Modem and Router Problem

[Atari 5200]

I, along with 3 or 4 other people I know all have the same problem with our modems, so I'm starting to get the impression that this may be normal. Anyway, for some reason, after a period of time on my pc, I will lose internet connection. It mostly happens to me when I leave the computer on standby or leave it sitting on for half an hour to an hour. Sometimes I have to restart my computer and sometimes all I have to do is disconnect the modem from the pc and my internet connection will resume, but this happens too frequently and I want to know if it is fixable. I also have a similar problem with my router. Sometimes, I guess because the modem looses connection, my router stops sending wifi through my house. To fix that I usually have to unplug it and plug it back up and most of the time it fixes itself. This problem is starting to get on my nerves and I was wanting to know if there is anything I can do to stop this from happening.

Thanks!!!

[SegaAges]

I used to fix these issues for a living

Ok, I need you to reply with some information:

What OS do you have (Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.)?

What Type of Router do you have (Brand Name and Type)?
(This is just an example, but it could be a Linksys WRT54G or something)

What type of Internet Connection do you have?

How long have you been going through this company for your internet connection?
(In case it is a modem issue, because most places usually have a 1-year warranty, and some have an extended warranty)

How good are you with computers?
(I ask this because if I ask you something, like say, what ip address your router or computer is pulling from the modem, if you don't know how to find that information, that is alright as well, because I can explain that).

I used to have a similar problem on my Linksys Wired router, and I had to clone the MAC address of one of my computers onto the Linksys Router. If you have no clue what that is, that is fine, I can explain it.

Reply back and give me this information and I will have you run some tests so that we can track down why this is happening and what can happen to solve this problem.

It is hard to judge based on what you said, but it is more than likely the modem having trouble pulling an ip address from your isp. Answer those questions and we will go from there and get this figured out.

[Atari 5200]

Running XP and it's a Belkin Router wireless g and and I have my internet through charter communications with a cable modem. I've had them for about 1 1/2 years or somewhere around there. I'm fairly proficient with computers, but the router and wifi things are new to me. And about the ip address, if you told me how to get there i shouldn't have any trouble getting there.

And thanks for helping me out!!!

[SegaAges]

I am not as good with the belkin router's as I should be, but I do remember the ip address to get into the router page:

192.168.2.1

Just type that in your web browser and it should come up to your router page (if it asks for a pw, enter whichever pw you have). If you don't have a pw, most router's will default the pw to admin.

Once in there, you need to find a place in there that tells you the status (it will probably say status). In there, you are looking for your ip address. If there is an ip address but no net connectivity, then we know that it is not a problem with the router communicating with the modem, but rather a communication issue between the computer and the router.

I forgot if you said you lost net connection even with your computer wired directly to the modem. If you are switching between wired and wireless, there will eventually be a conflict with your computer not knowing whether it should use your wired NIC(network card) or your wireless NIC. If you do any swithcing at all between the 2, make sure that you disable the other one either through network connections(in control panel) or through the device manager.

Now if you have your wired disabled, you can pull an ip address from the modem (checking through the router), and still do not internet, then it is a computer issue. I say that because if you can browse to the router page, your computer has the ability to travel outside of itself to get a webpage, and since the router is able to pull an ip address, then it is probably a dns issue on your computer. Here is a command you can do in the dos prompt which can help you with dns issues:

ipconfig /flushdns

Now, if you can't even access the router page, check and make sure that one of your NIC's is disabled(the one you are not using). If that is the case, reset your router (most all routers I have worked with will actually have a reset button you can hold in for a couple of seconds, and I generally tell people to hold the button in for 10-15 seconds to ensure that it fully reset itself). Now that the router is back to its default settings, it is time to see whether this is a router issue, or a computer issue (if you can't get to the router page, then this issue has nothing to do with the internet).

