Internet "flickers" out for 4 seconds at a time, madness ensues
September 27, 2022 10:55 AM Subscribe
What it says on the tin. I have an older Chromebook, and "page unresponsive" errors are killing me in spite of clearing cache, disabling extensions, etc. The Chrome Automatic Updates have expired, but this was going on long before that happened.
I installed an internet monitor extension and it shows that 30 or 40 times a day, the internet cuts off for about 4 seconds. I *think* this may be the source of the issue. I have a new Xfinity router and they say if there's another problem, it's up to my high-rise to fix it. This building is 60 years old ... they are NOT going to tear out walls to fix wiring. Any suggestions? Thanks!
I installed an internet monitor extension and it shows that 30 or 40 times a day, the internet cuts off for about 4 seconds. I *think* this may be the source of the issue. I have a new Xfinity router and they say if there's another problem, it's up to my high-rise to fix it. This building is 60 years old ... they are NOT going to tear out walls to fix wiring. Any suggestions? Thanks!
The obvious way to test this would be to get someone else's computer on the same network and see if it has the same problems. You could also try plugging in the Chromebook directly into the access point with a wired connection, if they both have network ports. (if there's no problem with a cable, then it's a wireless network / neighbor interference problem) I assume you've rebooted the router too - sometimes routers get stuck on the same wireless channel as neighbors and that causes problems.
Are the TV and the Chromebook connected to the internet in the exact same way? Like they're both using the same wifi network and frequency (2.4 or 5)? Are they physically located in the same area?
The TV streaming fine is not a great indicator - they all have ways that can compensate for brief interruptions. Zoom calls, webcams or similar "real-time" streams are better since they can't compensate as much.
posted by meowzilla at 11:37 AM on September 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Are the TV and the Chromebook connected to the internet in the exact same way? Like they're both using the same wifi network and frequency (2.4 or 5)? Are they physically located in the same area?
The TV streaming fine is not a great indicator - they all have ways that can compensate for brief interruptions. Zoom calls, webcams or similar "real-time" streams are better since they can't compensate as much.
posted by meowzilla at 11:37 AM on September 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
I installed an internet monitor extension and it shows that 30 or 40 times a day, the internet cuts off for about 4 seconds. I *think* this may be the source of the issue. I have a new Xfinity router and they say if there's another problem, it's up to my high-rise to fix it. This building is 60 years old ... they are NOT going to tear out walls to fix wiring. Any suggestions?
First, you want to see if it's the wifi rather than the internet per se, by using your chromebook physically plugged in via ethernet (if it supports that), or more generally by trying other devices. Also, does restarting the current router help?
If it's wifi specifically (seems most likely to me), there's many potential followup diagnostics, but I will mention that I have at one point spent extensive amounts of time debugging a wifi issue that actually presented very similarly, though with completely different devices. I concluded that most of this effort was a huge waste, modern wifi is too mysterious for even fairly techy non-specialists to be able to debug, and I wish I had gone right to my ultimate solution, which was simply using an external usb wifi card. If you suspect wifi is the issue also consider getting a separate (higher quality) wifi router distinct from your xfinity device (I wasn't able to do that initially because it was a shared device, but I did do it eventually too).
Though I will mention one other simple thing to check: is there any interaction with a microwave being run somewhere nearby? They can majorly interfere with 2.4GHz wifi.
posted by advil at 12:28 PM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
First, you want to see if it's the wifi rather than the internet per se, by using your chromebook physically plugged in via ethernet (if it supports that), or more generally by trying other devices. Also, does restarting the current router help?
If it's wifi specifically (seems most likely to me), there's many potential followup diagnostics, but I will mention that I have at one point spent extensive amounts of time debugging a wifi issue that actually presented very similarly, though with completely different devices. I concluded that most of this effort was a huge waste, modern wifi is too mysterious for even fairly techy non-specialists to be able to debug, and I wish I had gone right to my ultimate solution, which was simply using an external usb wifi card. If you suspect wifi is the issue also consider getting a separate (higher quality) wifi router distinct from your xfinity device (I wasn't able to do that initially because it was a shared device, but I did do it eventually too).
Though I will mention one other simple thing to check: is there any interaction with a microwave being run somewhere nearby? They can majorly interfere with 2.4GHz wifi.
posted by advil at 12:28 PM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
It could very well be the device itself, esp. if it got warm in a certain spot that affected reception.
I had an old Fire Tablet that does something like that... It goes to stutter mode. The rest of the house is fine, just that one device. Not 4 seconds at a time though. It's fine if rebooted, but soon warmed up again and stutters again. Finally gave up on it and bought a "new" Fire HD 8 plus.
posted by kschang at 12:50 PM on September 27, 2022
I had an old Fire Tablet that does something like that... It goes to stutter mode. The rest of the house is fine, just that one device. Not 4 seconds at a time though. It's fine if rebooted, but soon warmed up again and stutters again. Finally gave up on it and bought a "new" Fire HD 8 plus.
posted by kschang at 12:50 PM on September 27, 2022
Seconding getting another computer on the network to check. When I have issues like this I run a Windows command line and put in "ping www.google.com -t" which sends a request to the google server every second forever. I wait and see if it ever times out, and for how long.
You can also use a site like this one, which can refresh every 2 seconds, but doesn't log it.
I would guess that it is a wifi connection issue. If the internet itself died, it would likely take longer than 4 seconds for the router to reconnect, get an IP, stuff like that. The outage would probably be more variable.
If your router is dual-band (i.e. 2.4Ghz and 5GHz) try going into its settings and disabling one or the other. It's possible your computer is switching between the bands in some laggy way that causes the disconnect.
I would also look at the DNS settings, some broadband provider default ones go through their own network so they can serve ads on stuff and I wouldn't be surprised if this causes cutouts. Look into a replacement DNS, there are instructions for Chromebooks somewhere I'm sure but I'm not familiar.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:51 PM on September 27, 2022
You can also use a site like this one, which can refresh every 2 seconds, but doesn't log it.
I would guess that it is a wifi connection issue. If the internet itself died, it would likely take longer than 4 seconds for the router to reconnect, get an IP, stuff like that. The outage would probably be more variable.
If your router is dual-band (i.e. 2.4Ghz and 5GHz) try going into its settings and disabling one or the other. It's possible your computer is switching between the bands in some laggy way that causes the disconnect.
I would also look at the DNS settings, some broadband provider default ones go through their own network so they can serve ads on stuff and I wouldn't be surprised if this causes cutouts. Look into a replacement DNS, there are instructions for Chromebooks somewhere I'm sure but I'm not familiar.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:51 PM on September 27, 2022
Best answer: I have owned several "the cheapest one available" Chromebooks, and in my experience this is just a thing that they do when they reach their twilight years. Every single Chromebook I've owned has eventually gotten the exact same connectivity flutter, even when all my other devices are fine. It only starts to happen long past their costs-less-than-a-dollar-a-day value point, so I've always just written it off as a quirk of buying an extremely cheap, essentially disposable machine.
posted by phunniemee at 2:28 PM on September 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 2:28 PM on September 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: phunniemee FTW: I borrowed my neighbor's spare laptop and downloaded the same internet connection monitor extension for Chrome. The connection problem is my aged Chromebook ... the newer HP Windows machine is rock-steady. Oh well, time for another super-cheap Chromebook!
posted by cyndigo at 9:47 AM on September 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by cyndigo at 9:47 AM on September 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by cyndigo at 11:10 AM on September 27, 2022