[quietjim]

I'm having a problem with my home network. The network consists of:

sbcglobal.net DSL --> Netgear MR814 --> Airport Express --> 15" Al PB, 12" AL PB
an iMac connects on a wired connection to the Netgear MR 814.

When the connection drops, all machines lose internet connectivity; they can still connect to the router. The DSL modem status lights show connection.

There doesn't seem to be any pattern. Sometimes the connection will stay up for hours, even a day or two then drop; sometimes it will repeatedly drop every 5 minutes or so.

Main use: web surving and email. No real games online. All the machines have firewalls on and the router has an enabled firewall.

The router has the most recent firmware upgrade. This whole setup worked perfectly until around Christmas, when it suddenly seemed to get flakey.

Any suggestions appreciated!

[banninated68]

Complain to SBC. Same thing happens to me. It just gets flakey every once in a while, then it seems to even out again.

[Since EBCDIC]

This is the funniest / strangest thing I've heard. I recently switched to Comcast cable and subsequently see a complete Ethernet connection drop every few days. The only way to recover is to reboot the Al Book, though I haven't tried putting it to sleep and then waking it; next time.

I played around with rebooting the cable box and the Belkin WiFi router, but after all permutations were done it became obvious that it's something in Mac OS X 10.4.5 (now .6) which is getting confused and dropping the connection.

For the record, I always have an active network connection with streaming music and / or p2p running on this 1.5 GHz Al PB. It happens when the machine is idle, and when the machine is being typed on. Curiouser and curiouser. Meh.

[©öñFü$íóÑ]

i get the same thing on my DSL and i'm on Windows XP. I'm also behind a router and have 2 other computers hooked up to it. My provider mentioned the following as culprits for dropped connections:

1) Line noise: make sure you have functional DSL filters attached to all phone outlets in your home. Probably doesn't apply if you're behind a dedicated DSL line.... While you're at it, you might want to check with your phone company to condition the phone wiring in your home... and/or the wiring outside as well.

2) Excessively long phone cord... make sure the phone cord you use to connect your DSL modem to the phone outlet isn't too long, coiled up, tangled, or bent. Remember, "the shorter, the better".

3) Poor quality phone cord... in addition to the above, make sure that you don't use those 'slim' chords.... use the thick, old-fashioned ones that have more copper in them and double-check to see that the leads on the connector ends are shiny and not corroded, rusted, or has debris in it.

4) Use a high-quality LAN cord

5) Keep both the router and the DSL modem as far from any other sources of interference as possible. This includes, but is not limited to: CPU power supplies, monitors, computer speakers, microwaves, tv antennae, cordless phones and cell phones.

Hope this helps some....

[Since EBCDIC]

©öñFü$íóÑ,

Thanks so much for the quick reply. Yeah, if you don't use the DSL filters, or have worn cables, or try running hundreds of feet of cable, you might have a problem. Generally, though, regular home users are okay on these scores. (I used to manage several TCP/IP test beds, and now support two sets of grandparents, so I feel like I've got a handle on both sides of the curve.)

As to interference, I'm feeling like calling shenanigans on that. In our machine rooms hardware is cheek by jowl with other hardware and power supplies, and it all works just fine.

Based upon my testing, that is to say, removing one item at a time to isolate the troublesome element, it's Mac OS X that is causing the problems. I've narrowed it down, in my case, to the Al PB going deaf. It hasn't happened again since my last post, so I haven't tried putting it to sleep and waking it up, but it's clearly nothing else in the connection chain.

I *may* try to do a fresh install of Tiger and then restore my home directory and the /Library stuff, but that'll have to wait a few weeks. Thanks again, BTW.

[ghporter]

In some locations, SBC's DSL is more dependable than in other places. And just because the "connection" light on the modem is lit, doesn't mean that you have a real connection. Power cycle the modem. If that fixes your intermittent problems every time, after four or five times, call SBC's tech support and let 'em know what's going on. You may have to insist to speak to a second tier tech; this is outside the first tier's script. Be firm but polite, and do NOT accept "our end is fine" as an answer.

[quietjim]

Thanks for the ideas. As to the connection, I actually filter out the DSL when the line comes into the house. This is how SBC did it when they were doing the installation and I think it works better than those self-installable filters for individual hand sets. It also allows me to run a short cable to the DSL modem and then to the router.

My sense is that the people who said SBC just gets flakey once in a while have it about right. There doesn't seem to be a fix, just something to live with. It comes and goes.

[ghporter]

A lot of it has to do with how old the wires to the house are; The older (and less sturdy) they wires are, the more problems you'll have-and the more often you'll have them. Places with newly installed phone lines will have more reilable, faster DSL. The best situation you can have is newly installed cables from the telephone Central Office (or Remote Terminal) all the way to the jack you plug the modem into (including inside the house).

[©öñFü$íóÑ]

Check this out.... my DSL connection is a 3Mb (down)/384Kb (up).

And one weird thing about my connection is that even tho the connection is still active and i haven't lost my ip address from the DNS server(s), i look at the data throughput monitors (provided with Windows XP) and see that i'm not sending or receiving any data.... EVEN when i sent a request to browse any website. Sometimes when i download Linux distros, my downloads slow down to around 10KB/s and even down to a halt and i have no choice but to restart the downoad.

I even tried this on my networked Mac and website requests still didn't go through.....(it still had the broadcasted IP address from the router and showed the DNS servers that it connects to).

However, this doesn't occur when i play an online FPS game or use a P2P program.

So my only temporary solution for this is to run an P2P program in the background that'll FORCE my connection to stay active by sending/receiving minimal data packets to and from my DSL provider, this -should- simulate 'normal' traffic. As long as any computer on my network uses an 'always-active' p2p program, ALL of my computers can browse the internet without these weird network pauses or halts.

[Since EBCDIC]

Originally Posted by ©öñFü$íóÑ

...even tho the connection is still active and i haven't lost my ip address from the DNS server(s)...

You won't magically lose your IP address just because the connection is down, only when your DNS lease expires. In fact, that's how TCP/IP is designed: the connection can be cut and all will be quiesent until it's reestablished.

If the lease expires while the connection is down, or for some other reasons, you'll get a "self-assigned" IP address (which won't be good for much). The Mac OS X Network Prefs panel will tell you whether the IP you have is from a DNS server or self-assigned.