hmmmm as far as I can see it has ~sort of~ sorted the problem. I still get the auto-disconnect message about 20s after joining and then I just reconnect, but the internet doesn't go down in the house, which is good!

I have been getting exceptionally choppy frames (200-300 when no one on screen, down to 30-40 at the worst, 90 ish with pretty bad lag with people on the screen - pipes teleporting into me and other things) and some massive lag spikes (sometimes approaching 800 ping). When I played at uni I used to get 200 frames pretty constantly and when I practice offline I get this too. Would it be egregious of me to blame this all on the internet?

Thank you for your help so far!

I'll give that a go, thanks.
I appreciate all the help that has been offered so far, it means a lot!

aaaaaaaaaargh turns out my router IS my modem (of from what I can ascertain anyway). I think all things point towards a new modem/router

...and for the fleeting moments that I do get on I get like 40 frames :<

arggg I am such a chimp, I was getting modem and router conflated. Earlier when I said router, I meant modem. I don't know much about the router. Sorry, I am silly.

yep yep, all plugged in, my computer doesn't have a wireless port.

Thanks for the conformation, I guess I need to order the new modem.

is there even an outside chance that my ISP is at fault?

Everytime I try to connect to a server on TF2, it's fine for the opening 15 seconds or so, then all the internet in my house goes down, for maybe about 10mins. Obviously there is something very wrong here. A look over the steam forums suggests that it's a problem with my router, which I can well believe (it's a 5 year old Thomson ST585v6). If I can get confirmation from someone that this is indeed the case and getting a new router will solve all my problems, that would be great.

Interestingly, this only really happens when I am running my motherboard clocked (game is really laggy/bad frames without. I know this probably shouldn't be the case but I can't work out why). I am not sure whether this will help but these are my specs.

http://i.imgur.com/lFx9aq1.jpg

Once again, I would be very grateful for any and all help

very pretty stream, like the hud and config is good!

too much?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNbD1JIH344

from 1959, the year that changed jazz

i believe there's a rather lossy 192 rip of the itunes stream doing rounds of the net, for those who can't wait.

i don't know how you can think any of your posts are making this better...

I guess my A Level results (A* A* A A) in subjects all on the oxbridge hard subjects list, though that would be topped if I get a first in my degree (outside possibility).

Other than that, playing with a professional orchestra in front of 2000 people was really cool.

http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9780140449914_p0_v1_s260x420.jpg

shout outs to anyone who has read/knows this book

(I'm actually a pretty poor soldier in reality...)

argh nvm fixed

http://tf2.gamebanana.com/skins/109229

seems to be blocked by some servers tho