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General discussion

Broadband: Is my cable connection becoming saturated?

Sep 18, 2009 6:49AM PDT
Question:

Broadband: Is my cable connection becoming saturated?


It has been several years since I got my cable modem. Living
in what was a relatively sparsely populated area, I enjoyed
lightning-fast response times on the Internet. My son grew up
and got involved in online shoot'em-up gaming and
downloading, and I detected that when he was doing that, the
little activity light on the modem was on a lot more than
off, which was expected.

More recently, I have noticed that the activity light is
nearly always on, blinking off occasionally and my response
lags a bit. I can't blame my son's activities anymore, since
he went off to college, and his PC's been powered off. What
could possibly be the culprit? Is it time to complain to my
ISP? Thanks for your opinions!

--Submitted Steve B.

Here below are some featured member answers to get you
started, but please read all the advice and suggestions
that our members have contributed to this question.

Broadband connection --Submitted by GEO2003
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7583_102-0.html?messageID=3130449#3130449

Testing your Cable modem upload/download speed --Submitted by ralphjramirez
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7583_102-0.html?messageID=3130465#3130465

Cable broadband slow down --Submitted by Zouch
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7583_102-0.html?messageID=3130465#3130465

Sounds like a virus... --Submitted by darrenforster99
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7583_102-0.html?messageID=3130736#3130736

Is my cable connection saturated? Not likely... --Submitted by Watzman
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7583_102-0.html?messageID=3130394#3130394

Please read more contributions below in this discussion thread.

If have any additional advice or experience to share with Steve, click on the reply link and submit it away. Please be as detailed as possible when providing a solution. Thank you!

Discussion is locked

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Uniblue is a scam
Oct 9, 2009 5:46AM PDT

I agree, years ago I bought their crap. I have been much better with out it.
Few things to (add, to) ponder on your connection.

First, we all heard that cable will only give the high speed to those who don't connect all of the time, or for long.

Continuing on. Whether there is something lurking in your computer or not, you probably have way too many orphaned files, loading programs & things of that nature.
Isolate any virus first, than reformat your drive (s). Usually every couple years you should, just to clear out the junk (files, programs) that builds up.
Make sure you have the right drivers for your computer & the pieces inside. Which isn't always the latest or newest driver. Installing the wrong driver won't help & could in fact, mess things up.

Finally. There are a few normal programs that access the net while you're connected. Automatic update software is the biggest offender. I can bet you have more than just Windows doing it.
Anyhow I hope this helps. A little late in responding, but in fact, I was just reformatting my drive, & didn't want to write on my friend's computer, as she has automatic update everything (and the connection tends to be slow ;}).

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Not a good speed test
Oct 3, 2009 3:59AM PDT
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Flashing Light on Your Modem is your ISP
Sep 18, 2009 11:18AM PDT

Your ISP pings your modem 24 hours a day to see if they need to decrease or increase bandwidth in your area. The more people it finds on line in an area of town the more bandwidth you all get. Servers cost big bucks along with the power to run them. There is no bogey man trying to steal your stuff. I use McAfree with Comcast and have never had any problems with my 4 computers on line 24/7 Gary

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Did you change your modem?
Oct 2, 2009 10:50AM PDT

If you once had a Motorola 5100 and then went to a 5101 or 5120 the lights work just the opposite. On these modems the light goes off when information is being sent or received.

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Cable Broadband slow down
Sep 18, 2009 11:27AM PDT

Hi Steve,
when your download speed deteriorates, the problem can lie anywhere down the path from the source site to your PC. The trick is to identify where!

In general, the speed of Cable broadband isn't as sensitive to load on your ISP's network as ADSL down the phone line but the trunks are still shared and that can cause some variation. From your description, it sounds like you are seeing a degradation, compared to when you forst got the broadband. This can be somewhat subjective, though, so it is worth running a speed test to check just what speed you are getting. CNET/Techrepublic/ZDNet have speed testers and these work reasonably well. It would be nice, of course, to compare with what you had originally but that is water under the bridge. So run the test every hour throughout the day (or at least that part of it you are awake!) and see if there is any significant variation, which would imply that you are experiencing load sensitivity.

