Hi

I have x86 desktop loaded with vector linux, suse and ubuntu. It is connected to the net on broadband. It was working great until 10 days ago when all of a sudden it has started behaving in a very strange way!! I can browse sites...no problem. I can download files like .ram, .jpg, .pdf. But as soon as I try to download any rpm or iso or tar file it just refuses to download...it just stops like someone has hit the pause button! This is the same behaviour in all three linux flavours and (check this out!!!) even with a xp laptop that I sometime connect to the same broadband.

The broadband provider swears that there is no freeze or any such problem on my account and I believe them since it is downloading some type of files. Since this behaviour happens with both the laptop (running xp) and the desktop (running only linux distros...no windows at all) I am not convinced it is to do with the OS. Which leads me to wonder if there is something (like a virus???) on the broadband modem. I use Huawei SmartAX MT800.

I have tried to figure out for the last 10 days but no luck. Has anyone experienced this kind of thing before? Please help!!!

I did experience the exact same problem for a while, but it was on dialup; never with broadband.
After repeated calls to the 'customer disservice' departent, where some idiot kept referring to his book of stupid things to tell the customer and insisting that there was no limits or restraints on our account, I finally managed to learn that while our contract stated that we had a 24/7 connection, in reality the U.S. owned giant 'did not necessarily intend for the service to be connected to 24/7', and that there was in fact an hourly limit, per-month, on how long we could be connected.
As it turns out, when we reached this undocumented limit, we could still browse the net, and if lucky could download little tiny files; but trying to download anythng of more than a few megs resulted in a sudden squeeze of our available bandwidth down to such a level that communication was impossible. The connection would just hang, until I cancelled the download.
After a few weeks and many angry calls to the company, the idiot there in our little local office suggested that by logging into our account and changing our username (by adding a 0 or a 1 or a 2 onto the username) we could trick the computer system into resetting our usage.
This didn't work. We switched ISP's soon after, and the problem ceased completely.
NOTE: The whole time, the company officially denied that any caps or limits were being applied.

And the thing on top of it all: The bandwidth where I live, in a rural area, is so poor, it literally takes me about 2 weeks, as we speak, to download a CD ISO (most of which happens at night, or when we aren't home). The connection isn't usually much more than 26.4k - 28.8k, so it is virtually impossible to accomplish anything within any reasonable amount of time at this lousy connection speed. There's no highspeed, no cable, no DSL, no cellular, and sattelite is beyond our means.

yeah, it does sound like it's possibly an ISP issue... especially after reading GrapefruiTgirl's experience...

my first reaction when reading the OP was along the lines of "check the router", but i was assuming the ISP was being completely honest... have you tried doing a test by taking your laptop somewhere else and seeing if the problem stops occuring with another ISP??

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux - Networking and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

NOTE: This thread will be moved back to Linux - Security if it starts to look like it might in fact be a security issue. So far, that's not the case.

Thanks to all those who replied. It turned out that the Broadband provider did have a problem at their end. There was no change/fix required at my end.

Thanks once again!