This has started recently. It dumps the lad out of his X-box live, and "hangs" when I'm surfing sites. When I try and change sites, or update a page, it shows "waiting for scoobynet........" etc on the toolbar for ages. If I log off, then on again, it's OK for a few minutes more before doing the same again.
It's the same on IE and Mozilla Firefox. The computer is running Vista.

Virgin, the ISP, have pinged my connection, and say it's OK, but are sending me an updated modem.

Is it an unstable connection? Is it a hardware problem? Or something more sinister?

TIA

 

virus check in safe mode would be my first thought

your machine could be attacking the overclockers website without you knowing about it !

 

Doesn't seem likely that it's a virus since your lads xbox is affected too ..... potential fail points therefore are : the modem / router (due to be replaced), the line itself (possibly damaged but suggested to be ok given that they can ping you) or something at the exchange end (which they just won't ever admit too).

Might be worth keeping an eye on the SNR levels reported on the modem / router to see if either of them change dramatically when or if you have the problem again since that would give something to point the tech support or engineers at.

Failing that, it could be a bit "a la 90's bt isdn" in that you call them and report a faulty / dropped line, they keep you on hold listening to cr4p music for a bit then come back and tell you they've run diagnostics on the line and it's perfectly fine so it must be something wrong with the kit your end that's not their issue. Then 5 minutes later the line magically starts working again. We all knew the game, the trick was using someone elses phone to call the support number from though lol!

 

can you look at the logs on the router

I may show the router re-authenticating with the ISP -- might look something like this

Wed, 2009-01-28 01:53:55 - LCP down.
Wed, 2009-01-28 01:53:58 - Initialize LCP.
Wed, 2009-01-28 01:53:58 - LCP is allowed to come up.
Wed, 2009-01-28 01:54:01 - CHAP authentication success

this show the line going down -- then automatically coming back up

my router tends to do this a bit

also another thing to try is to disconnect the router from the BT exchange by removing the ADSL dongle from the phone socket for at least 30 mins -- this will cause the circuits in the BT exchange to reset, and then make a new connection once the cable is put back and the router re-booted

as has been said WAN providers will NEVER admit to a problem

 

I experienced something similar and i would get disconnected from XBL and while surfing i would get my windows box pop up every now and again saying connected to network/signal strength etc (as if it had just re-connected itself)

I rang my ISP and they said my line was always trying to find 8 meg speed and it couldnt connect as my line is only capable of 4.5 meg. So they "fixed it" so my line will only try for 4.5 and i have had no problems since

 

How do I look up the logs on the router?
Also, it's a Virgin cable line, not a BT, and it runs through a Terrayon modem.

Oh and the router is a Netgear WGR614 v7

Could it be a duff cable? Intermittent?

 

yep -- this was a well known problem with "ADSL max" products, they would adapt the line speed according to line noise etc, but BT had real problems rolling it out -- i had this "upgrade" to ADSL Max by my ISP and after a month told them to downgrade me due the problems i was experiencing

tanyatriangles -- didnt realise you were cable, so scrap the phone line stuff

but it would still be worth looking into you logs, you need to log onto your router, to do that type the "default gatway" address into you browser something like this http://192.168.1.1 --- this should take you to a logon page, although if its a "managed" router you may not know the password

get the default gateway address by typing "ipconfig" without quote in you command line

 

Ah thanks for that, i just put up with it until it got on my nerves that much that i rang them them up. They are switching me on to an ADSL 2 conection next week so hopefully that will be a little bit faster.

Have you sussed it yet Tanyatriangles?

 

When using Vista, where is the "Run" bit?

 

Enable Run Command on Windows Vista Start Menu :: the How-To Geek

 

OK, done that, thanks, typed "ipconfig" into run without the quotes, but nothing happens

 

have a look at this ..... https://www.scoobynet.com/computer-r...ml#post8460371

your screen should look like that

 

I've seen that before, when I had XP, but it never showed.

Also, my problem isn't wireless: MY computer is wired, my son's X-Box IS wireless, and BOTH exhibit the same fault: dropped connection.

It also still does it if you wire direct to the modem, ie: no router, and the same for his X-Box with a 15m ethernet cable he tried.

 

Sounds like either a knackered modem, or something wrong with the cable to me. Not a lot you can do to fix that yourself.

Are they upgrading your area to the new 50mb lines etc? Could be the outages are because of that. Also, have you checked the broadband status page (it will tell you if they are investigating any problems)?

 

ok .... this is a bit of an essay so apologies in advance lol! (got a cuppa handy? )

some terminology first (just in case) ...

wan = wide area network : internet
lan = local area network : internal - can be fixed wiring or wireless, your network
pan = personal area network : ultra local - refers to things like bluetooth keyboards etc

It doesn't look like the fault lies in your internal network (the lan) specifically. It looks more like a fault on the internet connection side (the wan). The link made out to the wan is usually done either with a modem and a router as yours is or, using an all in one device that combines the two (generally more expensive). Since the modem you have is due to be replaced, the focus is generally on other alternative causes on the off-chance that the new modem doesn't fix the problem.

The router part is what allows multiple devices to communicate down one physical link to the outside world (won't bore you with the details lol). The reason for looking at the router logs is because the modem is usually a "dumb" device (i.e. it's generally non-configurable or very limited configuration and rarely provides any trackable information) that has a sole purpose of passing / converting traffic in a manner that works on the suppliers connection. It's normally the router that will identify whether it's lost a connection to the outside world through the modem or not and also whether the connection it has is a good connection or a bad one (dependent on SNR and signal power).

The problem with identifying, tracking and solving faults like the one it seems you're experiencing is that generally speaking it usually falls outside of the physical systems you can accurately monitor i.e. it's somewhere in the ISP's systems. Identifying where is a nightmare because you can't physically get to those systems to investigate and also, those systems can be made up from several different owners or co-owners (suppliers share local exchanges etc). The nature of wan suppliers / isp's is to not admit to loss of services for a number of reasons mostly financially based.

What we're tending to lean towards here is that there may be a fault on the connection that you have from the local exchange to your house. The key is identifying what fault it is since the isp won't admit it and won't investigate it without considerable aggravation from you first. The common ones are a damaged cable usually courtesy of "mad-paddy" and his digger or, the kit in the exchange trying to push a faster connection to your home than the cable is capable of supporting which causes the line to reset itself thereby resulting in a temporary drop of service. The other common problem is as Iain points out, that the isp may be doing work on the systems themselves to upgrade them which again, they'll rarely admit too. In cases relating to bt lines it's common to see an increased fault condition on sundays (they argue it's a non working day so lower impact - i've always argued it's cos they get paid double time on sundays lol) due to this but i can't say if that's the same for cable circuits.

We can take an educated guess as to which of these it is though based on the information and diagnostics results stored in the routers logs and of course even more directly if they have published intended works on their website

 

Well my new modem arrived and is in place. it's about 1/10th the size of the old one

Seem to be OK now, no probs so far and the lad's X-Box seems stable again, we shall see what happens..............

Thanks to all for input so far.