Internet Troubles - Can Any EN World Computer Techies Help Me?

[Olaf the Stout]

Hi all,

I'm posting this message in frustration as much as anything else. I'm having trouble with my broadband internet connection. If any EN Worlder out there could help me I would really appreciate it. Here's the (somewhat long) story.

Earlier this week I got a broadband connection for my computer, replacing the much slower dial-up service I previously had. After a couple of hiccups I got it all set up and working.

Since then I have had 1 major problem with the connection though. It works perfectly well for about an hour or so, but then the connection drops out. Power cycling the modem does nothing. Turning off the firewall/internet security also does nothing. The only way I have been able to get the connection back is to restart the computer. Not exactly an ideal situation.

It is even more frustrating because I have recently found an online version of the Games Workshop game Blood Bowl and I have been playing online against other people. 3 times now the connection has dropped out in the middle of a game, pretty much wasting the previous hour or so we had spent playing.

I have called my ISP tech support. They provided the helpful hints of power cycling my modem, turning off my firewall/internet security and/or restarting the computer. Restarting the computer gets my connection back but it does absolutely nothing to stop the problem from happening again, something that the techs I have dealt with don't seem to comprehend. They seem to think that, since I have got my connection back, their work is done.

The ISP techs seem to think that my firewall is the problem and that if I turn it off I won't have any problems. I have big doubts that my firewall is the problem. I don't know a whole lot about how firewalls work but I would think that it is odd that the connection would work fine with the firewall for 1-2 hours and then suddenly become a problem. I use Nortons for my internet security. They aren't exactly a crappy company. I doubt that they would make a firewall that worked fine for a bit and then suddenly blocked my broadband modem from working. And even if the firewall was the problem, I really don't think that I would want to surf the net without any security protection.

So can any EN Worlder out there help me to solve my problem? If tearing my hair out in frustration trying to deal with tech support (when I finally get through after 30 mins on hold). The only other thing I could think of is that I have only put a splitter on the phone connection that has the broadband on it. The other phone points don't have one. If this was a problem, I shouldn't be able to use the phone and the internet at the same time, should I?

Help me EN World. You're my only hope!

Olaf the Stout

 

[Goldmoon]

Are you using cable or DSL and is it wireless or not?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

It is a DSL connection, not a cable connection. No wireless connection. It's connected directly via the wall outlet. The only thing we have that is wireless is a couple of portable phones. These portable phones do not have a splitter on their base unit. Could that possibly be causing the problem?

If it is causing the probem, why would it work for 1-2 hours and then stop working?

Thanks for your help,

Olaf the Stout

 

[ssampier]

I was a DSL support tech for 2 years. It's hard to help because I can't see your premise or judge how your telco decided to hook everything up.

In my experience, software firewalls are a serious pain to support. Some work fine, others do not work so fine. If you have the resources, buy a router. That will secure you until we can troubleshoot the problem.

Now with the router attached to your DSL modem and your computer attached to the router, temporarily disable Norton Internet Security. See how long you can stay connected.

To get my DSL to work, I had to have an outside splitter installed in the NIU (the box outside your house). That way, the phone do not receive DSL signal at all and don't interfere. Without the outside splitter, my phone would remain noisy, even with the microfilters on the phone.

Without the outside filters, you would still need the micro-line filters on each phone. Splitters are tricky to get working with the filters.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I was a DSL support tech for 2 years. It's hard to help because I can't see your premise or judge how your telco decided to hook everything up.

In my experience, software firewalls are a serious pain to support. Some work fine, others do not work so fine. If you have the resources, buy a router. That will secure you until we can troubleshoot the problem.

Now with the router attached to your DSL modem and your computer attached to the router, temporarily disable Norton Internet Security. See how long you can stay connected.

To get my DSL to work, I had to have an outside splitter installed in the NIU (the box outside your house). That way, the phone do not receive DSL signal at all and don't interfere. Without the outside splitter, my phone would remain noisy, even with the microfilters on the phone.

Without the outside filters, you would still need the micro-line filters on each phone. Splitters are tricky to get working with the filters.

At the moment, I am testing how things go without Norton Internet Security. I'm going to leave it off for the next hour or so and see if the connection suddenly stops working.

