Cause of Drastic Speed Fluctuation?

[DevinAnderson]

Around 7 or 8 PM most nights, my internet connection will go crazy and the speeds will drop to zero bytes/sec and then jump back up for a good while before it settles down. It pretty muchs bricks my internet. I get normally around 2.5-3 mb/s. Any thoughts?
http://imgur.com/a/USz2a

Also, I am in the middle of nowhere and I am stuck with a very terrible provider. Any pro tips to up the speed or work around this? (Moving is not an option and no other provider will come out to my area).

 

[rhysiam]

That's peak-usage time.

That usually means either wifi congestion (which you can do something about) or congestion on your Internet line (which you can do almost nothing about short of putting pressure on your ISP).

Given you talk about being in the middle of nowhere, is it safe to assume you're NOT in a densely populated area? That pretty much rules out wifi-congestion.

The likelihood is that your ISP's link is getting slammed at those times and your performance suffers as a result. You can complain to the ISP. But from a technical perspective, there's nothing you can do. If you're interested, I can give you some suggestions to gather the data you need to "prove" to your ISP that their link is the problem and demand a response from them. I was in a similar situation and was actually able to get the ISP to concede their backbone was insufficient, upgrade it eventually, and give me reduced rates in the meantime. I have a few providers to chose from in my area though and they knew I was gone if they didn't respond properly. So there's no guarantees you'll get a positive response.

 

[Shaun o]

If you have a router / modem setup.

I suggest you login the the router using the username and password to enter the setup options and configuration of the router
Devin.

If you are using a wireless connection to connect to the router over a wired installation from the router to your laptop or tower based system.

First of all as a test for a few hours lower the transmission speed set for wi-fi broadcasting and connection to a lower speed setting or Wi-fi mode example from a N300 speed to a N 150 speed.

Or lowering to a G type network setting.

While in the router setup also look for the option of flood protection. if the router has the option and it is ticked or enabled disable the option Devin.

Next you need to look at the hardware firewall options of the router, if the current status of it in your router is set to high.

Set it to a medium setting Devin ok.

Now save or apply all of the new changes made as listed above in the router.
And exit the routers setup menus by logging out.

Give the router around 60 to 90 seconds to reset and reconfigure it`s self.

Then restart your system and windows Os.
Letting it load up again.

And then test it at the times you stated for 7 to 8 PM on a night to see if it has fixed the problem of the speed of your connection dropping to zero bytes received or sent in data ok.