Mysterious/Weird ethernet/internet issue.

[s***@hotmail.com]

This is a bit of a long shot, but maybe somebody has seen something like this, I am thinking not but ya never know.

Situation is really weird:

My PC can play World of Warships fine, Company of Heroes via Game Ranger fine.

It can browse/websurf the internet fine.

It can even connect to another laptop over same ethernet port by pulling out internet cable modem cable and reconnecting to laptop etc.

But for whatever reason:

If computers from the outside try to connect to my PC it's not working.

Vice versa it's also not working ?!? Maybe cause those devices are natted.

But as far as I know my PC is not NATTED.

Or it's some strange/new ISP kind of NAT that behaves oddly.

Like only big companies/servers are still reachable and not consumer PCs.

As far as I can tell my PC does have a public IP address.

But apperently this is not working/enough anymore ?! Very strange.

I plan on replacing my PC with a laptop, just as a test, to see if it's the PC at fault and it's software, or if something more strange is going on ?!

What kind of electrical defect/or wear and tear could produce such a weird result ?!

(One thing which is on my mind is something different, a hacked or misconfigured/corrupted modem, which somehow blocks this).

For now I will keep assuming that everything is just fine on my PC and that it's the outside world that simply can't connect to my PC.

Though even laptop <> PC sometimes behaves weird as far as I can recall, but usually I can get it to work (?!) though now I am not so sure anymore.

It's not stupid firewall cause this is turned off and would usually allow anyway... it's something more strange.

I will try to get to the bottom of it though.

Also is there any service out there on the internet where there is a public computer that can send some traffic to a specific tcp or udp port ?!

Just to see if my PC can actually receive this ?!

That would be very helpfull.

Bonus would be if I can then send something back to it's udp or tcp port to see if that computer can also receive from me... and finally it reports this via a website/html or so... or even e-mail or so.

Bye,
Skybuck.

(This newsgroup seems more appriorate then sci.electronics.design when it comes to the idea at the bottom, I really need a service like that from the internet).

[s***@hotmail.com]

I have an idea, I could try and program a small little php script that sends some udp packets to my computer, maybe later even a full tcp/ip connection.

Not entirely sure if my webhoster allows this but I think so...

Now this my not shed a lot of light if problem is on my side, but it's worth a shot.

Bye,
Skybuck.

[s***@hotmail.com]

Today I decided to call Ziggo, a company who delivers TV, Internet and Telephony.

I originally called to report a problem with my Analog Television !!!

One of the channels "veronique HD/Disney XD" was displaying snow over the screen.

A cartoon was playing covered in mild snow.

The guy on the phone was very helpfull and very motivated to try and solve my problem to my great surprise ! =D

I did not believe they could solve my problem. I thought they would laugh at me for not using digital television, I thought they might tell me to simply switch to digital television or blame it on me and my TV.

But the exact opposite happened.

First he asked me to check the tv channel, it was on a different number then their TV card but that was ok.

I also reported mild snow on another channel.

Then the guy asked me to check the white cable.

I checked it it was firm... all other TV channels play/display well.

Then he asked me to check the "splitter box" which splits the signal into two or three.

One for television, one for internet, and maybe one for radio or something.

I told him the model is CTU 01.

He asked if I was sure if it was not CTUM. I re-checked and told him:

No it really is a 3 letter thing CTU 01.

Then I had to wait/hold for a moment, after a while he came back.

He told me they were going to send me a new splitter and a new cable to my modem.

This new splitter can be directly connected to the wall socket where the green cable comes in and also a little white box is.

Now before I was going to hang up I told him about my recent internet experiments.

Where I tried to have a computer on the internet connect to my computer. I also told him this failed recently... and I also told him my previous contact with ziggo a while ago could not enter my cable modem menu ?!

To my great surprise he said: "I can access your cable modem just fine" !

I was stunned that this TV guy was also capable of checking internet at the same time LOL.

So this was a double surprise.

But now comes the best part:

The guy says: "I can see errors on the cables, he says, it's the packets".

His speech/accent was sometimes a bit hard to understand but not too bad.

At first I thought he said: "I can see 69 dropped packets".

I asked him what did you say ?

He said:

"In the last 16 days there have been 69 million dropped packets !" =D

I could not believe it. I asked him are you sure these are internet packets and he said yes.

Now I did notice a little bit of internet delays and lags, but this was only during a short period, though yesterday indeed there was also some delay.

So I and him were thinking the same thing. Perhaps this very old splitter has detoriated and it's cable and the noise on the TV is also interferring a little bit with the cable modem now and then.

Strangely enough this NOISE has been on this cable for years and it never really bothered my internet connection.

I can play games just fine... though perhaps this could explain why there might sometimes be a bit of lag in company of heroes, though I kinda think this is other guys.

But maybe it was me alll along ?! That would be funny !

So what is now the most revealing and interesting part of this story, what is the moral of the story ?!:

MY ANALOG TV IS WORTH GOLD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cause it can actually DETECT a noisy SIGNAL.

I am not sure if a digital television would have been able to detect it ?!?!?!?!?

So I am now very curious if this will solve all of my weird connection issues.

I am very skeptical, but there is some merit to the story, since the TV signal is indeed snowy on just one channel and slightly a second.

I am very skeptical indeed. But if this is indeed the problem then WOW !!!!!

WHAT

A

STORY

!!!

=D

Bye,
Skybuck =D


P.S.: I tried to report this snow sooner via form/e-mail but that didn't work also told this to this guy.

And usually I watch TV late at night beyond 22:00 when their service is not available, working hours and such... so I never really got to it.

But since these problems started occuring I am desperate to solve this connection issue so I am going through all possible causes including a bad TV signal ! HAHAHAHA !

Funny story in a way !

I hope other ZIGGO users and cable modem/tv users/splitter users will learn from this story !

Cause if your TV signal is BAD it may affect your internet as well !

I am not getting my hopes up too much, there may be other problems, but this is indeed very intrigueing ! ;) =D

Small applause for Ziggo for taking this complaint very seriously !

Thank you, time will tell if this actually solves my connection issues and TV signal issues. I will keep you posted on this ! ;) =D

Bye,
Skybuck.

[s***@hotmail.com]

I have a different explanation for the dropped internet packets.

The white cable connecting the splitter to the cable modem was slightly loose on the splitter side.

I attached it firmly.

I did notice tv signal became a bit worse on snowy channel but that might be by chance it fluctuates a bit.

The loose cable modem cable does not explain the bad tv signal on one channel, so there may be something to it.

I remain a bit skeptical though. Perhaps they known something I don't.

I think either their encoding changed slightly or some external device is at cause, but soon I will known the thruth :)

Bye,
Skybuck.

[s***@hotmail.com]

Today I performed some more tests, from wi-fi hotspot to somewhere else/cable modem.

From these test I learned that windows security center and windows firewall must be running (with that the services I mean)

If windows firewall is off (with this I mean the windows firewall is stopped) then inbound connections udp and tcp apperently don't work.

Why this is I will have too look into, perhaps this is some windows security feature or architectural thing.

So far everything is working as normal, which is good news.

(At least when marvel adapter is used).

Bye,
Skybuck.