[SOLVED] Internet disconnects every few seconds

[vivibarroscoder]

Hello there!
There was a problem with wiring in my area, so I spent two weeks without internet, and had to change ISPs. But right now, I have a really annoying problem: once every 20~30 minutes, my connection stops working for 5 to 10 seconds, then works again normally. For most things, like watching videos, browsing emails and etc, it almost goes unnoticeable, however it's really annoying for gaming, since it happens randomly, and a 5 second dc is already enough to make me lose a 40 minute match, or to die in a 15 minute boss fight.

- I'm using ethernet, not WiFi. I thought that it was a problem with my ethernet cable, so I bought a new one, but the problem still continues.

- My router is a G240W-A. It was supplied by my new ISP, so I don't know if it's a problem on the router or on the ISP itself.

- Windows 7, motherboard ASRock H61M-HG4, in case that information helps for anything.

I have no idea how to troubleshot this.

 

[bill001g]

Pretty standard methods.

First run a constant ping to your router IP from your pc. You should never see loss here or even large spikes in the latency. Most should be 1ms with tiny spikes to maybe 5ms. This will show if it is something inside your house. If it is good generally the pc, cable and the router are fine.

If that is fine open a second cmd window and leave a ping run to 8.8.8.8 at the same time you are running ping to your router IP.

This one should show the data loss only to the 8.8.8.8 ip address. This should be enough proof for your ISP that there is no issue with your equipment but you see loss in the network.

You can go the next step farther and run a tracert to 8.8.8.8. You would then attempt to ping other hops in the trace to show which is the problem. Most times it is hop 2 which is the first ISP router that has the issues. Doing this is mostly so the ISP does not try to blame the 8.8.8.8 server which is a google DNS server that is duplicated in many cities.

 

[vivibarroscoder]

This is my result: everything ran smoothly for like 40 minutes, then, this happened:

 

[bill001g]

I really hate that message it does not give much a clue why other than it is the PC itself that likely caused it.

You might find messages in the event viewer on the PC. Key will be to get a very good idea exact when it happened so you don't have to dig through huge amounts of data.

You can blindly try another new ethernet cable and hope that was the problem. Make sure you use cat5e or better. Also make sure the cable is pure copper, no cca, and has wire size 22-24, no flat or thin cables.

Sometimes it is driver related but that is not common. Other than that you hope the event viewer gives you a clue.

...another thought after I looked up your motherboard to check the chipset. Make sure any power save options are disabled both in windows and the bios.

 

[vivibarroscoder]

I've looked into the Event Viewer, and I could not find anything relevant, or anything that colided with the times where I got the 5 seconds disconnects.
I could only find some "Information" entries, that said nothing related to the connection. Just stuff entering the "interrupted state" or the "executing state", like this:
"The Automatic Proxy Discovery Service from the Web from the WinHTTP service entered the interrupted state"

As I said on the main post, I could try buy yet another cable, but this one I got is brand new, and I was having the exact same issue with my last ethernet cable, so I think that it's not the cables fault. That being said, I tried connecting through WiFi, using my smartphone to USB Tether, and after pinging on a period of 9h, I only got 1 DC, so it seems that you were right, it's not a problem of the ISP. I just have no idea how to figure out what needs to be replaced. Should I really buy another cable?

By drivers, you mean like the routers firmware, or a driver inside the computer?

And I just checked both Windows and the BIOS, I made sure that both were on "High Performance".

 

[jnam13]

Not sure if this will help but I ran into a similar issue with my internet being unstable. Had similar issues where most web browsing is fine but playing games is where I noticed the instability. Pretty much did the same things as you but this is something I noticed.

I had the same issue even when I hardlined the connection to the router but after some troubleshooting, I figured out that even though I wasn't using my wifi, the router was getting interference from other 2.4 and it kept cycling the IP which caused the instability. I initially ruled out any wifi issues because I was plugged in but because the wifi is still broadcasting, the interference forced it to cycle the ip.

I ran a test and I was getting a lot of interference and I ended up changing the channels on my wifi but ultimately just shut off the 2.4 which fixed the issue. My router isn't cycling anymore and my 5 wasn't getting any interference strong enough to cause it to cycle. If you use 2.4 a lot, you can download a wifi analyzer and see which channels aren't being used. Unfortunately for me my neighbor is using a high end router which basically bullies other connections on the same channel.

Hope that helps. Aside from that, I did have a tech go down and fix any of the connections and splitters which he said weren't in great condition which may attribute to the issue as well.