT FREEZES
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\****>tracert www.google.co.uk
Unable to resolve target system name www.google.co.uk.
Which in my opinion means there is no internet connection for it to trace a route down. 
Having spoken to the tech dept today,  they are in agreement with me that it is not my pcs' or software, but a throughput issue, lets hope a BT engineer can trace it.

[#8]

Quote from: Diamond

C:\Documents and Settings\****>tracert www.google.co.uk Unable to resolve target system name www.google.co.uk. Which in my opinion means there is no internet connection for it to trace a route down.

Actually, what this means is that your computer is unable to contact the DNS server.  You may or may not still have an internet connection.  The way to find out is to use the IP address you found for Google in the earlier test so try:
tracert 209.85.229.106
or
ping 209.85.229.106
It's really worth trying this because knowing one way or the other will greatly speed the resolution of your problem.

[#9]

It's also worth doing a ping router-address to rule out any internal problems.

[#10]

Yes, but only if you can't tracert or ping the Google IP address,

[#11]

Its all double dutch to me, I'll let you two play ping pong  ;).
As I said in an earlier post, whilst on the phone to a techhie during a problem time, we did various ping tests, nothing was conclusive.
DNS problems were also ruled out during the latest series of testing, PN are carrying out some final checks at their end.
As nothing else is connected to the phone lines, the final check will be the 2.5 miles from the exchange to my own home, but as dialup is good, I'm not convinced the problem is there either.
One change comes to mind that is probably purely a coincidence, is that this problem began the week I switched from BT to PN for the home telephone! I cannot see how considering they are in effect the same company with BT owning them.

[#12]

I hope the problem gets sorted for you.  But the test result you presented to show you did not have an internet connection didn't show that at all, although it certainly established that your connection was not working normally.

[#13]

Well I had hoped things were looking up, I had two ansaphone messages asking me to telephone as support needed to confirm some details.This was during the time I had advised PN I was away.
I called and had to endure music for about 15 minutes before actually speaking to an advisor.
I was promised a call by 3pm that same wednesday afternoon to advise one way or the other if and when, a BT engineer would be calling.
I must now inform you that no such call has been received and as such this country is at war with Germany......oh sorry, that was Chamberlain in 1939.  
I have not heard a word from them, and like most people, I get very annoyed when waiting for a call back that never arrives.

UPDATE
They must have read this post, soon after submitting,I got a call.

[#14]

Hi diamond,
Thanks for your time on the phone.
As I mentioned, I'm very sorry that you weren't called back.  I'm arranging for an engineer to arrive on Monday morning if possible and I'll ask the engineer to call ahead of his visit.

[#15]

Thanks James
The engineer called today as arranged, First he tested the installation and all was correct, no problems. As I had the old style socket , he replaced it with a new one and retested, again no problems.
One thing that is puzzling me is that although the engineer's equipment shows the line as receiving 3mbps, and so does my router (Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]:448 / 2,944)  all the online broadband speed checkers show a download speed of just 912kbps, is there a reason for this difference and could this point to the problem?