Router Having Sporadic Outages or Hangups

[brownsfan019 17]

I am using a Netgear router that has been running like a champ for a few years now. Recently I've been having these internet hangups where my internet will go out for a few seconds to an hour or more. Initially I thought it might be the internet service itself since it's had hangups before but over the weekend when it went out, I just unplugged the router and plugged it back in and it came back up quickly. I repeated this again later.

 

So it appears to me that the router is suddenly just hanging up or freezing. Like I said, I did the 'unplug, plug back in' normal fix but it's not fixing it this time.

 

Any other suggestions from our tech guys or is it time to find a new router?

 

If it is time to just scrap this one, what are reliable brands/models to look at?

 

thanks

[throughthemud 10]

linksys performs pretty well for me but i'm still doubtful it's all the router's fault. you could try a new router and if you have the same problem just return it and get a new isp.

[brownsfan019 17]

linksys performs pretty well for me but i'm still doubtful it's all the router's fault. you could try a new router and if you have the same problem just return it and get a new isp.

 

I thought it was the ISP initially too but the problem is resolved immediately if I unplug the router (not the modem) and plug it back in. When this has occurred before and it was on the ISP end, I had to unplug the router and modem.

 

As for a new ISP, that's not an option here. If I want 'high speed' it's Time Warner or bust. Just the location I am in. I looked at U-verse (which is available) but it has so many restrictions on TV usage that it wouldn't work here. I might get them as a backup internet only provider though.

[Tams 20]

are you using Vista? How old is your router?

 

 

VISTA and W7 uses a new IP stack. It is not compatible with "some" older model routers.

 

That's why you will see the new routers with "VISTA Ready" label on them.

[throughthemud 10]

ok i see. it probably is the router then. if your netgear was good for a few years i would just try another. i think i had a netgear before that was great and I never had any problems with it. i'm using linksys now and it seems fine

[brownsfan019 17]

are you using Vista? How old is your router?

 

 

VISTA and W7 uses a new IP stack. It is not compatible with "some" older model routers.

 

That's why you will see the new routers with "VISTA Ready" label on them.

 

Vista: No

Router Age: approx 3 yrs

 

ok i see. it probably is the router then. if your netgear was good for a few years i would just try another. i think i had a netgear before that was great and I never had any problems with it. i'm using linksys now and it seems fine

 

That's my guess too but was wondering if anyone had other ideas of a quick fix.

 

thanks!

[diablo272 10]

I'm surprised yours has lasted 3 years. Back in the time when I was a serious gamer (many many hours of online gaming per day), I would probably go through one router every 9 months or so. I finally tried to put Smoothwall on an old computer I had, and I've never had a problem since. I think they do make much more robust versions of commercial routers that would probably be as good as a Smoothwall, but I haven't looked into them. My advice is to stay far away from the $20-50 routers though when you replace yours, because to me it sounds like it's dead. Though a way to test is to just plug straight into the modem, bypassing the router.

 

Also if you're worried about setting up smoothwall, there are many guides online that will walk you through the process. I am horrible in linux and know next to nothing about networking, and it wasn't too much of a problem for me my first time.

Edited September 14, 2009 by diablo272

[ant 10]

Hey Brownsfan,

 

It may be that you need to replace your router, but before you do, here are a few questions to try to narrow it down further. Just in case it's a bad ethernet port, loss of configuration, or an intermittent internet problem... If you already went through all this, just disregard.

 

How do you determine that the Netgear router is hanging?

Are you pinging directly from the router to the internet or are you pinging from a PC connected to it?

Are all your connected devices losing connectivity (i.e., have you tried other router ports)?

Run "ipconfig" from a command prompt and verify that an IP address is still assigned to your PC.

Is the router getting an IP address from your ISP? Check your network connection on router.

Can you ping between PCs/devices directly connected to the router?

You may want to try to do a "tracert www.yahoo.com" to verify that it's not getting through your router, if you haven't tried it already?

Have you tried restoring to the router defaults and reconfiguring?

 

Hope this helps.

[brownsfan019 17]

Hey Brownsfan,

 

It may be that you need to replace your router, but before you do, here are a few questions to try to narrow it down further. Just in case it's a bad ethernet port, loss of configuration, or an intermittent internet problem... If you already went through all this, just disregard.

