Is it the internet or my computer?

[gizmosmustang]

Ok for the past few weeks now ever since I switched internet companies I have notice a performance decrease within my system and also alot of freezes but only at night between 8pm and 2am does this sound like a problem within the internet connection of a problem with my computer,
Matt

[gvblake22]

Could you give a little more detailed information about what you are doing when the system freezes, if it gives any error messages, and what kind of internet connection you have?

[gizmosmustang]

It just freezes up or goes really really slow when I try anything that has to do with the internet (firefox, IE, MSN, Gametap, Windows Update) I wwent from DSL to Cable. I've een been debating on it being myspace or some other website these teenagers go on but Ive basically chopped those out as they don't feeze the compouter during the day I've also though it was Vista and if it is I'm going back to old fateful XP

[halutzparilla]

Cable company has a bandwidth sharing in neighborhood that is connected to one Hub... like my place i live in a apartment building so if other apartment open thier cable my bandwidth slowsdown drastically...

well correct me with this if i was wrong this was just the technician told me while having to call them due to same problem of certain hours of the day the internet is way to slow...

[Quakindude]

Population density will play a heavier role in Cable Internet speeds. The heavier the population, the more "sharing" that's going on.

Things to check. Is the cable modem hooked up via USB or Ethernet? If USB, you need to get that switched over to Ethernet. Are you using a generic ethernet port driver (Windows driver) or the specific chipset drivers?

[Stormcrow]

8pm to 2am is considered Prime time, when everyone is home and milling about before going to bed. Halutz is right about the cable hub. When I had cable, this was also the big slowdown time as everyone goes to check their email, watch the news, whatever online before hitting the sack. Alot of people making phone calls through cable like Vonage really eat up the bandwidth as well. Since I live in an apartment complex, it was so bad that if a few people upstairs came home from work and started downloading something, it was like '95 dailup all over again.

If you're troubleshooting for more possible causes, another thing to add is alot of drivers given to you by the cable company for their routers are compatible with 98 and maybe XP. The driver set may be not fully compatible with Vista, if your even using drivers. Sounds to me like your just getting caught in Broadband rush hour. If you notice other parts of your system not internet related starting to freeze or hang, then its a problem with Vista.

[gizmosmustang]

did a diognostics check on my computer awhile ago and come to find out vista and my graphics card don't play well with each other until I get a new one I'm going back to XP that's what's causing my system to freeeze as for the internet thing being highly slow figured it out but calling the cable company and I'm on the same hub as all the real estate agency's around and between 8pm and 6am they are all downloading new listings for the day will let you all know if the freezes get fixed by XP thanks
Matt

[gizmosmustang]

well went and installed xp back on the computer done a clean install and now everythign is working flawlessly even then internet got faster only thing is my graphics card went bad so now i'm running on intergrated garphics until i either get a new one or build another computer thanks
Matt
btw this thread should be moved as it wasn't an internet problem but a VISTA and graphics problem

[polobunny]

Uh why exactly are you saying this is a Vista and graphics card problem?
Your card died as from what I can gather from your post, i'd lean more toward the fact your card was dying (which caused the freezing) than an incompatibility between the two.

[gizmosmustang]

Well now that I've talked to the card Manufacturer and everything my card did die so it wasn't a problem within vista it was a problem with my graphics card. So imma order a better graphics card and fix the problem mine caused between it and vista hopefully though when everything gets fixed and the graphics card gets here i can reinstall vista but until then imma use XP.