The most common cause of load sensitivity on a cable connection is transitory overloads on the ISP servers. Here in the UK NTL (now Virgin Media) used to add a server when the average load reached 70% but other ISPs will use a different threshold. If this is what you are seeing, it is worth calling your ISP to discuss possible causes. Your ISP may also have a speed test specific to their network that they can give you.

I'm not sure what the activity light on your modem is - do you just have one or do you have separate transmit and receive lights? I'll assume it's a receive light, which would relate to your download sluggishness. It should only be on when data is actually being transmitted. If it is more or less continuously, that suggests there is a lot of data downloading. If this is more than you would expect from what you are doing, it could be error correction requesting retransmissions. If so, it could be due to deterioration of the cable itself, or the modem reaching end of life - you say you've had it for some years. I'm assuming here that our ISP hasn't increased the bandwidth on your line - if it has, it may be too fast for your modem and it's overrunning and requesting retransmission. Again, this is a call to your ISP. They should have diagnostics they can run to your modem to see if you are getting heavy error correction and if so, where. If it's the cable, expect a long wait while they replace it. If it's the modem, that's a relatively quicker solution.

Since you have your PC and your son's PC (albeit powered off) online, I assume you have a router in your home network somewhere. If the router is connected directly to the modem, before calling your ISP, it would be worth connecting your PC directly to the modem to see if that cures the problem. If it does, then the fault is on your internal home network; if it doesn't, then it's most likely the modem or the cable - or the repeater boxes on the line, again, a call to your ISP.

That's my "starter for 10" - hope it helps!

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Broadband...
Sep 18, 2009 11:32AM PDT

Dear Steve,

Yes, you are right. Your connection becomes saturated. Did you notice the time? Is it generally in the evening, 7PM to 11PM, 1hr, 2hrs or more?
I have had the same issue w/ AT&T DSL. It started in May. After a lot of trouble tickets, they worked hard, and improved my connections. But from time to time the problem is there again. They recommended to downgrade the DSL speed. I did it, the only advantage is that it costs a few dollars less, otherwise....is like above.

Good luck,
Constantin S

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DSL is not the same as Broadband Cable!
Oct 2, 2009 4:16PM PDT

DSL and Broadband cable are different. The number of users on a DSL line can/will effect performance. The further from the DSL source the slower the speed. There tech support should know this, and there isn't an easy fix, the speeds will still be faster than dial up but not as fast as promised in most cases, unless you are close the source.

Cable on the other hand is not going through a DSL line and speed from the provider should remain constant regardless of the number of users.

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Speed on a cable modem line being constant?
Oct 3, 2009 3:40PM PDT

Yes it "should" remain constant, and for the most part, it probably does, however, it can change, and it will most likely be slower. That's what happened to me.

I changed from dial up to a cable modem about four or months ago. When I first hooked it up, I did notice a very big difference in the speed, but It didn't seem to be as fast as I had expected. I called my cable company and they first told me to go to speedtest.net and test my connection speed. I was supposed to be getting an 8 meg connection speed but it tested out to be only about 5.75. It was about the same on the Speak Easy test site. They sent out a tech who tested all my equipment and cable line. All checked out okay. He said the only thing he could think of was traffic on the line. I checked my speed again today (10/3/09), and it is now only about 3.75. So I have lost speed. I sense that it has something to do with the software and anti virus programs on my computer, combined with line traffic.

Tim A.

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Look before you leap - the culprit could be close to home.
Sep 18, 2009 11:33AM PDT

Before you blame your ISP, or your neighbours, make sure it isn't YOUR PC. You mentioned that "the activity light is nearly always on". That indicates data traffic to/from your PC. You can use task manager to see where the activity is. Add some columns to the PROCESSES view (eg. I/O Reads, I/O Writes, I/O Other) and to the NETWORKING view (eg. Bytes sent and received per interval). If the counters show lots of activity you'll need to trace down the processes / tasks doing it.
Check for virus activity too. Make sure you haven't become someone's x-bot. You can download and run Malwarebytes A/V tool (www.malwarebytes.org) and SuperAntiSpyware (www.superantispyware.com) for free and see what they find.
If all that comes up empty, call your ISP with some confidence that they won't come back and say "it's YOUR PC".

