Network problems.

Well thought I'd give it a shot. Posting this on numerous forums but you never know where you'll find an answer 😛

Been having some connectivity issues and it only became apparent after a loss in power to the whole property. So a bit of backstory I'm on cable internet there's about 4 computers connected via wire and 4 other wireless computers plus few other or so wireless devices. Prior to the blackout (I believe it was a surge, took out one of the computers when it happened) everything worked fine no network spikes or problems.

I started out tracing problems from my end. It's a big house so I have one of those Netgear powerlines, the ones that you plug directly into the power point. Connected it back up via a long ass network cable but the problem persisted. Tried a different cable and the same. Refusing to believe it's the computer I ran some diagnostics and reviewed the drivers and such but ultimately deciding it was a network issue.

Had a look at the modem itself, mind you I had done plenty of powercycles each time, then unfortunately ending up doing an isolation test. It was pretty late into the night so network activity is low because everyone else is asleep. Left everything plugged in bar my connection, monitored the network for an hour and no spiking issues. Plugged the other cables back in one by one til I found the culprit, one of the laptops. Thing is though, this laptop has been plugged in prior to the blackout and this issue never existed.

Checked the laptop for recent software changes and none that matches. For whatever reason this laptop is having some issue to the point where it spikes out the network for up to 10 seconds and actually throwing my computer's network out of whack when I'm connected via the Powerlines.

If there's any techies out there is there a reason after a blackout that the laptop might be somewhat effecting the modem? it just doesn't seem likely to me which leaves me scratching my head. Unless during the blackout the modem was damaged in some way that it's not handling its usual bandwidth?

Thanks Mr D!

Yeah been doing a lot more tests since posting this. So now I've seem to narrow it down to the modem itself. Called the ISP everything looks fine on their end and it's too coincidental with the recent power surge. Thought I'd try everything out before I cave and try a new modem it just really sucks because most of the people I know are on ADSL rather than cable around here sigh.

Modem can't seem to handle new IP assignments or reassignments, it literally just dies if a new device tries to establish a connection for about a minute. Though haven't been able to replicate the weird spikes before.