1. Check your change log to see what you've recently changed. Try turning off or backing-out the change. If a change causes a problem right away -- it is easy to see the cause and effect. But sometimes it takes a few days for a problem to be noticed. Keeping a written change log (in a notebook) can make tracking the source of problems a lot easier.
If you revert to an earlier version of the Linksys firmware, be sure to read the FAQ on updating firmware first.
2. Check the wiring. It is easy for physical connections to come loose. If wiring is walked on or pinched by desktops against walls the conductors and shields inside the wires can fail (intermittently fail or fail completely).
The lights on the router and the NIC (network interface card in your computer) can be a tip off.
Try replacing the wires, or swapping wires with another computer.
3. In setup, which WAN connection setting do you all have?
If you have PPPoE, try increasing the Keep Alive Time to 180 seconds. Too short a keep alive time causes problems (with any router).
4. Ideally the MTU should match between your PC, router and ISP. Especially with PPPoE this can cause problems.
Your own ISP is the only definitive source to tell you what you range your MTU should be set in; there is no alternative to checking with them. Still, you may have to try adjusting the MTU up and down slightly from the number they give you.
Configure your router to have that MTU, and use Dr. TCP to configure your PC to use that MTU. Dr TCP is available here
With my ISP the correct MTU turned out to be 1362. A larger MTU caused the email connection to fail, but only when sending attachments.
5. Another thing that commonly causes problems is software firewalls. If you run a software firewall (ZoneAlarm, NIS, Kerio, etc.) you may need to put the IP of your ISP's DNS (Domain Name Server) in the trusted zone for the software firewall.
You can determine the IP of your ISP's DNS from the Router's Status Panel.
The symptom you would see would be events from you ISPs DNS in your firewall log, and your connection failing, but not necessarily at the same time. Doing something to cause a release/renew on the connection would temporarily solve the problem.
6. Search the BBR forums for the router and / or the operating system to see if someone has had a similar problem recently.
7. It is possible that the component of your operating system called the Winsock has been corrupted by some ill behaved network software. There are utilities for fixing the winsock here:
For Windows 98, 98SE, or Me
For Windows XP
For Windows 95 with Winsock2, 98, 98SE, Me, 2000 or XP
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by keith2468  edited by Lanik
last modified: 2006-03-16 21:58:31 |
