Question Need help figuring out why the internet drops randomly

[WrongRookie]

I got an RT-AX3000 router but occasionally i get internet cutting briefly and then connecting it again. Can anyone help?

This is the log incase it helps with the issue.

Apr 20 13:42:58 kernel: eth4 (Int switch port: 4) (Logical Port: 4) (phyId: c) Link DOWN.

Apr 20 13:43:07 WAN(0) Connection: Fail to connect with some issues.

Apr 20 13:43:17 WAN(0) Connection: WAN(0) link down.

Apr 20 13:43:27 kernel: eth4 (Int switch port: 4) (Logical Port: 4) (phyId: c) Link Up at 1000 mbps full duplex

Apr 20 13:43:28 WAN(0) Connection: WAN(0) link up.

Apr 20 13:43:28 rc_service: wanduck 1422:notify_rc restart_wan_if 0

Apr 20 13:43:32 pppd[29866]: pppd 2.4.7 started by admin, uid 0

Apr 20 13:43:37 WAN(0) Connection: Fail to connect with some issues.

Apr 20 13:43:41 kernel: eth4 (Int switch port: 4) (Logical Port: 4) (phyId: c) Link DOWN.

Apr 20 13:43:43 kernel: eth4 (Int switch port: 4) (Logical Port: 4) (phyId: c) Link Up at 1000 mbps full duplex

Apr 20 13:43:53 zcip client: configured 169.254.16.97

Apr 20 13:43:57 dhcp client: bound 192.168.1.2/255.255.255.0 via 192.168.1.1 for 259200 seconds.

Apr 20 13:44:01 roamast: sta[66:7D:73:1F:77:BD] on ap[04:42:1A:60:E2:10], rcpi is 107 and rssi is -57

|
|
|

[Moderator edit to remove lengthy log entries.]

|
|
|

(Also..is there a way that I can just edit the log to make it that you can only scroll the log code in its own dialogue box and not scrolling on the actual post?)

 

[Ralston18]

Note: I deleted the majority of the log entries - very lengthy and not of any immediate value or usefulness. Also may have been showing your public IP address.

This router?

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/RT-AX3000/E16134_RT-AX3000_UM_1119.pdf?model=RT-AX3000

Are all network devices experiencing the internet drops or just one device?

ISP? Make and model modem?

On your computer run "ipconfig /all" and "arp-a" (without quotes) via the Command Prompt.

Copy and past the results here.

Objective being to understand more about the network.

 

[ronb1955]

Could be heat, could be low SN margin, high FEC errors...could be your provider

 

[WrongRookie]

Are all network devices experiencing the internet drops or just one device?

From the looks of it it seems to be just one namely my desktop. Need to check again to confirm this.

ISP is not in USA...its K Net Private Solutions and the model is in chinese.

IP Config

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Artwark
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Ethernet:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek Gaming 2.5GbE Family Controller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 04-7C-16-11-76-DC
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::9f13:ec10:d820:f0a5%12(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.50.76(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 20 April 2024 19:13:14
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 21 April 2024 19:13:14
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.50.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.50.1
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 100957206
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-2C-95-29-F8-04-7C-16-11-76-DC
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.50.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Wireless LAN adapter WiFi:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 50-84-92-A2-EB-CB
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection* 9:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 50-84-92-A2-EB-CC
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection* 10:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Wi-Fi Direct Virtual Adapter #2
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 52-84-92-A2-EB-CB
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

arp -a command

Interface: 192.168.50.76 --- 0xc
Internet Address Physical Address Type
192.168.50.1 04-42-1a-60-e2-10 dynamic
192.168.50.67 cc-6e-a4-d6-50-92 dynamic
192.168.50.255 ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff static
224.0.0.22 01-00-5e-00-00-16 static
224.0.0.251 01-00-5e-00-00-fb static
224.0.0.252 01-00-5e-00-00-fc static
239.255.255.250 01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa static
255.255.255.255 ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff static

And yes this is the router that I mentioned before but this one isn't the one that I sent for repair and mostly seems to be fine...except with the random disconnect.

Could be heat, could be low SN margin, high FEC errors...could be your provider

So what is SN Margin, FEC errors and what do they have to do with WAN disconnecting briefly?

EDIT: If it helps, my connection is set as PPPOE instead of Automatic IP.

 

[Ralston18]

Host Artwark is getting a DHCP IP address from the Router at 192.168.50.1 and at the time of "ipconfig /all" was given the DHCP IP address of 192.1678.50.76.

Subnet masking being the expected and normal 255.255.255.0

Lease time for the DHCP IP address is only 24 hours. Should not really make a difference but a longer lease (configured within the router) is recommended.

