Troubleshooting networking issues...
at a relative's. Nice hot summer days, his network (multiple routers and hubs, lots of devices), set up a couple years before, would intermittently drop out, or simply lose packets for a few seconds. Was driving us all nuts.
I started plugging my laptop into various hubs/routers and running hour-long ping sessions to other machines. Finally found two connections between hubs that were the issue. Pulled out the network plugs and took a REALLY good look.
Turns out, in each case, he had made the cables himself and one wire hadn't quite gotten all the way to the end of the plug. When it got hot enough (one of these was in an attic area!), the dodgy connection between the pin and the conductor would shift just enough to drop out. Recrimped two plugs, and everything's been fine since.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