How much are routers normally? And what is their actual function?

Just to further murky the waters a bit more, (and to provide you with a bit more information) when we built the house about a year and a half ago we got data cabling installed throughout the house. The computer is in the room where they set up the hub (i.e. I have an outlet in the wall that has a connection point to all the other rooms). I remember the tech that set it all up telling me that he installed a filter or splitter (unfortunately I can't remember which) when he set up the data cabling. He said he did it so it would be easier when we got broadband.

At the moment I have not attached the splitter that came with the modem to my phone point. The phone line runs directly from the computer to the wall connection. I have not attached splitter to any of the other phone connections in my house either. I have be able to use the internet and the phone at the same time (when the connection is working) without any problems. I don't get any static or interference on the phone line.

Is it possible that this set-up is causing the problem somehow? Or is it just that the tech must have installed splitters and/or filters in the walls when he set up the data cabling? I there are no splitters in the wall I shouldn't be able to use the phone and internet at the same time, should I?

I hope this extra information is useful somehow. Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.

Olaf the Stout

 

[megamania]

Besides this problem, how has the switch gone?

I am on a dial-up with old phone lines and it takes forever to do anything on the net. I have long been thinking about Verizon's DSL but always back out. Reading this further scares me.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Apart from the problem of the connection cutting out after 1 1/2 hours and me having to restart the computer, it has been great. Downloading things on dial-up used to be horrible. At best I could download about 10 meg in an hour. Some PDF's that I have bought have been 30-40 meg. That means 3-4 hours of download time.

I don't know what your dial-up is like, but mine had an auto-disconnect feature. It meant that if you didn't load any new pages up in the last 20 minutes, it would disconnect you. I guess that was to stop people from hogging one of the connections. However, this meant that whenever I downloaded something I couldn't just start the download and go and do something else. I had to either do something else on the computer, or remember to come back every 15 minutes and click on a new webpage, just to make sure that it didn't disconnect me. That was definitely a pain I look forward to not having to deal with.

Not having to wait for web pages to load is also a boon. Whenever Windows would download updates for the computer (which seemed to be all the time), my browser would slow to a crawl and take forever to load webpages. Now everything happens straight away.

The other big bonus is being able to use the home phone and be on the internet at the same time. Getting cut off halfway through a download because someone called the home phone wasn't fun. Trying to fix connection problems with tech support with only one phone line was especially bad. It meant that I would have to hang up and give changes a try. If the problem wasn't fixed I would have to call tech support back, be put on hold again and then go through the problem all over again with a completely different person. Not fun at all.

So, as I said before, I'm happy to now have the broadband. I just wish there wasn't the disconnection problem.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Well I have now been online for almost 2 hours now without the connection playing up. This time around I disconnected the firewall/anti-virus auto protect before logging on. So maybe my internet security software is the problem.

The only other thing that it different is that I haven't been actively using the connection in that time. I have posted a couple of messages here and on the Paizo boards and that's it. Without an internet security I don't really want to browse at large. This was just a test to see if the internet security software might be the issue. I wonder if it wasn't so much the time limit that was causing the disconnection. Maybe it was a download limit that I reached? I doubt this is the case though as I don't really download any songs or video from the internet.

(I just checked and in the last 5 days, I have used 74 meg of downloads. That is probably spread out over at least 5 different occasions. I wouldn't have thought that would be too high a download amount for it to disconnect me.)

If it is my internet security software, what do I do now then? I really don't want to browse the internet without any protection, especially since I sometimes use it for online banking and things like that. What will installing a router, as ssampier suggested, do?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

It looks like my Norton's Internet Security is almost certainly the problem. I was able to stay connected to the internet for 4+ hours yesterday. I had set my internet security to come back on after 4 hours. Sure enough, not long after it came back on I lost my connection. :\

So now what can I do? I have discovered that Windows XP has a firewall. Is that good enough protection or do I need to get something else? Is there any way to fix the problem of my internet security cutting off my internet connection?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Merkuri]

My favorite software firewall, which I've been using for years and is free, is ZoneAlarm. You can give that a try. I find it easy to use and understand, but I'm also in the technology field, so I can't really judge what it's like for those who aren't as intimately familiar with computers as I am.