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Not the PC
Oct 6, 2009 10:40PM PDT

It turns out that when I powered everything off (PC, router and modem), then turned on modem (no activity light), then router (whoa-ho! almost solid activity light!), there it was.

The router has wep encryption (yes, I know, not the best - extenuating circumstances there.) and MAC filtering, so only the MACs I entered myself should be able to access via my router. And we live in a rural area where to get within proximity to attempt access from outside the house would be obvious.

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Saturated? Re high use and flashing light.
Sep 18, 2009 11:41AM PDT

If you have wireless, I would suspect your broadband has been accessed by a thief. The busy light flash a dead give away.

Change your password on the router and keep it VERY private.

I suspect a neighbour had been stealing mine as it was left 'open' (ad name only)

I hope this is of some use to you or any who use wireless. Cheers Anglonz

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Check your wireless access on your router
Sep 18, 2009 11:52AM PDT

If you have a router with a wireless ability you may have an unexpected user. I your wireless in not encrypted anyone can the Internet through your cable modem. I had something similar happen to me until i encrypted the wireless access on my router.

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Not wireless intrusion
Oct 6, 2009 10:45PM PDT

encrypted and mac filtered.

But it appears to be the nature of the beast. See my posts at the end (page 7?)

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Broadband cable saturation
Sep 18, 2009 12:34PM PDT

Hello. I am unsure of what cable provider you have or the type of modem, but as long as your PC (or PC's) are powered on, the activity light should pretty much always be flashing. Having worked for my local cable provider a number of years in the broadband department I can try and shed a little light on why your service isn't always running at top speed. Each neighborhood with cable broadband is on what's called a "node", and yes, obviously the more users on at any given time can and will affect performance (i.e. you are just trying to download a song but your next door neighbor is downloading "The Dark Knight" in hi-def at the same time). Next, the level of service you have with your provider will always affect traffic speed. My cable provider has five (5) tiers of service now, with better up and download speeds for more $$$. I have their very fastest service (Cox Premier Plus), but to even get that I had to buy a new cable modem (called DOCSIS 3.0 - Motorola and Cisco make them, around $100) and bump my service level up, but at a price ($79.99/mo.). But now I get 30-50 Mbps downloads and 4-6 Mbps uploads. So check with your cable provider and ask what speeds you SHOULD typically be getting for your level of service. After finding out, go to speedtest.net and run their free test, which will tell you your exact down and upload speed so you can get a ballpark on if you are getting what you are paying for. If not, then I would inform your provider and maybe schedule a service call (bear in mind this might cost $$$ too). There are also a plethora of hardware (read: your PC) issues that may or may not be affecting your speed. Hope this helps!

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may be ancient data clogging modem from past internet use
Sep 18, 2009 12:35PM PDT

If you have never powered down the modem over the years it may be clogged with old data. I have had huge problems with Vonage Voip phone service due to this issue. The Vonage phone modem connects to the internet to provide phone voice thru data packets. It regularly (every few days) requires me to unplug the power cord from the wall ( a transformer type plug) and leave unplugged for 12 seconds minimum, 1 minute preferred. This "kills" the latent packets that have been just loitering in the modem slowing all transmissions down. Voice quality is vastly improved after this procedure.
Now with a cable or ethernet phone line modem there is a similar situation. All internet use - especially games, generates data and packet type temp files that over time can be stuck in the modem clogging and slowing down the modem - very separate from high use in the neighbourhood at 6 pm. Similarly, shut down the power to the modem for 10 minutes preferably. unplug the power cord from the wall socket as well as the back of the modem. Let it cool down. "Do not hit the reset button on the back of the modem".

