Below is an example of what can happen to a gel with a bad buffer.  The pH of this buffer is the likely suspect.  After testing the pH meter to ensure its accuracy and mixing up new TBE running buffer, a great improvement was seen.
 

Before:  Notice particularly the bands found in the lanes containing the ladders with known marker weights/sizes.  These are labeled 25bp^o, 25bp, and 1Kb.  At each site where there ought to be 1 band there are 3-4 bands in the 25bp lanes and 2 bands in the 1Kb ladder lane.
 

After:  Here the ladders are back to normal, with single bands at each location.  (However, the gel still has a slight "smile" to it, since nothing was used to evenly disperse heat generated during the run across the gel.  For even greater improvement see the page describing the use of copper plates.)
 
 

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