Coconut Monkey Cornerclub

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I absolutely hate mingling, so I normally just gather people for some kind of competition of sorts. That way I don't have to mingle anymore :LOL:
I used to hate it, but I've really hones my social skills over the past 15 years I've been with an extrovert. So the first party of the last week I was actually really looking forward to and felt like we left too early!
 
Any networking professionals here? I’m having a weird problem with my Ethernet connection to my PC.

I pay for 200mbps internet, but on Steam I can reach close to 30MB/s speeds which is roughly 240mbps. It averages around 25-29MB/s when going full speed. However, when it’s going this fast, it continues to drop to 0 for about 30 seconds - a minute, then slowly climbs back up and repeats this whole thing over and over again. Even if I throttle my speeds, it will still do this.

I used ChatGPT for some suggestions, and it suggested to go into command prompt and disable Auto-Tuning. I did so, and my download was much more secure and rarely ever dropped, when it did it immediately regained speed much quicker than before. However now my speeds didn’t manage to go over 18MB/s. It seems like it did the trick when it comes to the dropping speed thing, but of course it’s cutting my top speeds down a bit. So eventually I re-enabled auto-tuning and the original situation came back.

Wondering if this is something I need to contact my ISP about, and ask them to see if they can throttle my internet to a maximum of 200mbps, which sounds a bit ridiculous but I’d rather my speed cap out at that and stay stable, rather than get slightly faster speeds than what I pay for but have my download interrupted every few minutes.
 
Any networking professionals here? I’m having a weird problem with my Ethernet connection to my PC.

I pay for 200mbps internet, but on Steam I can reach close to 30MB/s speeds which is roughly 240mbps. It averages around 25-29MB/s when going full speed. However, when it’s going this fast, it continues to drop to 0 for about 30 seconds - a minute, then slowly climbs back up and repeats this whole thing over and over again. Even if I throttle my speeds, it will still do this.

I used ChatGPT for some suggestions, and it suggested to go into command prompt and disable Auto-Tuning. I did so, and my download was much more secure and rarely ever dropped, when it did it immediately regained speed much quicker than before. However now my speeds didn’t manage to go over 18MB/s. It seems like it did the trick when it comes to the dropping speed thing, but of course it’s cutting my top speeds down a bit. So eventually I re-enabled auto-tuning and the original situation came back.

Wondering if this is something I need to contact my ISP about, and ask them to see if they can throttle my internet to a maximum of 200mbps, which sounds a bit ridiculous but I’d rather my speed cap out at that and stay stable, rather than get slightly faster speeds than what I pay for but have my download interrupted every few minutes.

Off the top of my head, it sounds to me like the drive your downloading to can't keep up. I used to see similar stuff when I was regularly downloading to my spinning disk, but now that I've got a big fat NVME, my speed is sustained at very high speeds.

Could also be a processor unable to keep up or a NIC unable to keep up, but I'd most likely say that it's the drive.
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
Steam should cache what it's downloading in memory for at least a gig and a half. If it's the drive, you should be able to bring up Task Manager and watch Steam's usage go up and up and up, then stay relatively steady when the cache fills up - which would be when the drops start happening. Also, Steam shows how much drive activity there is on the graph when you're downloading. After the first few seconds, the drive speed should ideally be around the same speed as the download speed. If it's below, then the drive isn't keeping up.

P.S. You can tell Steam to use bits per second in the options. That makes it easier to compare with the speeds the ISPs talk about.
 
My secondary backup SSD died a few weeks ago. I finally decided on a non-SSD for the job. This one. Every external Samsung and Western Digital SSD I've ever had has died in under two years, a couple in just a few months. I've had much better luck with Adata. I know this is going to be excruciatingly slow, but I only do the secondary backup once a month. I'll just get it running and go do something else.
 
Any networking professionals here? I’m having a weird problem with my Ethernet connection to my PC.

I pay for 200mbps internet, but on Steam I can reach close to 30MB/s speeds which is roughly 240mbps. It averages around 25-29MB/s when going full speed. However, when it’s going this fast, it continues to drop to 0 for about 30 seconds - a minute, then slowly climbs back up and repeats this whole thing over and over again. Even if I throttle my speeds, it will still do this.

I used ChatGPT for some suggestions, and it suggested to go into command prompt and disable Auto-Tuning. I did so, and my download was much more secure and rarely ever dropped, when it did it immediately regained speed much quicker than before. However now my speeds didn’t manage to go over 18MB/s. It seems like it did the trick when it comes to the dropping speed thing, but of course it’s cutting my top speeds down a bit. So eventually I re-enabled auto-tuning and the original situation came back.

Wondering if this is something I need to contact my ISP about, and ask them to see if they can throttle my internet to a maximum of 200mbps, which sounds a bit ridiculous but I’d rather my speed cap out at that and stay stable, rather than get slightly faster speeds than what I pay for but have my download interrupted every few minutes.
I'm definitely not a network professional, but I'm very familiar with this, although I don't know how to fix it. This is a Steam problem, not something wrong with your network. Just go to any other place you have games and start downloading one. It won't do that at all.