Plug power back in after 10 minutes, let it go thru set up procedures until it comes on line. Speeds should be improved.
Note also that if the modem is on all the time for years, even when you sleep, it gets hot and room air is not always enough to keep it cool for maximum efficiency. Similarly, a computer can very slow if it is on for days because the boards inside are just too hot. Give them a good rest and power down and you will notice faster speeds

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Clog?
Oct 6, 2009 10:54PM PDT

Maybe a teaspoon of Liquid Plumber once a month? Wink

You may have something there. See my post at end (Page 7?)

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Excessive activity on modem

Assuming two possible scenarios seems a good place to start.
1st: You have a wireless router downstream from your modem.
If this is the case it may be that your signal is unsecured and someone else is piggybacking on your connection. It is also quite easy to "sniff out" WEP encryption packets. Thereby allowing someone to gain access to a "protected" network.
The answer to the second scenario can also apply here as well.

2nd: You have a "hardwired" connection. (CAT-5 Ethernet cable from modem to computer for every computer in the network) Since this precludes someone being able to access your network the most likely cause is a process (or processes) running on your computer. For the most part the most common cause of this is Mal-ware. That's right, Mal-ware. Viruses, Trojans, worms, data miners, key loggers, etc...
The main purposes behind these nasties is to either steal your data, use your computer as a zombie in a bot-net, or just to cause damage and havoc within your computer. If you have ALL devices that connect to your modem powered off you should have extremely little or no activity through your modem.

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Your PC is likely busy working for someone else.
Sep 18, 2009 1:18PM PDT

The light is likely on because your PC is uploading to the web. The darker side of the web is always looking for computers they can commandeer for shady purposes, preferable unknown to the computer owner. A few years ago one of our servers was hacked. The hackers installed an email server, and suddenly our internet traffic went way up. I don't know what was being sent out from our server, and I'm not sure I even want to know. It was quite a challenge to get the traffic stopped. You can frustrate the activity by turning off your modem when you are not using your PC, but I think these folks just see any free computer capacity that they can get as a bonus. I got help to resolve the problem on our system. We uninstalled the email server, locked everything down, changed our IP address and changed all the passwords. It was an experience! Lot's of this is going on all the time and people don't have any idea.

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Slow broadband speed ?
Sep 18, 2009 3:45PM PDT

Greetings, It's interesting that this question surfaced because I have noticed a slight decline in my broadband speed as well. So after reading your question I went straight over to ( IF I MAY SUGGEST THIS SITE ) http://www.speedtest.net/ to see where I stood, my score was pretty good: 5 MB's in 2 sec. 35 MB in 11 sec. and 800 MB in about 4.5 min. However I believe that my score is going to vary big time depending on two factors. One is: how many people including myself are connected to a particular server, maybe it's the server that is over whelmed, and #2 maybe our ISP could be at its busiest time, put the two together along with the notion that new people sign up for broadband service everyday might affect us. My machine is running really good so I will rule that out and I'm running XP Media Center, I also have made sure that my LAN card drivers are up to date and the software settings are up to snuff. I hope this INFO helps you a little, I will be waiting to see what other people have to say about this too. Thanks For Reading This Ken.

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Problem with poor broadband responce
Sep 18, 2009 4:43PM PDT

Saturation is right, very slow to next to non-existant can be more like it. More Voice over and digital packages reduce broadbands ability to provide the service you bought just a few years ago. You will find your down loads will start to drop out on larger files and will need to go back multiple times to get the file completly!
Providers answer will be they are "upgrading the servers", right, maybe when the company has enough money to retire first.

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Blinking modem indication lights
Sep 18, 2009 4:43PM PDT

Hi Steve B,
Your system may be acting as a server on a web p2p network bit torrent application such as BitComet or Vuze. That would explain the slower speed and the 'blinking lights'.

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The very 1st thing that you ought to suspect is...
Sep 18, 2009 5:15PM PDT

SOME FORM OF 'MalWare' !
SO TRY TO TAKE STEPS TO ELIMINATE THAT POSSIBILITY FIRST.

