Contention & how can I be sure I'm afflicted

I've had a ClaraNet ADSL 512K connection for a couple of years. It's been
very stable and performance has always been good. Suddenly it's all gone
wrong. For the last two days, performance has been crap: very often the
browser will time out on DNS lookup. It will right itself for a few minutes
then it's crap again. There doesn't appear to be any pattern to the
problems such as happening at a certain time of day. I contacted support
and they said 'we can't see any problems' which made me think this might be
contention. Is there any way I could be sure? If it is contention, I guess
it's not going to get any better. So I might as well scrap the line and go
back to dialup. It would be faster.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

HtH

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 16:44:48 GMT and in article <4Q8_a.2178874$ZC.319063
@news.easynews.com>, Harry the Horse said...
: I've had a ClaraNet ADSL 512K connection for a couple of years. It's been
: very stable and performance has always been good. Suddenly it's all gone
: wrong. For the last two days, performance has been crap: very often the
: browser will time out on DNS lookup
:
I swapped to Clara's DNS server yesterday. *awful* performance. Many
domain names wouldn't resolve. Utterly useless. Use someone elses DNS
servers.

--
chris

> : I've had a ClaraNet ADSL 512K connection for a couple of years.
It's been
> : very stable and performance has always been good. Suddenly
it's all gone
> : wrong. For the last two days, performance has been crap: very
often the
> : browser will time out on DNS lookup
> :
> I swapped to Clara's DNS server yesterday. *awful* performance.
Many
> domain names wouldn't resolve. Utterly useless. Use someone
elses DNS
> servers.
>

Or run your own

there's a good, easy (as in next to nothing) to configure one here:

www.ntcanuck.com called Bind PE

Go straight to adslguide.org.uk and do the performance test there and then.

If its a bad connection, or contentions problems, it'll show up straight
away and what's better, it'll get logged against Clara Net monthly
performance - and they may even do something about it as a result.

On 12/8/03 5:44 pm, in article 4Q8_a.2178874$(E-Mail Removed),
"Harry the Horse" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
>
> HtH
>
>

"Graham in Melton" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:BB5F075F.12570%(E-Mail Removed)...
> Go straight to adslguide.org.uk and do the performance test there and
then.
>
> If its a bad connection, or contentions problems, it'll show up straight
> away and what's better, it'll get logged against Clara Net monthly
> performance - and they may even do something about it as a result.
>
Thanks for the tip. I think though it may be a DNS issue 'cos I've changed
DNS server and things seem to have got a lot better.

Cheers!

Harry the Horse wrote:

> I've had a ClaraNet ADSL 512K connection for a couple of years. It's been
> very stable and performance has always been good. Suddenly it's all gone
> wrong. For the last two days, performance has been crap: very often the
> browser will time out on DNS lookup. It will right itself for a few minutes
> then it's crap again. There doesn't appear to be any pattern to the
> problems such as happening at a certain time of day. I contacted support
> and they said 'we can't see any problems' which made me think this might be
> contention. Is there any way I could be sure? If it is contention, I guess
> it's not going to get any better. So I might as well scrap the line and go
> back to dialup. It would be faster.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
>
> HtH
>
>
>

Not contention - more like some nasty router issues or even DHCP problems.