 

Ant - I will do my best to answer but be prepared for some I know enough of this stuff to be dangerous but obviously not as advanced as you've presented here. Let me know what you think.

 

How do you determine that the Netgear router is hanging?

My internet just stops working on all the computers I have here, which currently is 5 or so. If I click IE or FF it can't connect and gives me an error.

 

Are you pinging directly from the router to the internet or are you pinging from a PC connected to it?

I use the router wirelessly and hard-wired directly to the router, which is then connected to the modem. Hope that's what you're asking.

Are all your connected devices losing connectivity (i.e., have you tried other router ports)?

As it currently stands, everything loses connectivity but I have not tried adjusting different ports for the hard-wired computers (which is only 2).

 

Run "ipconfig" from a command prompt and verify that an IP address is still assigned to your PC.

How do I verify that?

 

Is the router getting an IP address from your ISP? Check your network connection on router.

How do I check that?

 

Can you ping between PCs/devices directly connected to the router?

Not sure how to do that...

 

You may want to try to do a "tracert www.yahoo.com" to verify that it's not getting through your router, if you haven't tried it already?

Once again.... how do I do that?

 

Have you tried restoring to the router defaults and reconfiguring?

No I have not and at this point, that's probably not a bad idea. Only question is how to do that...

 

 

Sorry I'm not more help, but like I said, I can get around and manage my day-to-day stuff fine, but as soon as something breaks then I have to teach myself what the issue could be.

 

Thanks for your assistance.

[Tams 20]

there is a conspiracy theory... that Microsoft has a dirty trick to get you to install their periodic updates -- they slow your computer down until you blame everything insight. Then your computer will miraculously restore to normal once you have completed your updates.

 

;-)

[ant 10]

Brown,

 

OK, so all your PCs lose connectivity, wireless and hardwired PCs. Some follow up questions...

 

What type of Netgear router do you have? I dug up a Netgear ProSafe VPN Firewall FVS114 router that I used to use. If that's what you have, I could try to step you through some other steps.

 

From one of your hardwired PCs, open a command prompt window by going to Programs->Run and then enter "cmd" in the text box and hit return. In the command prompt window that's displayed, enter "ipconfig" to get the IP address of the PC. Once you have the IP address, go to the other hardwired PC and open a command prompt window the same way, but this time enter the command "ping <IP address of the other hardwired PC>". Are the pings successful?

 

Next, do the same thing and try to ping a wireless computer.

 

From the hardwired PC, try to ping 69.147.76.15 (that's Yahoo BTW). Were the pings successful?

 

If you have a Netgear FVS114 router, I could step you through other stuff.

 

Again, you may have a bad router, but thought it would be worth going through these steps to verify a few things. Let me know if you don't think this is worth the time.

[ant 10]

Come to think of it, you probably have a different Netgear router because mine does not support wireless devices. Let's try a few other things.

 

Open a web browser and log into your Netgear router. I'm not sure what the user interface looks like, but I would think that it's not too different from mine.

 

Under Maintenance, click on "Router Status" and see if it provides you information about the WAN port. If so, what is the IP address of the WAN port?

 

Under Maintenance, click on "Attached Devices" and see how many devices are attached with an IP address assigned.

 

Under Maintenance, click on "Diagnostics" and ping the IP address of Yahoo! provided in my previous post. Are the pings successful?

 

EDIT: Just check that the WAN port has an IP address assigned to it, no need to tell me what it is.

Edited September 15, 2009 by ant

[brownsfan019 17]

Ant - will try this out later after the trading day is over and report back.

 

Thanks!

[waveslider 10]

Brown,

I am having a similar issue.

From what I understand this issue may be related to a ".NET" update that XP users are downloading.

It may not be your router.

Has your computer recently installed new updates from MSFT? all of this happened around 9/11 (coincidnece? ha ha)

[brownsfan019 17]

Brown,

I am having a similar issue.

From what I understand this issue may be related to a ".NET" update that XP users are downloading.

It may not be your router.

Has your computer recently installed new updates from MSFT? all of this happened around 9/11 (coincidnece? ha ha)

 

As a matter of fact, yes. I am running XP on all computers and all computers recently had a bulk of updates done.