__ TOO BAD THAT YOUR PC IS NOT ALREADY SET-UP FOR DUAL-BOOTing!
HOWEVER, SINCE YOU HAVE ANOTHER PC (which probably is not also so infected), TRY USING IT IN PLACE OF YOUR PC, TO SEE IF THE ISSUE CHANGES.
IF THAT OTHER PC IS CLEAN OF MalWare AND YET YOUR ISSUE REMAINS, THEN CONTINUE-ON WITH ANY OTHER IDEAS GIVEN TO YOU.
(BUT NOTE... IF BOTH OF YOUR PCs USE THE SAME SET OF ANTI-MalWare PROGRAMS, THEN IT'S POSSIBLE THAT BOTH MAY STILL HAVE THE SAME MW-INFECTION CAUSING THE ISSUE.)

__ ALSO, YOU MAY WISH TO INSTALL A SoftWare-PROGRAM WHICH MONITORS YOUR INTERNET-TRAFFIC (in & out of your PC), AND / OR A SW-PROGRAM THAT ALLOWS YOU TO STOP ALL SUCH TRAFFIC, (aside from disconnecting the cable).

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Could be a spam bot
Sep 18, 2009 5:25PM PDT

Check for virus and stuff like that on your PC. Unplug the Ethernet cord 2 it 1st and check the LED's on the cable modem then. It it stops you know it's your PC.

It could be some bot program sending out it's self to others. Something like this. So get some program to scan your system. Or if you can just reload it. Backup things you want to keep 1st.

-Raymond Day

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Re: Broadband: Is my cable connection becoming staturated?
Sep 18, 2009 6:50PM PDT

What brand & Model number is your modem. Has your modem a wireless network connection? If it has wireless, have you a proper firewall setup on it?

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Sounds like a virus...
Sep 18, 2009 8:57PM PDT

This sounds like a virus, the activity light being constantly on indicates something is trying to contact the internet constantly, it does not mean other people in your area are using the internet (unless they're borrowing your internet - if you have a wireless router this could very well be the culprit).

Either that or your using the internet for other things without realizing it.

When the light is constantly on are you doing anything else, like watching TV-on-demand, or internet TV? Some TV-on-demand services use the internet to download their content (like BBC iPlayer), and some of these constantly "share" the content even when your not using your computer, possibly the worst I've found is Kontiki which is used in BBC iPlayer and 4OD (and many other On Demand TV systems) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kontiki - btw even if you change the preferences in Kontiki to tell it not to share, it STILL does, I put BBC iPlayer on my computer told it not to share when it wasn't running, I got PeerGuardian warning me that my computer was constantly trying to connect to the BBC iPlayer servers even when I wasn't running it, solved the problem by uninstalling iPlayer.

In addition to that you also have file sharing programs that might be using your internet alot, have you got any BitTorrent program running on your computer, like uTorrent. These run in the background, normally have a small icon in the corner and use your internet without you knowing.

Then there is also VOIP software, like Skype.

The best way to find out which computer is causing the abundance of activity on the network is to disconnect all computers from the network and connect them one by one again, once you see the activity light go crazy that is the computer that is calling up the internet, then you need to look onto that computer and find out what processes are running that could be calling up the internet, do a thorough virus scan on that computer, and unload some of the programs, like file-sharing programs, tv-on-demand apps, voip apps, etc, eventually you should find one program that you unload that will stop the activity light from flashing as much.

If you unplug all your computers from the network and you notice that the activity light is still flashing crazily, then you need to look into who else might be borrowing your internet connection. If your internet connection is wi-fi and you don't have any security set on it then it could be any number of people in your area that are borrowing your broadband connection. If this is the case you urgently need to sort it out, as you will be held liable for anything they do on the internet, this includes if they are using it download illegal material, such as child pornography or copyrighted material.

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Broadband: Is my cable connection becoming saturated?
Sep 18, 2009 10:17PM PDT

I'm no expert but this is my take. You didn't mention whether or not you have a wireless router. If so, and if there's no security setup on it then maybe a neighbor is piggy-backing onto your system. Or if that's not the case but your PC connected by wire and is on all the time maybe it's being hijacked by malware. Try disconnecting all PCs connected to it and see what happens.

