CONNECTION

[scaley]

OK I hope you can help. Just recently I have had trouble with my connection. I use a cable modem which works just fine but then every five minutes or so goes dead and no amount of clicking makes anything happen. then after a minute it will seem to wake up and go to the last website/page clicked on at normal speed. Until the next sleeping period. As you can imagine this is really really bloody annoying. Any ideas. You usually do!

[Steven.Bentley]

When it goes to sleep, bring up a DOS box and see if you can ping any servers, such as your mail server for example.

ping pop.yourisp.com

or whatever and look to see if you get replies or timeouts - that will help to see if your connection is dropping or if the browser is going mad etc.

[Spider]

Hi scaley,

It is possible your ISP is either doing on-the-fly changes/upgrades
to the service or they are having problems maintaining leases for
customers.

You can reacquire a node lease (your IP probably dynamic) by
first dropping lease on the node you have (releasing your computer
from it's assigned IP).

To do this;
Start/Run.../type winipcfg
click OK

Default opens with the PPP Adapter showing. You don't need to
but just so you can see the IP assigned to you and if it changes

Select from the pop down menu your NIC card.
click Release All button
IP number will go to all zeros
click Renew All button

You should now have either reacquired your same IP or acquired
a new one. Test connection (open IE).

As a rule-of-thumb high-speed ISPs usually assign leases for 48hrs.

[Steven.Bentley]

Hi Spider

here in the UK we haven't had the problems excite have had over in the States (and perhaps in Canada, not sure) there are two companies offering cable internet, NTL and Telewest, which are the two largest Cable television providers.

As I understand it (I don't have cable net just yet myself ) the ip is fairly static, by that I mean it doesn't change each time you connect but it changes perhaps every few months

On NT (the version of Windows I'm most familiar with, not sure about 98 but I know it won't work in 95) if you open up a DOS window and type

ipconfig /all

the bottom of the output of that will tell you how long you have the lease for.

[scaley]

Dear Steven Bentley

Sorry but how do I get A DOS BOX?

[smurfy]

scaley, it depends what operating system you have.
Try Start>Run>CMD
or Start>Run>Command

[scaley]

OK I did the ping thing.....results were four packets sent out and four received back. Time 47ms. Means nothing to me but to you.......................?????

[Steven.Bentley]

Certainly does mean something to me

It means that you are connected to the internet, which makes me think that if you're connected the problem is more likely to be some kind of problem with the browser rather than the cable modem service.

First thing I'd do now is reinstall/upgrade Internet Explorer and see if that fixes anything.

[scaley]

I have the latest IE from Microsoft I always upgrade from their site when they have one. I have also re-installed it although i did not uninstall it first. Thought it would be risky, might loose things I did not want to lose, but I will if you think it will solve this bloody problem. One thing i have noticed my browser regularly crashes and send an error reoprt to Microsoft. I never hear anything from them but it keeps on doing it if I press OK. A connection perhaps?

[Mr1drful]

hi scaley
just a couple things that may be usefull.

1) do you have a firewall ? it's possible someone is sharing your connection without your knowledge.

2) does this only happen with one site ? maybe the site is having server problems.

3) have you tried the IE repair feature ?
add/remove programs
highlight IE
click "remove"
chose "repair internet explorer"

"just my 2 pence"

[scaley]

yesI have a firewall and i ran the ie fix as you suggested. no improvement.

[Steven.Bentley]

You're unlikely to hear anything from MS using the problem report form

Can you just clarify what version numbers of Windows, IE and mail program you're running?

[scaley]

Both are version 6

[Steven.Bentley]

I have to say I'm at a complete loss on this one. Only thing I can think of is that it may be an issue that your cable company's Tech Support have come across before - give them a call and see if they have any clues.

[scaley]

ok thanks for your help and I still have the prob but the biggest problem is getting through to tech support. I was hanging on for over an hour on this one and gave up. Still nothing you can do about that. Happy Christmas.