Network Hardware Deterioration

I had always heard that hardware either works or doesn't. Either you're running fine or you're BSOD'd. Boy was I wrong.

I have been having lousy pings for a long while now. It didn't bother me too much because I wasn't really playing anything online. But then maybe I wasn't playing anything online because my ping sucked. It's hard to tell.

Anyway, my router finally up and died, so I had to get a new one. Prices had dropped dramatically since I bought the old one maybe four years ago. A new hub and router combo were $60. But what floored me was the drop in ping. I went from stead ping spikes to a solid connection at about 80 to most servers.

So the moral of the story--in case I'm not the last to know this--upgrade your networking hardware from time to time. Apparently, it gradually deteriorates and gives shoddy performance for a long, long time before it dies. And it's cheap to replace.