[SOLVED] Internet dropping on only certain websites/applications on certain computer

[PeterLG]

Hey guys, so my desktop computer is connected to the router via Ethernet, and it's having some issues recently after being fine in its current state since August. Starting a couple weeks ago or so, certain websites will have difficulty loading, timing out more often than not, although given enough time they will sometimes load. The affected websites remain consistent, but have no correlation to each other or similarities between them -- ranging from my job's portal, to my bank website, to even google or youtube. Couldn't even get onto this website. Meanwhile, other websites load perfectly fine even while those other ones are timing out. However, this faulty internet connection extends to non-browser applications such as Steam, Spotify, Discord, and even game lobbies. I will get dropped and reconnected randomly, despite being able to connect to certain websites during this event. Both browser and application incidents are very frequent throughout the day. My laptop and phone, both connected wirelessly, are working just fine.

I ran a diagnostic test on my Ethernet connection and it reports that everything should be fine, as does my anti-Virus after checking for malware/spyware and such. I've never had this problem before, and I'm not sure what to do. Thank you guys for reading.

 

[Nemesia]

Did you try doing a tracert to the website address you're trying to load?

Open an elevated command prompt and type tracert website.com

It could be an ISP problem and not on your side. That tracert will show you which relay server is lagging for you if the issue is outside your home.

 

[SamirD]

Interesting that the other devices on your network work fine--that indicates it's something particular with that system. Have you tried changing the ethernet cable and rebooting the router? Could be something that simple.

Otherwise, I would boot to a linux live cd/usb and see if everything works there. If so, then it's definitely a software issue with windows, and I would suspect malware even though the scans came up clean. Could also just be a dns hijack.

 

[PeterLG]

Did you try doing a tracert to the website address you're trying to load?

Open an elevated command prompt and type tracert website.com

It could be an ISP problem and not on your side. That tracert will show you which relay server is lagging for you if the issue is outside your home.

Thanks for the reply! I tried this, although I have to admit it was not on an elevated command prompt. This term is new to me and when I looked it up they were basically telling me to run cmd as administration or use ctrl+shift+enter after typing cmd into the search function. I tried both, multiple times, with no feedback at all. So in a regular command prompt, which is hopefully still useful, this is the information I got back: http://prntscr.com/w4cvtl

Initially I was not going to post this, because as luck would have it, the website has been working fine for the last 10 minutes after a 2-hour battle trying to use it. However, it did give me some timeouts so I'm still gonna post it in the hopes that there's something useful. But it's worth keeping in mind that the website is currently loading properly at the time of the test, and if I need to wait until it's messing up again, or if I need to fix whatever is preventing me from running the terminal as administrator, then I am happy to do so!

 

[PeterLG]

Interesting that the other devices on your network work fine--that indicates it's something particular with that system. Have you tried changing the ethernet cable and rebooting the router? Could be something that simple.

Otherwise, I would boot to a linux live cd/usb and see if everything works there. If so, then it's definitely a software issue with windows, and I would suspect malware even though the scans came up clean. Could also just be a dns hijack.

Thank you as well for the input! I have rebooted the router, although I'm afraid I don't have another ethernet cable on hand, and I'm not sure how easily I'll be able to get one. I did run a diagnostic test on the Ethernet cable which came up fine, although I understand if that's not enough to rule out the cable as the issue. Same with the malware, I can try and download some other detection software and see if they pick anything up either.

Not familiar with a DNS hijack, or booting to a linux live cd/usb; I'll try the latter if other things don't seem to work, but frankly I might hold off on trying that because 1) I'm not familiar with that process and I'm a little worried about screwing it up on my desktop, and 2) the internet issues are quite inconsistent and I'm worried the issue will cycle into a long period of downtime in which I think the issue is absent when it's not. Nonetheless, I appreciate the suggestion, and if it comes to it I'm down to give it a shot!

 

[SamirD]

Thank you as well for the input! I have rebooted the router, although I'm afraid I don't have another ethernet cable on hand, and I'm not sure how easily I'll be able to get one. I did run a diagnostic test on the Ethernet cable which came up fine, although I understand if that's not enough to rule out the cable as the issue. Same with the malware, I can try and download some other detection software and see if they pick anything up either.

Not familiar with a DNS hijack, or booting to a linux live cd/usb; I'll try the latter if other things don't seem to work, but frankly I might hold off on trying that because 1) I'm not familiar with that process and I'm a little worried about screwing it up on my desktop, and 2) the internet issues are quite inconsistent and I'm worried the issue will cycle into a long period of downtime in which I think the issue is absent when it's not. Nonetheless, I appreciate the suggestion, and if it comes to it I'm down to give it a shot!

No worries! If you download the TENS live cd, it is specifically designed not to touch a host computer in any way (it is a linux live cd originally made by the airforce to be able to use any computer to connect securely to government sites--but it also works as a great live os for testing.) Try it!