Rebuilding my home network >_<

LowMileLude · 10-21-2004, 08:34 AM

Somewhere along the line I have a big issue. My "always on" cable connection is dropping every 45-90 seconds. The cable company says it's network related and won't support/fix it.

I had this issue at my other apartment as well. They had come out and checked the line at the wall and box. But no change.

I have a Linksys 802.11B with a 4 port switch (BEFW11S4). The wireless is disabled since I have 5 systems hardwired around the house. My roomate and I both have Linksys 5 port switches (EZXS55W) each has a PC and Xbox attached. (I also have a PS2 on mine.) The other guy is close enough he runs the wire directly to the router.

Everybody has a similar online/offline issue wether directly connected or through the switch. We don't seem to have an issue with XboxLive. We can play for hours without loosing connection. But as soon as we load up AIM or try to download something we can't get in under a minute; it reveals itself.

Also, my switch, is lit up all the time. The port my PC is in as well as the Upload port all three lights are lit, even when my PC is turned off. Could my switch be bad? That shouldn't be an issue for everyone else though...

Any ideas?

hijinks21 · 10-21-2004, 08:38 AM

my linksys router just died.. i had the same one.. but it was always dropping the wifi connection. I'd replace the router with one of the switches and then see if the connection is still dropping.. if it is i'd say its the cable modem that is going bad.

blackpacu · 10-21-2004, 09:29 PM

Have you connected the modem directly to the PC? If you still have the problem with it connected directly to the pc it's mostly likely your modem, Make sure you use a cable that you know is good when you do this

LowMileLude · 10-22-2004, 12:45 PM

I've swapped out cables both from the wall to the modem and modem to PC/router. In the old apt we had the cable wired into a spliter and then into the modem. The spliter was actually kicking us off this time. So, I just removed it competely. I now get my cable tv from my roomate's room, via a different splitter.

Edit: Someone else had suggested that it might be the modem. But the problem went away. Now it's back and I have some extra funds to overhaul the network. I'll talk to RR tomorrow and see what they have to say.

LowMileLude · 10-28-2004, 03:55 PM

Update, still haven't gotten a new modem from Time Warner

BUT I did fix the PCs not seeing each other on the network. (Damn XP firewall)

binary.h4x · 10-28-2004, 04:56 PM

I have the same router, and my connection was dropping every 10 minutes or so. I downloaded the latest bios flash from linksys, and everything is gravy.

LowMileLude · 10-28-2004, 05:53 PM

hmm... I'll check that out.

cheerio · 10-29-2004, 02:04 AM

Make sure your Cable Modem is plugged directly into the WAN port, setup the options through the router, disable 802.11b if your not using it, and next time your connection drops, try to ping another computer on the network, if you get no ping responce during the connection drop time, then more than likely its the switch. NOW, if your getting a ping responce, check to see how fast your cable light is blinking. You could have a trojan that is DDoSing someone everytime some wannabe hacker gets ****ed off. 3rd, how long have you had TWC? i know it would do the same thing to me, and i would always have to reboot my modem, and they would always tell me it was a local problem, you just have to assure them its not, tell them to come out and check the wriing, because they wired mines all crazy. Just a few suggestions.

LowMileLude · 10-29-2004, 09:53 AM

I think the bios flash worked. My system is getting faster speeds on the net and AIM didn't crash while I was running it last night (normally crashes every 90 secs).

I wouldn't be able to ping in the time frame the internet disconnected and reconnected, without a script or something. It's fast. Just annoying enough to keep you from being able to DL big files.

Been with TWC for 2.5 years or so. (whenever they first came out in my area)

LowMileLude · 11-01-2004, 09:16 AM

Uh... ok, this is odd.

All my apartment's PCs lost their IP addresses. It first started with my one roomate, then mine and my other roomate lost thiers sometime while we were gone. Had to force it to accept an IP just so I could dial the router. None of the wizards worked and reparing it just locked up the PC. Don't know how I fixed it... but it's working again.

Oh, yeah, this was on the 29th-30th

cheerio · 11-01-2004, 11:33 AM

LowMile, sometimes your lease for DHCP expires, if you reboot during that time, it wont be renewed, and itll change. You should find out the address of the DHCP server, and use it to auto config your network.

SnyperBob · 11-01-2004, 01:11 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by LowMileLude

Uh... ok, this is odd.

All my apartment's PCs lost their IP addresses. It first started with my one roomate, then mine and my other roomate lost thiers sometime while we were gone. Had to force it to accept an IP just so I could dial the router. None of the wizards worked and reparing it just locked up the PC. Don't know how I fixed it... but it's working again.

Oh, yeah, this was on the 29th-30th

Yeah, i see that a lot on college campus networks. When the DHCP server goes down - it basically doesn't allow your machine to get an IP address. The people that already have an IP address are unaffected (as long as they don't reboot).

Since you are using wireless, it is probably related to that. I did see in your initial post that you disabled wireless cause you have 5 hardwired machines. Possibly check your settings again and see if it got re enabled some how

LowMileLude · 11-01-2004, 01:22 PM

I checked all the settings when I forced an IP upon it. Then I messed with network and internet connection settings. Rebooted, got the same error, clicked on repair network connection and it ran through some stuff real fast and it's working now.

My other roomate, didn't have to do anything. His PC had the issue. I shut it off, since I didn't have the Admin password to go in and change his settings. He got home from work and it worked fine...

kandyman676 · 11-01-2004, 02:21 PM

odd, i was having a hell of a time keeping my modem online yesterday also. using Comcast @ Home broadband, with a linksys wireless router WRV54G. i knew it was not the router since I could ping internally. i had to keep logging into the router, release my DHCP, and renew. my IP never changed, and it repeated.

also as a sugguestion, you may just want to unplug both your cable modem and router for more then 15min to let the modem's cache clear out. that seemed to clear up my problem last night when I had it unplugged for a few hours with no power on either device.

LowMileLude · 11-01-2004, 04:03 PM

Yeah, I did that. That's alway's the ISP's answer to everything "you need to unplug everything for a minute then plug it back in." I reset the router (held in the button for x number of seconds)... it didn't change the IP or Password on it. Which it normally does after a reset. VERY odd it either didn't reset or the Bios flash keeps that info now.

I HAD been doing a bunch of changes, trying to set up an FTP, network file sharing, remote connect, adjusting firewall settings, etc. So I wasn't sure if it was one of those or not. I released DHCP on the router and it didn't work. Although, when I forced an IP upon my PC, it didn't allow for DHCP enabling... I had to set it back to autodetect and mess with some more stuff before it worked.

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