Internet Connection "Fades Away"

[MourningStar]

First off - Merry Christmas Everyone! Now ...

I am wondering if anyone has experienced this. We have cable, internet and telephone all coming in via our cable provider. Lately my downloading/uploading and web activity just stops for reasons I just cannot understand. Before when this happened we would also lose cable and the phone so I was sure that there was a problem w/the cable company and when I would call to report it, sure enough, there was an outage going on. Also the modem lights would also indicate this. However, now my internet stops altogether while cable and telephone continue to work and all modem lights indicate all should be well. This happens w/o any discernable pattern. Sometimes it's good for hours on end and sometimes it drops out after 10 minutes. The only work-around I have found is to restart the computer everytime this happens. I even tried using the Device Manager and removing the modem and the restart always detects and re-installs it automatically. But the problem continues.

Thnx,
-Marcos

[lgerard]

It sounds like you either have a faulty modem or you are experiencing brief intermittant outages which knock you off the network

who is your cable company?
Is this a hard wire connection or wireless?
Do you get the popups from the tray telling you that your network connection is disabled?

You should have your cable company make a service call to check your line..if they own the modem have them replace it.

Rather then restart your computer do this

settings>network connections
right click on the local area connection icon
click repair

this should restore your connection

[MourningStar]

Thnx for responding lgerard. Your analysis was most helpful. It did turn out to be faulty hardware and, in addition to weak signal. In this case the splitter was replaced and the cable company boosted the signal strength. I was unable to try your suggestion in lieu of the restart as my machine does not have that navigation path. Probably due to my running WinME. Don't see the pop-ups either. Again, probably an XP or later feature. Thnx again good person!

[paddington]

Would surely help if you got off WinME... the MTU sizes and other params were optimized for v90 modems (like 56k in other words) and will keep you from getting the most out of your connection,

also - I had the same issue ou were having a while back and it turned out to be my cable modem going bad...

[MourningStar]

Originally Posted by jameskg

... the MTU sizes and other params were optimized for v90 modems (like 56k in other words) and will keep you from getting the most out of your connection ...

whoooosh! that went over my head. have no idea what all that means other than something affecting my connection. Since my problem is fixed I am happy. My cable modem is a motorola surf something-or-other and it's been most reliable these past 7-or-so years. I've even downloaded well-seeded +4Gb torrents in a matter of a few hours so I'm not complaining. All I really do on this pc is watch a little tv, leech/seed torrents, play & burn cd and dvd, web-surf & email, visit a few forums and photoshop, word, excel. Maybe some autocad when I'm really bored. Never had to do a restore or sytem re-install, never had a virus. This old war-horse will have to die before I move on. Like the saying goes "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

[lgerard]

I am glad you solved your problem.

What james is pointing out to you is that WinMe's internet capability is designed around dialup technology, it is sorely dated, and quite frankly, was pretty crappy when it first came out. It was designed for home users of the Compuserve era, and was obsolete almost immediately.

You may not know what you are missing...but if you are happy..so be it.

[MourningStar]

Originally Posted by lgerard

... You may not know what you are missing...but if you are happy..so be it.

You have me curious now. I would be most interested in learning what I am missing.