Riddle me this... (Internet connection issue.)

So... I once again have problems with my internet connection on my desktop PC. Not on my laptop, mind - that's always connected beautifully.

Backstory: When I first got my desktop PC, the internet connection wasn't stable. It'd connect, but then a few minutes later I'd lose the connection. It'd come back after a while, then go out again. At the time, I asked here on AW for help, and absolutely no suggestion wound up working. Then a fellow Australian chimed in, and mentioned how the new Aussie network (NBN) wasn't talking well with all computers - some had random issues, some didn't. Hence a desktop that had only intermittent connections, while my laptop never had any problems. This issue went away on its own eventually. My desktop has had perfect connectivity for at least 2 years.

The new story: My desktop's HDD was dying, so I put a new one in. (In fact, that thread is still on the first page of Tech Help.) What I wound up doing was migrating/cloning the old, dying HDD onto the new HDD. I had perfect connectivity for a few days, but the last 2 days, I haven't been able to get *any* pages to load whatsoever. Yesterday morning, I hopped onto AW. The first page loaded, but when I clicked to the next page, bam, no connection.

My guess was that I was having the same old problem, but it doesn't fit the new data. In the backstory problem, the internet would come back on every so often. Also, when the internet dropped out, my little connection icon would show no connection. The past 2 days, though, it's been telling me I'm connected, but won't load anything at all at any time - and believe me, I've tried it frequently to see if it's fixed itself yet. So the symptoms are slightly different. (Laptop still connects fine.)

I went looking to see if a firewall had been activated somehow, and nope, doesn't seem to be the case. And I didn't even do anything differently - it was simply, "AW loads, click to next page, AW doesn't load, nothing loads."

So... What the heck is going on? It seems too big a coincidence to ignore the new HDD, but I don't know of any way in which it might cause this problem. Especially as I cloned the old HDD, and *all* my programs were working from the time of the clone.

I'm guessing the problem will fix itself eventually, but maybe not. And I'd really prefer to use my desktop for everything, rather than my fairly old, slow laptop.

Thanks in advance!

Well...

1) I'm using Firefox. I'll have to try a different browser next time the desktop is switched on.

2) I doubt the ethernet stuff was damaged in the switch-over, as the internet worked fine for about a week before it simply refused to connect.

3) I'm using a wireless connection, which still works for other things (I just successfully sent 2 documents for printing on the wireless network, from the desktop PC - and the internet still wasn't working on it).

4) It shouldn't be interference, as the desktop and modem have not moved location, and they always worked before now (for at least 2 years).

5) It's not actually getting far enough to generate an error message. The blue wheel icon thing keeps spinning, which indicates the initial connection should've landed, but nothing ever comes on screen after that. Just continuous spinning of the icon.

6) I've gone through the whole "disconnect, then reconnect" dance already, to no avail. It still says it's connected, but still won't load anything.

*sigh* Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I'll have to try a different browser next.

Okay, just checked, and Internet Explorer also won't load anything.

Just did the ping command - 4 packets sent, 4 received. Yet nothing will load... Also, the time/date is set as per usual.

I tried running a virus scan, and that turned up nothing. Forgot to say yesterday, as well, that the way I cloned my HDD was with EaseUS free program. I've had other people on AW tell me that it's a good program, and like I said, the problem didn't occur until about a week after changing the drives.

In other news, I'm incredibly frustrated right now. So basically, my laptop has been making a grinding noise once per session, as if it's dying. It's been doing that for a fair while. So I went searching online stores, and found a cheap-but-with-reasonable specs laptop to replace it with. (On the grounds that it'd be a stopgap measure, while the desktop would remain my Beast computer.) Bought it this morning, and after about 3 hours of setup (mostly taken up by Windows 10 updating...), I went on Firefox and loaded AW. And it was soooooooo slow! Like, 5 minutes to load the posts, but then it still hadn't managed to load the Quick Reply box...

So yeah. I suspect this is a case of the NBN being stupid. Because a low-spec computer should still be able to load AW fairly quickly, surely? (For reference, the NBN is fast enough to stream on YouTube no problems - provided the damn internet is working.)

I'd say there's a very good chance I'll be returning this new laptop. Still need to find a workable long-term solution, of course...

*very much wanted to throw the new laptop against the wall* My gut was telling me a stopgap measure wasn't the smartest choice, and I really should've listened.

Just cleared cookies, history and cache - still won't load anything. *sigh*

I'm using Windows 8 on my desktop, Windows 7 on my old laptop (which is the only one with a decent connection right now), and the new, crappy laptop has Windows 10 (which will load pages, but soooooooo slowly). For reference, the connection was good for at least 2 years on the Win8 machine, while still using Win8. It's also not due to a recent update, because I turned automatic updates off.

