Routers on the fritz...

[kelmo]

What causes this? I have had intermittent connection since last night. About 75% of the time I got the dreaded screen... You know the one. You cannot connect or some such.

I know I was not cut off, because 25% of the time I could connect. I was even able to get the patch for UO enhanced on my lap top.

Out of the blue, I had the idea to unplug the router. wait, and plug it back in. Everything is fine now... What would make a router suddenly get stupid?

 

[kelmo]

Now it is happening again...

 

[Skylark SP]

Kelmo,

Powering down the router typically forces it to renegotiate its connection with your modem.

Your router may have an internal component going bad, but it also may be having its connection dropped due to something else going on upstream or downstream in the network (i.e. cable modem going bad, secondary switch or network card in a computer having problems, etc.).

Have you tried taking the router out of the equation by plugging your computer directly into the cable modem and testing connectivity? If you experience the same problems, your router is not the culprit.

-Skylark

 

[Wulf2k]

Whenever somebody uses bittorrent through my router it craps right out, even if the speeds are very slow. I assume it's because it's a cheap piece of crap and can't manage that many connections.

Could anybody else be using something on your router, or is it pretty much just you?

If it's just you, are you sure your computer hasn't been hijacked by malware to become the world's foremost provider of necrophilitic interspecies erotica?

Do what Skylark said, connect directly to the modem (powercycle the modem when you do, many won't give you another IP address till powercycled) and see if you still have problems.

 

[Skylark SP]

Whenever somebody uses bittorrent through my router it craps right out, even if the speeds are very slow. I assume it's because it's a cheap piece of crap and can't manage that many connections.

For NAT routers:

Typical home routers are limited to about 2000 table entries while some more expensive routers have larger table capacities. BitTorrent frequently contacts 300-500 servers per second rapidly filling the NAT tables. This is a common cause of home routers locking up. (Linky)

Not to take away from any deserved "crap" status of your router, but the gateways that ISPs use in residential nodes often can't handle BitTorrent traffic well, either. I've had some interesting chats with cable techs over the years, which have led me to the conclusion that elimination of various users is likely the most effective long term solution to certain connection problems in my neighborhood. But then I realized that there could be real danger of mussing an outfit during such an operation, so decided to live with the fact that my neighbors are doing their best to torrent most of the available content on the Internet in their spare time.

-Skylark

 

[Wulf2k]

elimination of various users is likely the most effective long term solution to certain connection problems in my neighborhood.

I'd say it's still the cable company's fault for selling 'unlimited' internet. If I go to an all you-can-eat buffet and all the good food is gone, I wouldn't get mad at the people that ate all they could eat. I'd be mad at the company that said I could eat all I could eat but didn't give me enough to eat.

...Now I'm hungry.

Also, I'm sure cable techs have learned over the years that "It's your neighbours that are the problem. Go hate your neighbours..." makes for a more relaxing installation-conversation than "Yeah, our service sucks, and we're serving 1,500 people using nothing but cat4 cable and hubs connected to a 56K modem backbone."

 

[kelmo]

I am beginning to believe it is indeed an IP issue.

 

[Shamus Turlough]

Or it could just be a bad router. You would not believe the number of residential routers I see just go bad for no reason. First symptom I see is it locks up and has to be power cycled to unlock.

 

[kelmo]

But, but, but it is brand new!

 

[UOKaiser]

What causes this? I have had intermittent connection since last night. About 75% of the time I got the dreaded screen... You know the one. You cannot connect or some such.

I know I was not cut off, because 25% of the time I could connect. I was even able to get the patch for UO enhanced on my lap top.

Out of the blue, I had the idea to unplug the router. wait, and plug it back in. Everything is fine now... What would make a router suddenly get stupid?

I had a problem with something very similar with a certain verizon dsl wireless router. Unfortunetly this was a common problem with that model and because I was out of warranty and would had to pay a little for a new one I came in luck when my neighbor moved and left behind another verizon type modem less advance but good enough took it and configured it to work with my account then just used my linksys as a router.
Anyway just sharing this story as you might want to check on the internet if anybody else is having the same or similar problems with your model maybe there is a solution for it. Still will need to check around there have being some badly made routers out there lately.

 

[Skylark SP]

But, but, but it is brand new!

Sadly, there are far more electronics lemons than vehicle ones out there. I have had to return brand new equipment several times for defects.

-Skylark

 

[willreed]

I can only log into UO and run anywhere from minimum of 2 minutes up to max of 5 minutes.

Living in SP running these time on/off intervals isn't healthy.

*off to take the cable modem out of the picture* - Thank you Skylark

Vesrapia-SP
Thump-LS