What Valve told me to do when I contacted customer service was to clear my download cache. This is under Settings then Download. You can try it, but it didn't help me.

Exactly what the problem is no one is certain as far as I can tell. Someone told me something vague about how Steam installs games, but it wasn't helpful.

For me, I had two drives on the PC and it only did it on the non-SSD drive, and the one that this happens to now is an external SSD. So my guess is that something on my systems is just too slow for what Steam is trying to do. As long as I download on my NVMe system drives, I don't have that problem.

I suppose that in some cases the problem could be a drive that is corrupted and causing it to be a slower process.

Anyway, if you do figure something that fixes it, please let me know.
 
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I'm working on a newsletter and wanted to just dummy some things in to get the formatting right, so I asked Bing for a "sexy headshot"

full
 
I won’t continue on the topic much longer because it seems like it is fixed maybe? If I need more in depth answers I’ll go to Tom’s Hardware. I haven’t tried downloading on a different platform, and I am using an NVME drive. After @BeardyHat mentioned the disk usage speeds, it is keeping up with the download but of course at that point the problem wasn’t persisting. I did clear the Steam cache and flushed DNS cache via command prompt, perhaps that helped. Very strange🤷‍♂️




Anybody fall for Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales this year? Didn’t feel like driving nearly 2 hours to go to the bigger stores so I just went to the local Walmart and it was underwhelming to say the least. Didn’t have anything in particular in mind, just wanted to browse. Ended up getting some nice pillows on sale for $5 each and some fancy candles also on sale for $5. Feels like the tech deals were better a week before Black Friday, not sure how they are today though.
 
Anybody fall for Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales this year? Didn’t feel like driving nearly 2 hours to go to the bigger stores so I just went to the local Walmart and it was underwhelming to say the least. Didn’t have anything in particular in mind, just wanted to browse. Ended up getting some nice pillows on sale for $5 each and some fancy candles also on sale for $5. Feels like the tech deals were better a week before Black Friday, not sure how they are today though.

My wife has informed me that we're pretty broke right now, so I haven't been able to buy anything. That said, I did convince her to let me buy some resin for my printer, as it's a damn good price on Amazon for Cyber Monday. Ended-up picking up the 1Kg size, as it's cheaper than the regular price for the 500g.

After my first week of 3d Printing, I finally managed to get the tank printed that I was working. I had many failures (which I why I use almost an entire bottle of 500g resin for it, as well as a few other little things), but I ended-up learning a lot, so I should be much more efficient in the future.

I don't have anything else to print at the moment, but my 6 year old is currently absolutely obsessed with Battletech and really wants me to print him an Atlas and a Flea or Locust. I should also print myself a Catapult and a Centurion, as well as some terrain for when I do inevitably play again...

The tank in question: British A9 Cruiser


Further, I'm once again finding myself obsessed with the idea of a thin and light Thinkpad and lusting over the options. So far, I've managed to hold myself off, which is good, because it's money I don't have.
 
Further, I'm once again finding myself obsessed with the idea of a thin and light Thinkpad and lusting over the options. So far, I've managed to hold myself off, which is good, because it's money I don't have.
Story of my life. I’ve talked on these forums for months now about upgrading my CPU but have never done it, keep finding better things to spend my money on like groceries or new car tires. I keep checking the prices every few days to see how they’ve changed and it’s all gone up since I initially had the thought to upgrade the CPU. I keep telling myself that my PC works just fine (which it really does) but it’s nice to dream. I also look at all the RTX 4060 laptops going on sale for around $700 and think about how I bought my girlfriend an AMD Vega integrated GPU laptop almost 2 years ago for $500😭
 
Story of my life. I’ve talked on these forums for months now about upgrading my CPU but have never done it, keep finding better things to spend my money on like groceries or new car tires. I keep checking the prices every few days to see how they’ve changed and it’s all gone up since I initially had the thought to upgrade the CPU. I keep telling myself that my PC works just fine (which it really does) but it’s nice to dream. I also look at all the RTX 4060 laptops going on sale for around $700 and think about how I bought my girlfriend an AMD Vega integrated GPU laptop almost 2 years ago for $500😭
This is pretty much where I'm at; it's hard as hell to justify. I already have a relatively powerful laptop, as well as a thin and light Surface Go, but I'm obsessed with Trackpoint as a control method, so I really want something that weighs similar to my Go, but also doesn't require an external mouse. Everything I have is perfectly fine, but I'm going on a trip for a week next year and I'm convinced I need something powerful and light to bring with me, even though I probably won't even use it...

I'm trying to force myself to use my Go for my laptop needs this week to dissuade myself from wanting to spend $500.

That said... The 5600x is a very good price on Amazon right now. I paid the same price for a regular 5600 back in like August.
 
Maybe an Atlas and just the legs of a Locust. Then set up something like this:
full

Cursed.

Speaking of holding back, I decided not to get the racing wheel and stand. I've already got enough distractions.

Speaking of, managed the first day of my week long attempt at using my little 10" machine as my main laptop in an attempt to hold myself off from spending money I don't have. So far, it's made easier by the fact that I recently bought a SteelSeries Rival 3. I still prefer everything integrated (as with Trackpoint) versus having to carry an external mouse around, but small price to pay, I suppose.
 