I'm pretty sure this is, like a couple of years ago when we first got the NBN, an issue with the NBN not talking to certain computers that well. ie. it'll remain an unsolvable problem, and then (hopefully) one day fix itself randomly. *sigh*

What I'm really hoping, though, is that the NBN problem is not specifically related to the new HDD. Like, the new HDD might've reset something on the motherboard or BIOS or something, so that even though I cloned it, the rest of the hardware is saying "New HDD! Oh noes!" Because if the problem is with the NBN not liking this HDD, then that'll be a giant pain in the arse. But as I said earlier, the connection was fine for about a week after the change-over...

This is really confusing. Personally, I'm going to blame it on an electric demon witch vampire of disreputable descent. Mmhmm.

Ha, you read my mind! Today I went out and got prices on USB internet connections from 3 companies. Price of the unit itself, as well as $/MB. I didn't buy any yet - I'm going to look them over and figure out which one is the best for me at this point. But yeah - that was the plan. Find out once and for all whether it's the desktop or the internet connection itself.

What's really weird is that old-laptop has a decent connection, but not quite good enough to handle YouTube, whereas the new-crappy-laptop can't even handle AW. Would that be affected by the CPU and RAM? Because it has 4GB of RAM, same as the old-laptop, but the CPU is a Celeron, whereas the old-laptop has an i5 (which is meant to be better, I think?). Because yeah... Just trying to figure out what exactly is having an effect here. I would've thought the hardware is mostly irrelevant to internet data speeds, but it can't hurt to verify such a thing.

Thanks again, by the way.

Seem to have gotten my message muddled a bit... The main problem (and the reason I started this thread) is with the desktop, not the new-crappy laptop. The new-crappy laptop was bought as a stopgap because desktop wouldn't load pages (even though it says it's connected) and because the older laptop is dying.

Anyway... The desktop is a beast. Has a quad-core i7 CPU. And it rendered pages beautifully for over 2 years. As for the new-crappy laptop... I'm actually using it right now, and it's not so crappy after all. Basically, I'm currently in the kitchen, rather than my bedroom. Kitchen is closer to the wireless modem.

What happened was, I went and bought a USB internet device today. Plugged it into my desktop, and I got a "limited" connection showing. Which is what I used to get years ago when we first got the NBN. Limited seems to mean "Sorry, I don't feel like loading anything. Try again, puny mortal." So yeah - I think the problem with the desktop is definitely on the desktop's end itself - not the internet connection. Because there's no reason this USB stick shouldn't work. I'm going to check it on this new laptop soon, just to verify that the USB thing is actually working.

I turned the new laptop on because I was going to check the USB connection. However, I wanted a point of reference for how slow the internet was on it first. And yeah - turned out the connection was just fine in the kitchen. I'm going to hop on YouTube shortly to see how the new laptop handles that.

So... At the very least, I no longer regret buying this new laptop. It should work as a stopgap, if the old laptop finally dies. (Also, I'm listening to some mp3s and the new laptop's speakers are way better than the old laptop's speakers. Important to this musician. )

So yeah. Lots of new info today.

I haven't spoken to my ISP just yet, as the contract is under mum's name. I tried ringing them a few years back, and yeah - they wouldn't speak to me, because it was in her name. It's definitely another avenue to explore, though.

So... New info again! The new laptop actually has a better internet connection than the old laptop, at least while I'm out here in the kitchen. I'll try it again in my bedroom at some point, but at the very least I know I can get it working out here. Loaded YouTube videos perfectly. The bad news, though, is that the new laptop crashed nearly instantaneously when I plugged in the USB-internet thing. *sigh* So I guess I'll have to try the USB thing on my *old* laptop, in the hopes that it doesn't crash and will give me some needed data points, so I can tell whether it's the USB thing itself or my desktop.

*shakes head* Seriously, technology can be absolutely ridiculous sometimes. And I'm really starting to appreciate the concerns that many older people tend to voice, about "We're reliant on technology, and it's great when it works, but when it breaks down we're fucked." Because seriously... This whole thing is just absurd, and incredibly frustrating. Especially for someone whose friends are all online, and who is planning on making an income from the internet (e-books, digital music, etc.).

Thanks again to everyone who has chimed in. Hopefully I'll get some answers soon. For now, though, the stopgap is working well enough, and my desktop is still a beast even if it can't load web pages. That's a decent amount of progress for today.

Thanks.

New info: On old, dying laptop right now. Not only did the USB internet thing work on this laptop (even if it took a few minutes to install itself, during which time I thought it had crashed...), but I just had a YouTube video working on this laptop *on my normal home connection*!

So basically, it seems that the slow laptop connections were a result of my home connection being slow for some reason. Because yeah - old laptop is currently in my bedroom, further from the wireless modem than new laptop was when I was in the kitchen. And I could get YouTube working just fine.

So yeah... The USB thing should work on the desktop, so I'm not sure why it won't. Presumably the same electric demon as with the home connection.