DSL dropouts

Mister Bushice · Post by **Mister Bushice** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 12:18 am

About once a day I experience a DSL drop off, where I cannot access the internet. here's the solution I usually have to go through to get it back up:

Unplug the power to the DSL modem. Unplug the power to the Linksys router (WRT55ag)
power down the computer.

Boot up the computer,
reconnect DSL
reconnect linksys
disconnetc linksys, wait 30 seconds reconnect

Then it all works. PAIN IN THE ASS.

Once it went down one day, I direct connected the DSL modem to my desktop, and it worked instantly, so you'd think it was the network router, right?

Maybe not.
I disconnected the router only for 30 seconds, plowered down the computer and then rebooted, then powered back up the router. No good. The only thing that works is the process I described above. Pinging fails to work when it is down.

Any idea what is causing this? I have a wired desktop, and two wireless computers (lap and a desk) on the network. Win XP PRO on two, Win 2000 on the wireless desktop.

Thoughts?

Cueball · Post by **Cueball** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 1:08 am

Go to a cable modem, you may be too far from the phone company's hub

Mister Bushice · Post by **Mister Bushice** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 1:23 am

No, I am not out of hub range. Plus, the DSL works fine direct connected to the computer. There is something going on with the router/modem interface I can't figure out.

PSUFAN · Post by **PSUFAN** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:25 am

perhaps your router is assigning DHCP and it is timing out?

PSUFAN · Post by **PSUFAN** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:26 am

I recently had a similar problem at work, I discovered that WS_FTP Pro was slowing things down, not sure why. I switched to Filezilla.

Mister Bushice · Post by **Mister Bushice** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:49 am

PSUFAN wrote:I recently had a similar problem at work, I discovered that WS_FTP Pro was slowing things down, not sure why. I switched to Filezilla.

Hmmm, I use FTP but not the pro version.

But things don't slow down, they stop working.

I'll have to watch it see if it happens when I don't use it one day, though. Anything is possible

perhaps your router is assigning DHCP and it is timing out?

Could be, but is that common on a DSL set up? There doesn't seem to be a pattern yet. I am logging now though.

ElTaco · Post by **ElTaco** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 1:33 pm

Funny you should mention this problem. What kind of a DSL modem do you have? I had a linksys router and a cable modem at a place I lived at and it would do something similar every few days. Of course I didn't bother with the computer reboots because that has nothing to do with it. I would unplug both the router and modem and then plug them back in one at a time and things would come back up.

I never really diagnosed the problem because it didn't happen enough, but it sounds like the same exact problem, less frequently. I did think it may be related to dhcp and I noticed that when the 'connection' was down, the router couldn't get an IP from the provider (Adelphia). All the lights were up so the connection should of been working fine between the router/modem.

When your connection is down, connect to the router from the PC and check on the tcp/ip information. Does it have an IP? Most modems have some diagnostic features as well. You can actually ping them and all that jazz so you can try to do that as well. You'll have to look into your particular model.

Mister Bushice · Post by **Mister Bushice** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:33 pm

When your connection is down, connect to the router from the PC and check on the tcp/ip information. Does it have an IP? Most modems have some diagnostic features as well. You can actually ping them and all that jazz so you can try to do that as well. You'll have to look into your particular model.

Right now my set up is modem>router>PC. Last time I pinged one of the other computers from here, it failed. Couldn't ping any URLs either. I have it set to obtain an IP address automatically. What is that command to see the IP? I forget.

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:30 pm

win2K/XP command prompt > ipconfig /all

There's a space between the "ipconfig" and the "/"

Renew is ipconfig /release, then ipconfig /renew

If your IP is 169.254.something.something, you're set to dynamic IP, but aren't reaching a DHCP server.

If you can't ping another machine on the network, next step is to ping your default gateway, which should be listed in the ip info, and will usually be either 192.168.0.1, or 192.168.1.1, depending on the manufacturer of the router. Then, try pinging the default gateway that the router obtained.

After that, report back.

Headhunter · Post by **Headhunter** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:36 pm

Dins, change your default gateway if you're using the factory default. Should be the first thing you do when you set it up.

I'd get into the configuration of the router and look at the length of time you've got it set for the DHCP lease to expire. It'll drop a connection when it expires, so if it's set to every two days, you'll be cycling the router a fair amount. Set the lease to 30 days or more and see if your problem disappears for a month!

Mister Bushice · Post by **Mister Bushice** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 8:05 pm

Headhunter wrote:Dins, change your default gateway if you're using the factory default. Should be the first thing you do when you set it up.

I'd get into the configuration of the router and look at the length of time you've got it set for the DHCP lease to expire. It'll drop a connection when it expires, so if it's set to every two days, you'll be cycling the router a fair amount. Set the lease to 30 days or more and see if your problem disappears for a month!

How do you set the lease? I think you might have discovered my problem. I seem to recall the lease is set on one day and expires right around the time I've been having problems.

Headhunter · Post by **Headhunter** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 8:11 pm

The lease is set in the router configuration. type the gateway into your browser. If you're using default it should be 192.168.0.1 From there enter your username and password. There should be a DHCP tab, you can set it from there.

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 8:20 pm

Headhunter wrote:If you're using default it should be 192.168.0.1

I'm not 100% sure, but I think Linksys uses 192.168.1.1 as default.

What I do know, is that it's whatever is displayed under "ipconfig /all"

your link in your browser should be http://192.168.1.1

Or 192.168.0.1, whatever the gateway is.

And HH makes a good point regarding the increased security of changing the gateway to something other than the default, such as 192.168.1.79 , just as it's not a bad idea to change the router's account to something other than "admin/password," or whatever the default is for your brand of broadband router.