Okay, pimps, get this. While I was at my cousin's wedding yesterday, my sisters took it upon themselves to format the family computer. I turn it on this morning to discover that our Comcast High-Speed Internet is all wonky. It will connect to some sites but not others. I can use this site but can't access ?Torrent - The Lightweight and Efficient BitTorrent Client, for instance. My torrent speeds are barely above dial-up speeds, whereas normally it runs over 1.5 Mbps. I contacted Comcast and their diagnostic check says the modem itself it fine. Also, when I go to windows update site, it tells me my Automatic Updates aren't turned on and tells me to turn them on in Services, but when I try to, it tells me that I can't. Add to this that the BIOS battery is screwy and I have to reset my date and time every time i turn the damn thing on and I have a quagmire that threatens my sanity. Can ANYONE help?

Comcast would never mess with torrents... it's only reasonable network management.

Link

Replace the battery.

Got admin rights to turn on auto-update?

Quagmire?

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Well I got a message the other day when I went to certain sites that said Time Warner and Comcast had switched DNS servers. It gave a solution that was just to set the network settings to obtain them automatically (I set mine manually).

It appeared that it wasn't working even after I restarted my computer and reset my router. I couldn't go to pcapex.xom or google.com, however I could get to forumapex and google.com/en (specifying the specific language).

But now everything seems to be fine. Hopefully this will help.

Quote: Originally Posted by Im_gumby Comcast would never mess with torrents... it's only reasonable network management.

Mess with torrents no, block the ports at the server to a known torrent...yes.

[quote=Lokie;1062277358]

Quote: Originally Posted by Im_gumby Comcast would never mess with torrents... it's only reasonable network management. Mess with torrents no, block the ports at the server to a known torrent...yes.

You say potential salmonella carrier, I say Lycopersicon lycopersicum.

Quote: Originally Posted by Lokie You say potential salmonella carrier, I say Lycopersicon lycopersicum.

No wonder I am confused

Here is a forum devoted to getting answers about Comcast's service not directly censored by Comcast employees. It has helped me fix and work around their connection issues on several occasions when I still used them.

Comcast HSI forum - dslreports.com broadband community

I've never had issues with torrents before. I can access the torrent websites just fine, but my torrent speeds are retardedly slow, just like the load times on certain websites. I can access google's main page, but I can't search. All of msn.com's stuff comes up fine. I'm on admin, of course, and in the control panel it says automatic updates are on, but not in services. And the site you just gave me? yeah, that won't load either, and neither will download.com, or myspace. Also, I keep getting popups despite having every popup blocked, and neither spybot nor adaware nor my AV seems to find the culprit.

Quote: Originally Posted by Leandra Also, I keep getting popups despite having every popup blocked, and neither spybot nor adaware nor my AV seems to find the culprit.

Now that sounds weird, when you try to connect to a website, do you see it redirect in the address bar? Sometimes you can see it but the address will be like http;//dubleclick/pcapex.c0m. It sounds like a malware program that redirects you through their server for access to your account info.

I am courious as to why and to what extent was the system was "reformated", are you talking a fresh install of windows? If so I would go through it again just to be sure it is not the system. Also refreshing the modem and router might help.

Quote: Originally Posted by Lokie I am courious as to why and to what extent was the system was "reformated", are you talking a fresh install of windows?

To my knowledge, it was a complete format and reinstallation of XP, because it has reverted to XP Home Edition. However, because I'm having trouble with the automatic update service, I can't access the windows update, and subsequently, I can't install SP2 or SP3. I think it might be a malware problem, the question is how did we get a new one so quickly after a fresh format?

Since it is a fresh install I would go ahead and re-install. You seem to know what you are doing and if you can monitor the install you will know first hand that the install went correct.

Really is an old install disk if the service pack isn't slipstreamed in with it.

As far as getting the malware, a virgin IE6 is plagued with holes. One wrong website, doesn't have to be anything bad, with bad cookies or even skript in the header can screw things up.

You aren't using avg8's new free antivirus are you. The new "feature" they added called linkscanner cut my internet connection speeds in half. As soon as I disabled it my connections went back to normal. Basically it opens every web page linked from the current one and scans it for malware. A great idea at first but consumes huge bandwidth and cpu time.

As for the other pop-ups. If you are still without service pack 2 or 3, you may have messenger service turned on. You will get pop ups generated by windows itself and internet explorer doesn't have to be open to get them. Go to Services.msc Scroll down till you find "messenger" and set it to disabled. You can check out Windows XP Service Pack 3 Services Information - Messenger for more info.

Comcast's blocking of Torrent's is not done at the torrent websites they are packet shaping and blocking the transfers themselves. They are replacing good data with their own corrupted data to prevent the transfer. This is why so many people are crying foul at Comcast.

Don't know what to say about automatic updates. I have had trouble with that before and don't know of any one thing that is a common fix-all.