if you have gotten this far without a fix (and are having troubles like up above in the previous paragraph), then it is time to get tricky (I hope you like the dos prompt). Ok, get to the dos prompt. Once in there, we need to see if your computer is pulling an ip address from the router, so type in:

ipconfig

After that, you will be able to see if there is an ip address there. if there isn't, we need to try to get an ip address. type in:

ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

There are other ways to do it, but this way works exactly the same as the others, and since we are going to be playing around in the dos prompt, we might as well run all of our commands from there. During the renew process, if you get some error that talks about not being able to obtain an ip address from the dns server, that means that your NIC is trying to go out and get an ip address, but it can't find anything to connect to (wink wink nudge nudge). If you want to be certain about it, you can try:

route print

Under network destination, that is what your computer is trying to use to connect to the internet.

Now, if you are still unsure of whether or not it is a computer or router issue, you can get into some tricky stuff (which I will post right now)
*USE THESE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION
*DON'T GET MAD AT ME IF SOMETHING MESSES UP ON YOUR COMPUTER
I say that because some of the stuff requires you to reinstall components of windows and your hardware, and if there is a major problem with windows or your hardware, it is not going to get any better with these steps. These steps will reinstall the drivers for your NIC and also reinstall your tcp/ip stack. That is all it will do. Ready? OK, here we go:

get into device manager and go up to view->show hidden devices
in the device manager, you will now have another category (non plug and play devices)
go into that and look for tcp/ip protocol driver
right click and select to uninstall
restart your computer
when it comes back up, get into the dos prompt again
type in: netsh int ip reset c:\resetlog.txt
then...
netsh winsock reset
if the last command doesn't work, get sp2, because you would need it anyway.

Now, the next step is to reinstall the drivers for your NIC. This is the easiest way to do it:
get back into device manager, find your network cards, and choose to uninstall your network card.
restart your comp
when it comes back up, it will reinstall your NIC drivers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now you may be asking yourself "what if it is the modem?"
Here is how you check:
when you check your status on your router page to see if you have an ip address, if you do not have an ip address, that means that your router is unable to get a connection from your modem. 1st off, try the easy stuff.
try a new ethernet cable, reset your router, restart your modem.

when I say reset, that doesn't mean restart. to reset it, you actually leave it plugged in and push in on a special button that says reset (you usually have to hit it with a paper clip or something).

if you did that stuff and still no ip address, that means that it is 1 of 3 things:
1.) your router works, but for some wierd reason it won't pull in an ip address
2.) your modem is messed up and you need a replacement
3.) the connection between charter and your modem is messed up. If you have a splicer so that you can watch tv (i think you said it was cable) and play on the net, eliminate the splicer, but if this is dsl, then remove the spliiter (you are doing the same thing regardless of whether it is dsl or cable)

still no net connection, contact charter and tell them you have no internet, but tell them EVERYTHING that you did or else you will spend 2 hours on the phone repeating everything all over again.

Since you said that when you restart your computer it starts working, then this is leaning more towards the bigtop half, and you should start playing with all of that. If you are still having trouble after all of this, let me know, because we can do even more stuff.

[Atari 5200]

Ok, it tried typing 192.168.2.1 into my browser and it worked...for a while. I currently can't access the page b/c it now says page cannot be found. I don't understand that. It was working for a minute then...nothing...?

I typed in the ipconfig. It DID show an ip address. But the internet is still acting up.

Some of what you said went over my head and some i knew what you were talking about.

Anyway I believe it's a modem problem. It did the same thing on my old computer. Same solution too, I just had to restart it and it would be fine...for a while... but this modem problem happens to many people i know... Why would the same thing happen to all of them?

And I believe you was wondering about whether this happens when my computer is on, yes it does, in standby too. I tried looking for a reset button on my modem. I could not find one. Is there any other way to do this? Perhaps unplugging it for some time? Also, if this helps any...after I messed around with some things, the lights on my router stopped blinking rapidly and just lit up w/o blinking...does that mean anything?

Since you said some things that went over my head I'm not sure if we should move on or run back over some things, or if a diagnosis is possible and we could assume a problem.

