a cause of a single packet loss?

[bagatur1976]

Hello all,

My connection cuts out very briefly (probably for about 1s) every day between 1 and 2 am. It wouldnt bother me much if it was random, but it is very consistent (it happened every day I was online at that tme for as long as I moved into a new place and got this provider, and that is about 6 months already). I know because I am still online at this time, usually listening to streaming music and playing my online mmorg. The music stops for a short time, and I get disconnected from the game when it happens.
If I run ping between 1 and 2am, I notice a single "request timed out" the 2nd address in tracert (with first being my router). ping to router is fine, but ping to the next and all the following points have that single "request timed out". So something must happen between my router and the nearest ISP's point? What could it possibly be that causes a very brief loss of connection? Is there anything else I could do to find out more about it?
I'd like to know more before I contact my ISP.

Thanks!

 

[kanewolf]

My first guess would be a DHCP lease expiration on either your computer to your router or your router to your ISP. If it is a DHCP lease expiration on your computer to router you could set a static IP address on your computer. If it is a lease expiration with the ISP, there isn't much you can do.

 

[bagatur1976]

Thanx for your reply.
Since ping to my router goes uninterrupted, it could be the latter case. However, wouldnt the loss of connection be longer than 1 second? Wouldnt it require my PC to re-establish connection to the ISP, which takes several seconds at least?
I am not exaggerating how short it is. When streaming music stops playing, I can press stop and play in a second and get the music back.
Also, if it is a new DHCP lease, I could get a different IP? I never checked, but now I will.

 

[kanewolf]

Thanx for your reply.
Since ping to my router goes uninterrupted, it could be the latter case. However, wouldnt the loss of connection be longer than 1 second? Wouldnt it require my PC to re-establish connection to the ISP, which takes several seconds at least?
I am not exaggerating how short it is. When streaming music stops playing, I can press stop and play in a second and get the music back.
Also, if it is a new DHCP lease, I could get a different IP? I never checked, but now I will.

You aren't assured of a different IP. Does your router have any internal logging capabilities? That might show something.

 

[bagatur1976]

Yeah, I never needed to see what my IP was, let alone whether it changed. I am looking at my router page now. There is no long term logging, only what happened today since I turned the router and my notebook on. It shows stuff like my IP address, DNS servers, gateway and the broadband POP addresses. Could be because I have no idea when was the last time I looked at this page.
I will see if it shows anything different after I get disconnected in about 1 hour

 

[bagatur1976]

You were right. I just got disconnected, and my router log showed a bunch of new messages about new IP address, etc. I guess there isnt much I can do about it after all...
Thanks anyway

 

[kanewolf]

You were right. I just got disconnected, and my router log showed a bunch of new messages about new IP address, etc. I guess there isnt much I can do about it after all...
Thanks anyway

It is possible that there is still something "not right". It is probably worth a trouble call to your ISP. Right now, you just have a symptom, you really need to ask the ISP if it is "expected" behavior...