kubuntu internet getting worse?

[suplero]

Not sure what happened, but I have been doing the updates since the beta came out, and this morning my ethernet port was wigging out. Between it and the router, it was just blinking, and would not get an ip address from the router.

then after rebooting a couple times, and playing with the cable, it would come back on and then after a few minutes, it would die again - right in the middle of downloads or whatever.

I don't know if this is related to the -12 kernel upgrade, but that was the last major update pack before I booted up this time.

then, I went to a live cd of suse just to check and see if it might be a hardware problem, and suse pretty much had the same problem.

I know hardware problems happen spontaneously, but the fact that this problem is intermittent and works now, leads me to believe it isn't completely a hardware problem, but that the hardware somehow might be affected by the recent upgrades.

I really don't want to believe that, but the timing is so leading me to believe that the upgrade messed up the eth0 port somehow. I remember the intel ethernet issue, but I have never seen this with my eth0, which is the 8139 flavor.

Just seems like a very bad coincidence that I really don't like.

[dibl]

Re: kubuntu internet getting worse?

suse pretty much had the same problem.

That's your clue that it was NOT Kubuntu.

It was either hardware or Internet service provider.

[suplero]

Re: kubuntu internet getting worse?

or all 3....

Like I said, I haven't ruled out hardware, but the isp light has been on solid, the problem has been between the modem and eth0, and it has only acted up like this since the last upgrade. I rebooted everything 4+ times to debug, and whenever kubuntu booted the ethernet link light on the modem would blink instead of being steady - the first time I have ever seen that. When suse booted, the light was on solid, but then the internet connection dropped out later [ethernet still solid] during operation, and couldn't find webpages anymore. I could just as easily put that in the 'artifact from kubuntu' category, if the hardware had been somehow affected by something that rebooting didn't dislodge.

I want to believe that software can't brick a piece of hardware, but that has been shown to happen too many times to completely rule it out. The e1000 was a problem about a year ago, specifically with the linux kernel. I don't know how it happens, but it seems in the realm of possibility.

It's working better now, but during that 2 hour period, it was almost too uncharacteristically bizarre in the way it would work then not work, then work again, and not work after rebooting, etc, that I couldn't help but wonder as to the cause. I started writing this post 3 times before I actually got it to connect and send - something that really makes me wonder.

I just did the new -12 upgrade, so hopefully whatever freakiness was in my system is now gone and things return to more "normal" for the long term.

In general I'm not really happy with the status of my internet with 9.10. With 9.04 my internet has and continues to hum along without nary a hiccup - but 9.10 was problematic for me from the start. I don't know what the difference is, but for me it is dramatically impacting the performance of my internet connection. It may actually turn into a dealbreaker for Karmic for me.

It might also just be that I am that 1 in a million that has a configuration of hardware, isp, and whatever else that makes the internet hiccup in Karmic.

On that note, I'm off to buy a lottery ticket