 

Any links you can direct me to?

 

Thanks

[waveslider 10]

No.. I am in the same boat as you...

[HAL9000 10]

Hi Brown,

 

every once in while, I have also problems with my router (its not a Netgear),

from time to time (maybe every two months?!) it hangs (BTW. mine is older than 3 years).

 

While for me its difficult to say, why your router hangs,

in my case, I restart it now once every month.

 

I have updated my routers FIRMWARE in the meantime,

maybe you should consider this for your router too.

 

Well, but two weeks ago I was in trouble, because even a restart of my router

didn't worked out. After talking with my internet provider, who made it clear to me,

that the problem was on my side, I found the problem:

 

While my router thought, it was connected to the WAN via ppp0,

in fact it wasn't (I saw it within the routers logfile).

 

After connecting the router manually instead of auto after a restart,

its was internally within the right state again.

Since then, after setting it to auto mode again, it runs smooth again.

 

So in my case the problem is hidden within the communication protocols

used by my LAN router and my WAN router.

Maybe I have to check for newer FIRMWARE again.

 

Anyway, I just told you that, because these things can be rather strange,

and a new router just might cause new (other) trouble.

 

Best thing for you might be, if you know/find someone,

who will do this for you at your home. (IMO)

 

Regards,

 

Hal

Edited September 15, 2009 by HAL9000
;-) As always.

[thrunner 10]

..

I have updated my routers FIRMWARE in the meantime,

maybe you should consider this for your router too.

 

Well, but two weeks ago I was in trouble, because even a restart of my router

didn't worked out. After talking with my internet provider, who made it clear to me,

that the problem was on my side, I found the problem:

 

While my router thought, it was connected to the WAN via ppp0,

in fact it wasn't (I saw it within the routers logfile).

 

After connecting the router manually instead of auto after a restart,

its was internally within the right state again.

Since then, after setting it to auto mode again, it runs smooth again....

No one seem to have mentioned that you should reset the router and not just restart it. This usually involves pressing a small button in the back of the router with the tip of a pen or paper clip, for about 3 seconds. You will lose your initial setting and password. However it ensures that you are not using a corrupted or incorrect configuration, assuming you know how to properly set up your ISP with your router. There is also a matter of MAC address cloning with some cable ISPs that may require you to record the correct NIC MAC address which was assigned by the ISP initially to the original PC.

[ant 10]

No one seem to have mentioned that you should reset the router and not just restart it.

 

I had suggested that in my first post. I guess great mind's think alike.

 

The approach I was suggesting to Brown was to verify that the problem is indeed with the Netgear router and not the modem, for example. If I had his problem, I would verify the following:

• The router's WAN port was assigned an IP address.
  
• The attached and wireless devices were assigned IP addresses.
  
• The wireless and hardwired devices can communicate with each other.
  
• Determine if the ping requests (i.e., internet connectivity) from the router and PCs are failing at the router or at the modem.
  

 

If any one of those steps fail, I would suspect the router and would proceed with the router reset/reconfiguration, and possibly downloading the latest firmware, as suggested by someone else. If all that fails, the router most likely needs to be replaced.

 

If all of the above tests pass, then I would direct the attention to the modem and perform similar troubleshooting steps. Probably the first think I would try in this case is bypass the router, if possible, and see if a PC can reach the internet when directly connected to the modem or if a "ping" directly from the modem to a public website is successful.

 

There are a lot of good suggestions here, but I think Brown needs to approach this systematically to isolate the problem.

 

Brown, if you'd like, we can start a chat session on TL! and I can step you through these steps pretty quickly I think.

[BlowFish 10]

Could be a variety of things. I am having similar issues my self and its driving me potty. Changing the router fixed one particular problem (intermittent packet loss) however the line still looses sync. Routers do fail especially if they are somewhere without good airflow.

 

I have had the ISP run all sorts of checks and the telco engineers have been to my house twice to run tests on the line (there test gear is quite sophisticated now and should be capable of spotting intermittent problems). As I have a rough idea what the figures for signal to noise ratio and line attenuation should be (and the router shows these) I can keep telling them that things are un acceptable

 

Despite this the problem remains and the fault can not be found. I am just about to call them to get them to put me on a completely different port on the DSLAM at the exchange. If that still has problems I will ask the telco to use a different cable pair to the house.

