Getting to the bottom of my strangest computer problem.
Last summer I was experiencing a very strange and irritating Internet connectivity issue in which I could access my browser and Skype fine but could not access messengers or MMOs. Running ping tests in the command prompt returned "Request timed out" messages and it affected all computers on the network. This issue was only fixed by getting a new modem and I never actually figured out what was causing it--even the tech support for my ISP couldn't figure out what was causing it after I called them about it multiple times.
Now the glitch is coming back to haunt me with my new modem but it doesn't stick around. It seems to only happen when Steam is updating, and for some reason it not only affects Steam but my non-Steam MMO, Grand Chase, as well. I don't get "Request timed out" anymore but I do get the old Failed To Connect errors I did back then. Whenever Steam has to update, I get the Failed To Connect error on Steam after the update. I press retry, and it works fine. But what's odd is, if I happen to try to start up Grand Chase during the time Steam would attempt to update (even if Steam is not even open at the time), Grand Chase gives me a Failed To Connect error too that is remedied after I fix Steam's error. I feel like this glitch is related to that problem I had last summer and I'm trying to use it to get to the bottom of why that happened so I can make sure it doesn't happen again. The glitch only just started this month--last week, to be precise. I asked some tech-inclined friends what's going on and none of them can figure it out either. Grand Chase is a non-Steam game so the fact that its errors seem to resonate with Steam's is very strange to me. One of them suggested changing the Steam download speed to 56k instead of 256k so updating might be less hard on my system, which I tried. No clue if it worked yet, of course.
I feel like the two glitches are definitely related and I really would like to know what could possibly be causing this so I don't have to worry about getting another 6-month outage.
Now the glitch is coming back to haunt me with my new modem but it doesn't stick around. It seems to only happen when Steam is updating, and for some reason it not only affects Steam but my non-Steam MMO, Grand Chase, as well. I don't get "Request timed out" anymore but I do get the old Failed To Connect errors I did back then. Whenever Steam has to update, I get the Failed To Connect error on Steam after the update. I press retry, and it works fine. But what's odd is, if I happen to try to start up Grand Chase during the time Steam would attempt to update (even if Steam is not even open at the time), Grand Chase gives me a Failed To Connect error too that is remedied after I fix Steam's error. I feel like this glitch is related to that problem I had last summer and I'm trying to use it to get to the bottom of why that happened so I can make sure it doesn't happen again. The glitch only just started this month--last week, to be precise. I asked some tech-inclined friends what's going on and none of them can figure it out either. Grand Chase is a non-Steam game so the fact that its errors seem to resonate with Steam's is very strange to me. One of them suggested changing the Steam download speed to 56k instead of 256k so updating might be less hard on my system, which I tried. No clue if it worked yet, of course.
I feel like the two glitches are definitely related and I really would like to know what could possibly be causing this so I don't have to worry about getting another 6-month outage.