Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

virgin broadband connection problems

Sep 18, 2007 10:42PM PDT

my computer has been out of action for the past 4 months as my hard drive corupted, i recently got it back up and runnning using windows xp pro. i'm with virgin for broadband and ever since ive got it working again it just cuts out every few mins and i have to use the diagnostics repair tool from IE to get it to work again. any help or suggestions would be greatly appreiciated

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Common problem. . .
Sep 19, 2007 6:08PM PDT
- Collapse -
still need help
Sep 19, 2007 7:15PM PDT

cheers ive just installed the fix but unfortunatly all it seems to have done is improved my connection speed for the few mins that i am actually connected and still cuts out.

i am using ethernet as my internet connection and im not sure if reverting to usb would sort out the problem, now i no usb is slower but on a 2mb connection will it rely slow me down that much.

- Collapse -
Anti-virus and anti-spyware.
Sep 19, 2007 7:48PM PDT

Do you have any anti-virus or anti-spyware utilities running in the background?

I use Virgin broadband as well, (I'm in the UK), and have no connection cut-offs like you, except once a day when I leave my computer unattended and my AVG anti-virus runs a scheduled scan. After that I sometimes have to right click the broadband network icon in the System Tray and select Repair. it is as if the virus scan disables the connection.

Is your AV, (or even anti-spyware), carrying out regular scans more than once a day? It wouldn't be normal for a scan to be done every few minutes, but there seems to be something cutting in every few minutes or so.

In any case, check for viruses and spyware.

If you have a firewall I would not expect that to cut you off at regular periods. The firewall either lets the internet through or it doesn't, period.

If you can get a time of a cut-off, look at your Event Viewer for that time and see if there is anything relevant listed. Event Viewer can be accessed through Start > Run, type in eventvwr.msc and click OK. In the Event Viewer console look for any warnings or exclamation marks, highlight, and double click for more information.

Mark