 

If I where you I would get the ISP to run checks first and be prepared to swap the router (simply to eliminate it as the issue).

Edited September 16, 2009 by BlowFish

[TheNegotiator 13]

Hi,

 

I have exactly the same issue with a Netgear router. I am running NT (which I know uses .NET as I had to completely reinstall it when NT wouldn't run on one of my machines) so that could tie in with what waveslider said. However, my Netgear also performs and additional trick 'seemingly' at random points. It reassigns IP addresses which are already in use. So this sounds a little more like what Hal was talking about with the router's communication protocols. However, whether it be software, hardware or a combination of both, the problem is about a lack of understanding of the problem and the time it takes us to change that.

 

Windows is a pain but the majority of us use it. I know that there are traders who swear by linux, but not all trading platforms support it. Plus, you've then gotta learn a whole new OS with potentially its own problems.

 

The 2 actions which I am considering are:-

 

1)Getting a new router. I heard that the original Linksys routers were very good which is probably why Cisco bought them. Also, I found out that you can really improve them by changing the software on them.

 

Hack Attack: Turn your $60 router into a $600 router - DIY - Lifehacker

 

2)Gamers have internet issues too and although this may not solve the intermittent router issues, perhaps it will help get me back to a semblence of the kind of performance I had when connected through a fixed line to exchanges. This NIC ( Network Interface Card), bypasses the Windows Networking Stack completely and has its own processor onboard. Means the Net function should get as clogged up.

 

Amazon.com: Bigfoot Killer NIC 10/100/1000 PCI 400 MHz NPU RJ-45 USB 2.0 Retail: Electronics

 

We are getting into more complicated territory now however. Without a capable IT guy(and if you aren't yourself then how do you know?) or trading from an office of some sort of trading facility(who have their own IT), you have to do it yourself or think of something else.

 

I am thinking of those 2 options above, but a simple solution is to get a 2nd line in from your cable company or even get and additional one from an alternative provider. Then, plug in your trading PC directly and you can forget the damn router completely and don't have to worry about the traffic load on the line either. The cheapest solution would be just to buy a new router though. Not the one above necessarily. I felt that one would be good if I was going to reconfigure it myself. Without buying a high end commercial router, I believe the Cisco routers are very good.

 

Linksys by Cisco Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router WRT320N

 

Get a Gigabit one if you do though.(i.e.10/100/1000).

 

Anyway, just some thoughts that I'd already mulled over!!

 

jk.

[brownsfan019 17]

Good stuff guys, as always. If you couldn't tell, I'm not nearly versed in this stuff as some of you so at this point I'm thinking new router (to at least eliminate that as a possible issue). Before I do that though, will be updating the software and such as recommended here. Going to poke around google as well to see what I might find about this being a MSFT conflict issue. For some reason that would not surprise me.

[Tams 20]

I have an extra of everything...

 

extra keyboard, extra mouse, extra monitor, extra harddisk, extra computer...

 

and an extra router

 

 

at $25 a piece for the cheapest (might not be the best)... it is a price/time-effective deduction.

[Soultrader 12]

Hi Brownsfan, not sure if you've found a solution yet but wanted to add some input. I've seen this problem happen even within banks. In one case, after installing a new trading platform we were experiencing some network delay issues. It wasnt that noticeable in the start but after about 6 weeks the delays became more frequent and sometimes I was experiencing getting logged off from my execution system. We checked the ISP and ran a traceroute. Nothing seemed to be wrong.

 

A friend of mine told me about TCPView: TCPView for Windows

 

This tool monitors in real-time the connectivity for all various points in the router. We noticed that one IP address was spiking 5 folds on a frequent basis. This was the cause for the delays. Im not sure if this sample will apply to you, but maybe worth downloading the tool? Its free from Microsoft.

[brownsfan019 17]

Update:

 

I downloaded a firmware update, which also had me reset the router to factory settings. So now the router has the latest firmware update and it did a complete reboot. Running good so far, but we'll see. If this doesn't do the trick, going to order a new one.