I was incidentally a good person today. I cleaned out all the closets and chests and found over a dozen coats, from kids sizes on up, that no one here will use anymore and, having no way to lazily dispose of them, took them to the "Coats for the Cold" charity. Also took a bunch of toys to another charity that distributes them to underprivileged children at Christmas.

I'd like to think I would have done that even if I'd had a dumpster parked in the driveway, but I'm not sure. I hate leaving the house between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The whole city is a nightmare during this time. Traffic backups no matter where you are and the people become outright grumpy and rude.
 
I was incidentally a good person today. I cleaned out all the closets and chests and found over a dozen coats, from kids sizes on up, that no one here will use anymore and, having no way to lazily dispose of them, took them to the "Coats for the Cold" charity. Also took a bunch of toys to another charity that distributes them to underprivileged children at Christmas.

I'd like to think I would have done that even if I'd had a dumpster parked in the driveway, but I'm not sure. I hate leaving the house between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The whole city is a nightmare during this time. Traffic backups no matter where you are and the people become outright grumpy and rude.

Oof, that's my city all the time. Since I was a kid, my state has put on 3 million people and now it's damn crowded and congested all the time; I absolutely hate leaving during peak hours (which I am tonight, but thankfully it's in service of a date for my wife and I).

Donating is always good, but I also feel like it can kind of become a crutch for my wife and I. We usually donate lots of our old stuff, but seems like a lot of the reason for that is so we don't have to feel the guilt of throwing something away. Really trying to get better at just tossing stuff that is not suitable for donation.
 
my state has put on 3 million people and now it's damn crowded and congested all the time;
That's basically what my state has added in the last 30 years. We have bad traffic all the time, but during Xmas it ramps up to ridiculous. I've lived in some huge cities before, but that was years ago, and I'm sure their traffic has gotten much worse since I left. I never drove in New York, but in DC and Baltimore, the traffic was busy but it never got to the point where it would take you up to an hour to go a mile unless there was an accident. Here that's just December (or rush hour any time of the year). Closest to it I've seen were Dallas and Nashville. I never lived in those cities, but I used to travel there for work. Fortunately my iphone helps me take all the back roads to avoid most of it.

The biggest problem we have here is that people won't let the city/county/state build new roads. Every large project that gets proposed is met with protests until it gets canceled.
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
I got a replacement credit card a while ago out of the blue. The new card worked just fine. All is a happiness. OK, now it's time to cut up the old one and toss its bits into different trash cans around the.... wait, I can't cut this?? It's made of... sheet metal of some kind!?!? Even the big trimmer I use to cut small limbs from trees wouldn't cut it! The internet says to use something that cuts sheet metal - which I don't have. I called the credit card company and the gal I got seemed to have no idea. She suggested burning it. Uhhh, I haven't got a propane torch. If I had a soldering iron, I could probably melt off the numbers, but I don't. Eeesh!!

On a totally different note... did we used to have the Home/Forum/Group/Topic "bread crumb trail" at the bottom of the page when reading a topic as well as the top? Or am I thinking of another forum?

I'd like to think I would have done that even if I'd had a dumpster parked in the driveway, but I'm not sure. I hate leaving the house between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The whole city is a nightmare during this time. Traffic backups no matter where you are and the people become outright grumpy and rude.
I think it's gotten a lot better around here. It used to be a horror to go within a mile of any mall.
 
I called the credit card company and the gal I got seemed to have no idea. She suggested burning it. Uhhh, I haven't got a propane torch. If I had a soldering iron, I could probably melt off the numbers, but I don't. Eeesh!!
Everyone seems to recommend just mailing it back to the card company. And thanks for reminding me of the least favorite part of doing a cybersecurity audit--dumpster diving. Few things are as exciting as climbing into a smelly dumpster and sifting through all the garbage looking for sensitive materials. At least I got to go straight back to the hotel when I was done.
 

Frindis

Dominar of The Hynerian Empire
Moderator
I got a replacement credit card a while ago out of the blue. The new card worked just fine. All is a happiness. OK, now it's time to cut up the old one and toss its bits into different trash cans around the.... wait, I can't cut this?? It's made of... sheet metal of some kind!?!? Even the big trimmer I use to cut small limbs from trees wouldn't cut it! The internet says to use something that cuts sheet metal - which I don't have. I called the credit card company and the gal I got seemed to have no idea. She suggested burning it. Uhhh, I haven't got a propane torch. If I had a soldering iron, I could probably melt off the numbers, but I don't. Eeesh!!
I'd wait for the expiration date on the old card and then find something heavy and compress it until it is impossible to see what it is. Then hide it inside something that is of similar metal that can be recycled and throw it in the garbage. If you have an old paint box or something dirty, you could always hide it in there and wait for it to dry. Nobody sane would even think about trying to unbend that thing if they did find it. Or even better (and completely unnecessarily) Put the destroyed card in a taped sock with some rocks and throw it in the deep sea somewhere the public doesn't regularly go to. Spray paint the tape so it looks similar to seabed sediments and not even the microorganisms will find it.
 
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