Is my router dying, or is it my internet connection?

[happypamama]

We have DSL, not the fastest speed, but it works fine for streaming and everything when we have it connected directly to our desktop computer. However, to use other computers/iPad, we have to go through the router, and it, predictably, splits the connection and makes it slower. It's too slow to stream to any of the machines, but we can surf/do e-mail pretty well, so we make do, since we don't really want to pay for the higher DSL speed. If we want to download something, we just either set it up to download to the iPad overnight, or we shift the DSL to the desktop and download it to there. That works okay enough.

 

However, sometimes, completely randomly, when we're using the router, it just appears to quit. Like, I'll be surfing, no problem, and then bam, sites won't open. Hitting the "reset" button on the router usually fixes it, but that's kind of annoying.

 

So, is this just something that routers do every so often, or is it a symptom of a router that needs to be replaced? (It is 7 or 8 years old.) Also, is there any way to optimize the DSL speed when using the router without upgrading the DSL?

[Bang!Zoom!]

We went through this all.the.time - turned out it was the fault of the cable company. We were paying for a service we weren't getting. Still ticked about that.

[happypamama]

We went through this all.the.time - turned out it was the fault of the cable company. We were paying for a service we weren't getting. Still ticked about that.

 

Well, that would certainly be irritating! It is true that it seems to go out more often when the weather is bad, but that's more the DSL/internet in general, rather than the router. I think it's not the phone company's fault, but either the router or the speed.

[Bang!Zoom!]

When we moved recently, we had to set up cable again. First day it was like a miracle. Never saw images on this TV so crisp. Even though we'd been paying for HD, we never had that good a signal. Amazing, right? So, rebooting the TiVO, something went wrong. Called the cable company and said, "Hey, we lost our signal, the channels are funky, can't figure out why, can you come out and reset this?"

 

Sure lil' Missy. For fifty bucks.

 

Whatever...

 

They came out, reset it, turns out it was a fault on *their* end, no charge.

 

When they were here, we found out our router (Netgear) had some specialty setting in it that they had to mess with on their end to properly stream the signal. So, they reset it on their end, and volia, super power router now.

 

Just sharing in case any of this lines up with your router system. Cable co. has to fine tune their settings for you on their signal release, not the other way around.