Regular Loss of Internet Connectivity

[Sunday Driver]

Last summer, I replaced my tired Dell laptop with a new Inspiron 1525 configured with Vista Home Premium and Internet Explorer 8 and an internal WiFi card to establish a connection through a Netgear DG834G router.

Everything worked fine up until the last month or so, and I'm now experiencing problems whereby the browser loses connectivity after a couple of hours and only a restart will bring it back on-line.  The WiFi connection remains live and the router continues to be connected to the ISP server - I can continue to use my e-mail client (Windows Mail) and download data via FTP on the laptop, but not the browser.  At the same time, my desktop (XP plus IE6) functions perfectly, maintaining a solid connection all day long if necessary.

When the browser displays the error messages (cannot connect, etc) I can't even use it to interrogate the router status, even though the laptop's WiFi connection is clearly still functional.

I did a Vista reinstall but although that seemed to improve things for a short while, it's now back to it's old tricks.

Before I start the process of trawling through the Microsoft Knowledge Base and all the web technical forums, has anyone had this problem or come across a solution?

 

 

[dave21478]

I get the same symptoms every now and then. I have an acer laptop thats about 5years old now, running XP, connected by wifi to a Bewan modem. Connectivity will drop off and the browser will no longer function and requires a restart of either the computer or the modem (its lucky-dip which one is required to repair this, so I usually end up restarting both) The wifi light remains lit on the modem, but the computer either looses connectivity or sometimes looses the network connection completely.

I have noticed this is more likely to happen while downloading large amounts of data, or there are multiple wifi connections (the gite guests connect to the same network).

When there is no wifi connectivity, if I take the laptop over and plug it in via ethernet cable, the browser will still not function for internet, although I can access the modem settings, where everything appears normal.

 

[baypond]

Just a thought but have you gone to netgear site to get updates. They sometimes have patches that reconfigure the router.

http://www.netgear.co.uk/product_support.php

 

[baypond]

http://kbserver.netgear.com/products/DG834G.asp

 

[AnOther]

This appears to be a problem others are encountering, possibly triggered by an automatic update, but with no obvious workaround that I can find at the moment.

When did you install IE8 because it was not officially released until March 19th so your laptop did not come with it. Maybe it is the fact that you are using it at all which is the problem and previously you were on IE7.

EDIT: Read that as SHOULD not have come with it as it would have been the beta RC1 which is a bit naughty.

[Sunday Driver]

Doh....

Thank's for that, Ernie.  I'm actually on IE7 - the interface fooled me because it's different from the IE6 on my desktop so I assumed it was IE8.

I see that Microsoft are currently rolling out IE8 through their automatic updates so I'll have a search to see if this problem has been solved by updating.

 

 

[Clair]

Have you removed the condenser from your phone socket?

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1607214/ShowPost.aspx

[Sunday Driver]

Clair

The phone and WiFi connection are working OK - it's just the browser suddenly start reporting that it can't connect to the Internet.  I can still send and receive e-mails and download stuff through an FTP client.

I've just downloaded and installed IE8 to see if this cures things.  I'll report back in a couple of days.

<<fingers crossed smiley>>

 

 

[AnOther]

In all honesty updating from IE7 to IE8 is not something I'd personally recommend just yet but your decision.

As a start you might try the fixes here.......

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956196

[Sunday Driver]

Thanks for the link, but I've been there. The problem is not so much establishing connectivity, but the browser losing it after a period of time.  Having lost it, I run through all the possibilities and I can't find anything wrong.

At least I've now got a clean browser install to work from......

 

 

[Âme]

SD - just a thought... apologies if this is page 1, step 1 for you, but it has caused me problems in the past, when adding an update mysteriously unchecked the 'Allow Windows to automatically detect network parameters' box.  

IE whatever>outils>options internet>connexions>paramatres reseau>detecter automatiquement les parametres de connexion (check box)

 

[Sunday Driver]

Thanks for the tip. Ame.

The autodetect box isn't ticked (never has been) and I don't actually have a problem in making the connection.

It's just if I sit down with a glass of something Scottish and log on to YouTube for an evening session of 10cc videos, by the time I get to Wall Street Shuffle, the browser just calls it a day.

Perhaps it's my choice of music it objects to?

 

 

[AnOther]

So upgrading to IE8 has had no effect at all ?

[AnOther]

Next time it happens try this.

Open a CMD window and type in   ping 208.65.153.253  that is the IP address of Youtube.

Let us know what happens

 

[Pierre ZFP]

Do you still get drop out if you use Firefox?  Or Chrome?

[clarksinfrance]

My wife has a very similar problem on her Acer netbook, occasionally the wi-fi connection drops, though all software and wi-fi indicator light are still running, having completed an exhaustive search regarding this problem with the Acer netbook, it appears to be a conflict between the BIOS and the integrated wi-fi card. The resolution is to update the BIOS to current version, and to update the wi-fi card to latest software version.

She will return to France on 19th May and I will complete updates then.

Maybe a clue to your problem SD? symptoms seem to be similar.

Also found this: http://www.ihatedell.net/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic,p,49191.html

[AnOther]

I don't dispute what you say but I do find it hard to believe that it is the BIOS causing this, it really is far too low level to produce such problems and even if it were it would be unlikely to manifest itself as an intermittency. Who has told you this I wonder and has it always given this problem or only since something changed, like a Windows update perhaps ?

This can be one of the problems of leaving Windows to update automatically, you do not always know what is going on so cannot pin problems down to such events and is why I always do updates manually.

Of course SD's problem is not one of wireless loss anyway but of an inability of IE to browse and one thing I was going to suggest, which is relevent to both scenarios, and many others come to that, is to view the event logs.

If you don't know where they are then Right click My Computer then Manage then Event Viewer. Right click on each log and clear, saving if you like but personally I seldom bother. Reboot then whenever you have the problem go and look in the logs.

[Sunday Driver]

Quick update:

After a lot of trawling through on-line tech forums etc, it seems that a recent Vista update has resulted in a conflict with Zone Alarm leading to the aforementioned browser problems.  Until Zone Labs issue a modification, I've uninstalled ZA and activated Windows Firewall instead and it's now rock solid.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

 

[AnOther]

Thanks for the feedback and pleased to hear it's sorted.

Each to their own but as I've said elsewhere, personally I've never felt the need for a 3rd party firewall.

This also neatly highlights the dangers in allowing any Windows OS to update itself automatically because unless you know what's going on, and when, problems just like this can suddenly emerge whereas if you do them manually you have a much better chance of pinning something down to a particular event.

Frankly, for the vast majority of home users, there is little or no risk in not installing updates. If anyone doubts it just go and research what some of them actually are for. You'll find that many are for wildly esoteric issues, frequently to do with some highly technical networking problem or such, and generally completely irrelevent to the non professional user.

I patch my XP Pro installation(s) maybe 2 or 3 times a year, and then only after I have vetted the available updates, and I probably end up actually installing about 10% of them.