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Networking & wireless: Troubleshooting intermittent internet connection
Troubleshooting intermittent internet connection
by BmattIII - 4/28/06 6:01 AMI periodically lose my internet connection and I'd like to know the sequence of troubleshooting steps you may suggest. (Windows XP Home, Lingsys Wireless G Broadband RouterWRT54G, v2.2, Toshiba Cable Modem PCX DOCSIS, Dell Desktop XPS, Zone Alarm Firewall) . Many thanks in advance.
Wireless loss of connection
by Northern Boy - 4/28/06 1:01 PM In reply to: Troubleshooting intermittent internet connection by BmattIIII use a Wireless G Linksys Broadband WRT GS Router with three computers. Two are wireless the other directly connected. No problem there.
One wireless computer, an Acer 4000 with WIFI (B & G compatible) works fine and never disconnects. It is located within eight feet usually but works OK when located beside the other. The other located two floors up with a concrete wall in between and uses a USB Linksys adaptor B disconnects and reconnects repeatedly. It will work fine when its within twenty feet and only one wood floor between.
I believe the problem with the second wireless computer is simply due to the USB adaptor's distance.
Thanks, but I am loosing connection with "wired" portion of
by BmattIII - 4/28/06 1:41 PM In reply to: Wireless loss of connection by Northern BoyThanks Northern for trying to help, but I am intermittingly losing the connection with the ethernet wired portion of the network. I've checked with other friends of my ISP, Time Warner cable, and that does not seem to be the source of the problem. Again, if you have any troubleshooting steps I would appreciate!
Ethernet or USB?
by byker49 - 4/28/06 7:59 PM In reply to: Troubleshooting intermittent internet connection by BmattIIIHow do you connect the router to your computer. If ethernet set the link speed to 100mbps/Full Duplex. This could stop the adapter from trying to renegotiate the speed with the router. It may be worth a try.
changing ethernet speed
by BmattIII - 4/29/06 3:02 AM In reply to: Ethernet or USB? by byker49Thanks, I will try that and let you know. I am using an ethernet connection!
Loss of internet
by pratapan - 4/29/06 8:03 PM In reply to: Troubleshooting intermittent internet connection by BmattIII3 possibilites exist.
1) your router is rebooting or going offline
2) Your ISP router link is going down
3) DNS is going down and giving the illusion of no internet
You should try to ping your DNS server and see if it responds. Then see if you can ping the ISP router.
If you are lucky both will answer. I like to do a tracert to yahoo and save the output for future use.
Tracert will return the IP address of every router between you and yahoo.com as well as the IP address of the yahoo.com server.
The next time your internet is down, ping your router, their router, and their DNS server. If PING works but surfing does not, this is a DNS server issue. If one of those pings fails, you probably found your problem.
If you want to do long term monitoring, download the trial version of "What's Up Gold".
Or you can use ping and log to a file to track uptime.
Ping generates 1 packet per second by default.
ping a.b.c.d -n 36000 > filename.txt
a.b.c.d = the ip address of the device being monitored.
-n 36000 = the switch to ping 36000 times or 10 hours.
> filename.txt = redirect the output to a file named filename.txt
Run this overnight then look at the file the next day.
The end of the file will give a summary of packets sent and packets lost.
If you want to get fancy write a batch file.
time /t will echo the current time
then ping for 30 minutes
Redirect all of this to a file and repeat the process.
Now you can tell the actual time of the outage and the duration.
SKrall
Troubleshooting intermittent internet connection
by BmattIII - 4/30/06 3:05 AM In reply to: Loss of internet by pratapanMany thanks for your suggestions. I've already "learned", from your post, some things of which I was unaware. I will try your suggestions and post back if I identify the problem!
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