Well, this has been a real bugger for about a week now.
My internets not exactly slow, but as of recently its been very unstable, and I wouldn't doubt thats because of an outside source. Near enough every minute it would cut me off every minute. For me, this seems to cease downloads, making me have to re-start them or be completely unable to download anything larger than a few KBs.
I'm using a router here to connect to the internet and allow the other two computers in my household to do the same. I don't seem to see the same aggrivation coming from the one to my right (not mine, though. I havn't checked to see if the same is happening), the one to my left has lost it altogether. The internet light on the router is flashing like nothing on earth, which is slightly scarey. I'm expecting it to blow up any moment now.
I can't give a lot more details than that, since I'm not exactly a tech-specialist. Its all flashing lights and wires to me.
If anyone could give a list of suggestions as to what the problem may be and some remedies. I've tried a few things, but if I've made a mistake in the process, it would be nice to know. If you need any more information, tell me where I can see it and I'll try and get it.
This would be a real help if anyone knows anything.
I'm no expert, but it sounds like hackers. It may be spyware. Try a spyware remover, it may get rid of any backdoors or trojans that could be the root of the issue.
Get AVG free and install it.
If you havent got any firewall software, get some (zone alarm is free)
Get and run AdAware 6.0 and Spybot Search and Destroy.
If you cannot download these on your own machine, do it on a freinds or at an internet cafe and burn to CD.
Good advice. And, it's not a bad idea to disable/disconnect network service from each PC and run the software on it. Then, after you have done all of the PC's in your home, reconnect them and see how the internet is running. I say disconnect all and don't reconnect until they are all clean because some malware use the fact that people set up lower security for other PCs in their homes for file sharing and so on to re-infect over a LAN. (Or at least that seemed to be a problem at one point, it's been a while since I've had to deal with viruses.)
Yes it still is.
The disconnecting -> cleaning -> reconnecting idea is one I'll follow the moment I have access to all the computers by myself. Since my most recent clean I've been able to download a little more and I managed to get a few extra security pieces for the computer. I'll definately take a look at the ones you reccomend.
cheers. I'll see how this turns out.
got it working. Seemed to be free of hackers, but the router was having a problem. We managed to reset it, which fixed everything, but we have no idea what it actually did.
Still, can't complain. We have a new router on order, just in case.