Also, do you need to know how my modem is hooked up? It's a usb modem and hooks up to the computer via usb. It has the ethernet cable coming out of the back of it going to the router. and a blue ethernet cable coming out of the back going to the computer's ethernet port.

Hope some of this stuff is helping...do you need to know anything else?

BTW Thanks a lot for helping me out!

[SegaAges]

Hmm, do you have it hooked up through ethernet and usb?

This is a very common problem. Do not hook it through both. Your modem will get confused about which one it should be using.

If you are using a router, do ethernet only through the router, but if you are not trying to use the router, unplug the ethernet and only have the usb plugged in.

If you try to go to the router page and it works sometimes, but other times it doesn't, then we need to determine why it is not going to it. This could all stem from you hooking this up through both usb and ethernet.

Now if this is just hooked up through ethernet, and you are pulling an ip address from the modem, then there is something else going on which is not allowing your computer to access things through the modem.

This may sound wierd and don't take it the wrong way, but don't get your heart set on this being a modem issue. When I was working for EarthLink, I would deal with many customers that would think up and down that it was a modem issue, but after a few tweaks to their computer or router, the internet would work just fine. I say that, because if me and you are going to get this working well, we need to find out exactly what is going on.

So let's start simple (very simple):
This is what I need you to do:
plug one computer into your modem through ethernet and only ethernet (no usb). Once this is done, restart your computer, and we will see what kind of internet you are getting and if you are getting an ip number.
If you lose internet, keep your computer on, but try to get an ip address. If you still get an ip address but no internet, then post back and let me know what your ip address is. Well, either way, post back what your ip address is, and then if you lose internet, tell me your new ip address or if it stayed the same of whatever. It is very possible that you lose internet and still have an ip address. It has been awhile, but if I saw your ip from when you didn't have internet, I would be able to tell you if windows is able to get an ip address, and if it is not able to get one, I can explain to you how that is possible (windows has some default ip addresses it likes to use when it can't find one).

Post back after you tried that and let me know if you lose internet, and also let me know which ip addresses you are getting so that we can figure this out.

[Atari 5200]

Ok, so yeah, I had both usb and ethernet hooked up together....i guess i thought that w/o usb it wouldn't work b/c that's how it was hooked up to my old pc. So I unhooked the usb cable and waiting to see if it will help any. BTW, the same thing happened on my old pc. All symptoms that I mentioned happening w/ this machine happened w/ my old machine. So I don't know if this will resolve the problem...?????? Anyway, if it don't I will repost and tell you what happens...Thanks!!!

Also, both my router and modem do not have an off button. is it okay to always have them on?

[SegaAges]

it is just fine to have them both on.

if you were plugging in usb and ethernet there is a 99% chance that the problem was that, and would also explain why restarting your computer fixed the problem.

the only reason why you can try usb and ethernet is just for extra options, that is all. like i said, what is more than likely happening is that your computers are getting confused as to whether they should use ethernet or usb, so as a safety precaution, it chooses neither, and restarting your computer forces it to choose.

try with just ethernet, and if you still have problems, send me ip numbers.

[Atari 5200]

It has been a while, so I thought I would make an update. After I unplugged the usb cable from the modem, the internet has only screwed up one time!!! And normally during this amount of time that I have been away it should have scewed up many more times if the usb cable had been in. So...I guess so far so good?

[Atari 5200]

Something weird just happened now...

I was browsing the internet and all of a sudden the my browser was failing to bring up webpages. I look over to my modem and all of the lights are off. So I follow the cord and finally learn that somehow it has been unplugged. So I plug it up expecting the internet to work fine, but it doesn't. all of the lights on the modem are on but still no internet. so i restart my computer several times with no luck. I get an idea to plug in the usb cable into the modem to see if it works. it does. then i pull the usb cable back out and still works...WTF?

Any idea why the internet didn't work when I plugged the modem back up?