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RE: Broadband: Is my......
Sep 18, 2009 10:30PM PDT

If the light is blinking/on it means your passing traffic with or without your knowledge. While it's possible the modem has gone deep six, if your able to send and receive data, I doubt this is the problem.
Your first and probably the most likely cause is you, or if your son used your machine, picked up some virus, trojan, or spyware( tracking cookies) and your machine is sending out god only knows what! Spyware phones home at regular intervals.
You didn't state whether you are using a virus/ firewall program and if it is up to date! If your computer came with one pre-installed have you renewed it? Also, not knowing what OS your using, is it up to date??? Are all updates installed/ patched??? Some vulnerabilities under Windows allow a unpatched machine to be taken control of by unscrupulous persons!! If you answered no to any or all of these you need to get current ASAP and do a in depth scan of your system!! Pronto!!!!
My second thought and this is "really" far fetched is someone is also using your modem as their modem. Is your modem wireless capable?? You stated: " living in what WAS a relatively sparsely populated area". Have you gotten new neighbors close by??? If so,is this about the same time things went haywire??
While the chances are very, very slim, as they would have to know the code for your modem, someone "Could(?)" have hijacked your modem! Their activity online would show on your modem as blinking/ steady lights.
If your using XP or Vista, check your connectivity icon in the system tray, it looks like 2 little monitors. Are they blinking steadily???? If they are then your machine is sending/ receiving data at a good rate. If you have and can see the connectivity icon, close both your email and browser programs and see if both the icon and your modem lights cease to blink. Activity should have ceased, although you might see an occasional blink or two as, if your using Windows, your machine can check for updates without using your email or browser programs. If they continue to blink wildly, then power down ALL computers, DON'T ASSUME, attached to this modem. If ALL activity ceases then I would get the newest and latest antivirus/ firewall program and do a deep scan of your system as you picked up some kind of virus/ trojan! Check out Cnet or ZDnet for the latest reviews on antivirus/ firewall programs!
If, the odds of this are astronomical, your modem still shows activity. Then if can live without internet access for a couple of days and if you know, even casually, your neighbors. Turn off the modem and see if anyone complains about losing their wireless internet connectivity! They may have thought they were using WIFI and somehow accessed your modem by mistake??
I doubt this will be the case!!
My money's on somehow you picked up some bug/s.
Bottom Line:
1) Insure your OS is up to date, ALL updates and patches are installed.
2) Antivirus/ Firewall- is one installed and are all updates and patches installed. If so do a DEEP system scan!
3) If somehow someone hijacked your modem, contact your provider to see how to stop and prevent this from happening again!
Good Luck and hope this helps!

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I see what I was going to add has already been mentioned...
Sep 18, 2009 11:05PM PDT

I see it has already been well mentioned about the possibility that you might have a Trojan Bot doing malicious things in the background.

Some self replicate over and over throughout your system giving different triggers for them to be awakened, so that it will be harder to get rid of that bug.

Others also start scanning your system for email addresses and spam them with a bunch of unwanted crap. All these things can cause activity on your internet connection.

Just sweep your system with a good anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-malware program to make sure this is not the culprit.

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My Broadband Cable is working great now!
Sep 18, 2009 11:41PM PDT

I had the same problem.

First, I unplugged the unnecessary cord(s); it might be an Ethernet cable or a telephone cable.

Second, I reset the router and the modem.

Finally, I reinstalled the network adapter's driver.

It works like new so far. I assumed you are not having security issue(s). Hope it helps.

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Cable Broadband Getting Slower.
Sep 19, 2009 12:05AM PDT

I have notived at certin parts of the day my cable broadband speed is slowing down. This is mainly due to traffic and not your ISP. If it really becomes a problem I suggest giving your cable company a call and letting them know. I'm sure they will have several questions for you so they can isolate the problem. But, just remember, it is not uncommon for cable broadband to slow down when traffic is heavy.