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Monica J. White is a journalist with over a decade of experience in covering technology. She built her first PC nearly 20 years ago, and she has since built and tested dozens of PCs.

PC hardware is her main beat, and graphics cards and the GPU market at large are her main area of interest, but she has written thousands of articles covering everything related to PCs, laptops, handhelds, and peripherals. From GPUs and CPUs to headsets and software, Monica’s always willing to geek out over all things related to computing.

Outside of her work with How-To Geek, Monica contributes to TechRadar, PC Gamer, Tom’s Guide, Laptop Mag, SlashGear, Whop, and Digital Trends, among others. Her ultimate goal is to make PC gaming and computing approachable and fun to any audience.

Monica spends a lot of time elbow-deep in her PC case, as she’s always making upgrades, testing something, or plotting out her next build. She’s the go-to tech support person in her immediate circle, so she’s never out of things to do. Whenever she has spare time, you’ll find her gaming until the early hours and hanging out with her dog.

Many factors play into how good or bad your internet connection might be, but ultimately, none of it matters if your internet service provider (ISP) is just plain bad. I learned that harsh truth the hard way some time ago.

After dealing with up to 50—yes, fifty—random disconnects per day, I was fully done. I was ready to find a new place to live if it meant having a proper internet connection. But after trying just about everything that came to mind, what finally helped me win against a hopeless ISP was a tool that costs all of $10.

My connection was absolutely awful, and my ISP blamed me

Accountability? What’s that?

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Let me start by saying that I’m not a huge fan of Wi-Fi. It’s convenient for many devices, but I always rely on Ethernet connections for my PCs. I also prefer it for my laptop, my TV, and my consoles. I simply don’t trust Wi-Fi to do a good job, and a wired connection is bound to be more reliable.

With that in mind, I was surprised when my internet connection started acting up. I’d have understood if it was on devices connected via Wi-Fi, as a lot can play into how stable wireless connections are, but via Ethernet? And across every device I’d owned?

I was dealing with random disconnects that lasted from a few seconds up to half an hour. There was no rhyme or reason to when I’d get disconnected; it just happened. It started with a few disconnects here and there and escalated to 20-50 times per day. That’s not something I can deal with as a person who works from home.

It seemed pretty clear to me that the ISP was the problem, so after some basic troubleshooting (the usual "turn it off and on again" process), I called my ISP.

Thus began a battle that lasted for months.

Weeks of frustration led to nothing

Turns out I’m not cut out for not having a stable internet connection.

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My connection proceeded to be pretty darn awful for a couple of months. Working was a chore, and playing games was pretty much impossible. Unfortunately, I was locked into a two-year contract with my ISP, and unless it admitted it was at fault, I wasn’t able to break it without paying a close to $1,000 fine.

I won’t bore you with the details of every interaction with my ISP, but I was blamed for multiple things, from overloading the network to using Wi-Fi, which the ISP couldn’t guarantee a stable signal for (although it’s been said many times that the problem persisted across both wired and wireless connections). My ISP sent over some technicians a couple of times, but that didn’t help. From that point on, I was told that my connection was fine, and all the problems must have been on my end.

I knew better, but I investigated.

As I lost connection on every device, connected via wireless and wired, there was nothing to be done there. But I still swapped out my Ethernet cables for new ones just in case. I cleared the area around my router, inspected it for dust buildup, and made sure it had the latest firmware. I pondered buying a more expensive router, which would’ve set me back considerably and wouldn’t have helped, but I decided to try one more thing first.

Monitoring my network revealed the real scale of the problem

The solution was to rely on cold, hard data.

Credit: Monica J. White / How-To Geek

My ISP’s favorite excuse was that "it all looked fine on their end." The people I spoke to always implied that I was the only person suffering from this problem, even though a few of my neighbors reported the same issues. But still, I was unable to break the contract without actual proof that the problem wasn’t me, and even though I wrote down each disconnection I could spot, there were many that went by unnoticed when I wasn’t at the computer.

Digging through Reddit led me to Net Uptime Monitor, an unassuming, simple tool that does what it says on the label: it monitors your internet uptime. More than that, it gives you an easy way to find out what exactly fails, and that was the key in my battle against my (admittedly awful) ISP. The software costs $10 for a lifetime license, but you can use it for free if you don’t need 24/7 monitoring. I did, so I paid, and it turned out to be money well spent.

Net Uptime Monitor constantly pings multiple servers to monitor the status of your connection. It displays server status and response times in ms, quickly spotting potential issues. It doesn’t fix any of these problems; it just gives you important data that you can then use as needed.

NUM distinguishes between your local network and your ISP. If the former is shown as fine, but the internet is still down, that’s a clear indicator that the problem is not on your end. This made all the difference: I had logs showing up to 50 instances of internet failure per day, and none were in my local network.

Using the data to break the contract

Armed with all the data from NUM, including connection uptimes, the number of disconnects per day, the length of each internet failure, and total fail counts, I approached my ISP again. At that point, I was already determined to switch to a new provider as soon as I could, but I had trouble breaking my contract with the "avoid at all costs" ISP.

The data helped. When bundled with a long list of complaints, I was allowed to break the contract two years ahead of when it was set to lapse. I changed ISPs and have enjoyed a stable internet connection ever since, and it was all thanks to a tool that provided me with the facts.

Internet acting up? Check these things first

Calling your ISP isn’t a bad idea.

Credit: Justin Duino / How-To Geek

If your internet connection is unstable, the problem might be Wi-Fi, in which case there’s a simple fix: try out an Ethernet cable. If that helps, your best bet is optimizing your connection by either moving your router, using a mesh network, or setting up a wired access point.

Already using a wired connection? Make sure it’s not something as simple as needing to replace the Ethernet cable, updating router firmware, or dealing with a failing modem or router. Even a single piece of aging hardware can introduce intermittent connection drops.

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If all of that checks out and your ISP shrugs when you call them and ask for help, it’s time to stop guessing and start collecting evidence. Tools like Net Uptime Monitor won’t magically fix a bad connection, but they give you tangible proof that something’s wrong, and that can help you get your connection fixed when the problem isn’t on your end.