Internet connection constantly breaks

Question

Question

Internet connection constantly breaks

by N.T.Gray Apr 26, 2012 12:33PM PDT

For the past couple of months my desktop's internet connection has been extremely fragile. It breaks constantly, necessitating either a cable modem and router reboot or a computer reboot, or both. My daughter can watch TV on the Roku for hours, but it is common for me to surf the net for five to fifteen minutes and have the connection vanish.

The desktop is a Dell Inspiron running Win 8. It is connected by ethernet wire to the Netgear router. Also on the network since Christmas is a wireless Roku and from time to time two wireless laptops. The problem did not suddenly begin right after Christmas, although it was not an issue before Christmas.

Each laptop has on a single instance (not at the same time) displayed a message saying that there was an IP address conflict, which was cleared by rebooting the laptop.

I was recently having a problem with a non-functioning CD drive in the desktop, which Bob Proffitt helped me fix by deleting upper and lower filters in the registry. At that time I also experimented with a registry cleaner that claimed to find a whole lot of problems, but which failed to complete its mission and did not actually change anything.

Some time back I called my cable company several different times, and they could restore service. But one time the modem was indeed bad and was replaced, but that replacement does not seem to have increased or decreased the frequency of connection outages compared to before the death of the modem.

Any thoughts?

NTG

Discussion is locked

7 Posts

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Oops, I did it again.

by N.T.Gray Apr 26, 2012 11:09PM PDT

That's a mistake I keep making, for some reason. 7, 8. . .Windows, Explorer. . .it's all pretty much the same, right??
It makes me wish I was back in DOS land.
But never mind that. Let's get back to the actual question:
Any (germane) thoughts?

NTG

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Not much to work with here.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Apr 27, 2012 9:32AM PDT

Can't tell anything from the post about WiFi router settings, firmware version, the PC's make, model.

We do have the top posts in the CNET Networking Forum but as it stands I don't have any reason to point out any possible changes.

I don't want to upset you but hope you see that clues lead me to put forward one or another idea first. With such a wide open discussion I can only hope that the router defaults work and that you are not another victim of that Channel issue.

What Channel issue? Please read http://forums.cnet.com/7723-13973_102-560420/wifi-disconnects-from-time-to-time-galaxy-tab-7-plus/?tag=contentBody;threadListing

I like that issue because it stumped us for awhile. Until we were able to see such a system and the settings and "dang, there it is."
Bob

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Working on it

by N.T.Gray Apr 30, 2012 11:17AM PDT

I had hoped that the information given was sufficient to at least touch off some reasonable speculation. Actually, I have discovered a few more things just since making the initial post. One is that a loose wall connection is at least partly to blame for my problems—but not entirely; a flaky wall connection causes everything to go away, whereas much of my problem is specifically that my desktop loses connection even when the Roku is humming happily away.

An IP address issue sounds like a reasonable suspect. I haven't really dug into that area yet. But in the past couple of days I've been having much less trouble than I did even a week ago.

I'm going to work normally and try to observe carefully for a while here, and see if I can come up with some additional details that might help somebody figure out what might be wrong and maybe how to fix it. At that time I can include all of the requested additional info, too.
*

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Given only the clues so far

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Apr 30, 2012 11:56AM PDT

I would have to reset the router to defaults, change to channel 1, then secure it to WPA2 AES (personal) and retest.

Any guess at this point without more clues is just a guess.
Bob

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Wish I could edit my post..

by WaCableTech Apr 27, 2012 1:09PM PDT

In addition to that, can you post the signal levels and error logs from the modem via http;//192.168.100.1

Back to Internet Service Providers forum

r. proffitt · Answer 1 · Apr 26, 2012 3:24PM PDT

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Answer

Windows 8?

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Apr 26, 2012 3:24PM PDT

That's beta, preview or worse.

I'd use the OS this machine came with next.
Bob

WaCableTech · Answer 2 · Apr 27, 2012 1:08PM PDT

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Answer

Static IP's

by WaCableTech Apr 27, 2012 1:08PM PDT

this sounds like you have at least one computer on your network that has been assigned a static IP which if you reserved in the router would not be an issue but it sounds like you did not, for simplicity lets say its laptop2 and the static IP is 192.168.0.2

So lets say you booted the desktop and it is assigned 192.168.0.2 then junior comes home boots up his computer which is static and set as 192.168.0.2 now this is essentially an address. So Imagine if the county/city you live in screwed up and put your house number on your house and the one directly across the street. Which house would the post man deliver your mail to? the wrong one about 50% of the time is my guess. Much like the mail scenarios two devices with one address is a conflict. Now without knowing why a computer has a static IP directing you on how to fix it is rather difficult, but you have two options.

1. Set all devices to Dynamic or DHCP.
2. Find the device that needs the static IP, log into your router and set it up to reserve that IP for that device [you will need that devices MAC address], and from then on you should never have that network conflict issue again.

If it helps you would want a static address on any device acting as a server for data of any type videos, games, files, etc.. Printers sometimes are given a static IP as well.

Internet connection constantly breaks

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