Two things to try:

1) Disable IPv6 -that has proven helpful for many users.

2) Change the DNS servers to Google at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4


Also: "If it helps, my connection is set as PPPOE instead of Automatic IP."

Where are you seeing that? Screenshot?

 

[bill001g]

I will assume you have a modem of some kind.

Does the modem have any ability to log into it. 192.168.100.1 tends to be a very common IP used on modems.

Are you sure it is just your PC that fails. If you leave a ping run to the router IP do you get packet loss at the same time you think you are being disconencted. If the ping works but you lose internet it is more likely the connection to your house dropped.

 

[WrongRookie]

Where are you seeing that? Screenshot?

Under the WAN option from the Router

https://imgur.com/i5f9ebu

View: https://imgur.com/i5f9ebu

I will assume you have a modem of some kind.

Does the modem have any ability to log into it. 192.168.100.1 tends to be a very common IP used on modems.

Are you sure it is just your PC that fails. If you leave a ping run to the router IP do you get packet loss at the same time you think you are being disconencted. If the ping works but you lose internet it is more likely the connection to your house dropped.

I'm sorry but I can't understand this. What do you mean by my modem having any ability to log into? The router?

All I know is when it got disconnected, all the other devices are still active the last I checked with the time that the desktop got disconnected. I will check this ping test again the next time it happens.

But just to make sure of the ping run test, do you mean the ping test directly from the router or the elevated prompt ping google.com?

 

[bill001g]

There has to be some box the cable from the wan port of your router plugs into. Some times these boxes you can log into.

If it is only your pc and not other pc it could be as simple as you have a bad ethernet cable between your pc and the router.

The ipconfig /all command would show the port disconnected state. If it is a very short disconnect you might not have time to key in the command. In that case maybe the event monitor on your show something

 

[WrongRookie]

Ok my router is connected to the modem via the wan port. Are you asking if I should check if my ISP address can be logged into from my PC?

Will do this test if it happens again.

 

[Ralston18]

Make and model modem? Is the modem ISP provided or yours?

 

[WrongRookie]

Make and model modem? Is the modem ISP provided or yours?

The Modem is ISP provided.

https://imgur.com/XcdvXX6

View: https://imgur.com/XcdvXX6

 

[Ralston18]

Per imgur the image does not exist.

Please repost the image.

 

[WrongRookie]

Per imgur the image does not exist.

Please repost the image.

https://imgur.com/a/wj7kXM2

View: https://imgur.com/a/wj7kXM2

 

[lantis3]

That ZTE GPON gateway looks old and probably dying.

 

[bill001g]

That ZTE device can act as a router but since your other router is setup to run PPPOE I am going to bet the ZTE device is running in bridge mode. This means there may not be a simple way to get into it. You can try the default IP address of 192.168.0.1

I am unsure if you mentioned this. Have you called the ISP and asked them to check. They generally have a way to remotely get into the modem and look at the signal levels. They would also be able to tell if the connection was going up and down.

Sometimes though the ISP is lazy and will tell you everything is fine.....at the exact moment you are calling. They need to look in the logs and see if there is a failure.

I will assume your router is a asus router from the way the screen looks, other brands use the same name. Asus has a number of testing tools. You should be able to do a ping from the router itself. Try to ping something like 8.8.8.8 from the router and see if you get loss. It depends on how often the problem happens the test may not run long enough to have it happen while you are testing.

Although you seldom see a problem you can also try to a ping from your pc to the router IP of 192.168.50.1 in your case. If you see issue here it tends to be a bad cable.

 

[WrongRookie]

That ZTE device can act as a router but since your other router is setup to run PPPOE I am going to bet the ZTE device is running in bridge mode. This means there may not be a simple way to get into it. You can try the default IP address of 192.168.0.1

I am unsure if you mentioned this. Have you called the ISP and asked them to check. They generally have a way to remotely get into the modem and look at the signal levels. They would also be able to tell if the connection was going up and down.

Sometimes though the ISP is lazy and will tell you everything is fine.....at the exact moment you are calling. They need to look in the logs and see if there is a failure.

I will assume your router is a asus router from the way the screen looks, other brands use the same name. Asus has a number of testing tools. You should be able to do a ping from the router itself. Try to ping something like 8.8.8.8 from the router and see if you get loss. It depends on how often the problem happens the test may not run long enough to have it happen while you are testing.

Although you seldom see a problem you can also try to a ping from your pc to the router IP of 192.168.50.1 in your case. If you see issue here it tends to be a bad cable.

Thanks! You are absolutely right that I say the IP address of the router and saw it as in bridge mode.

My Default IP address atleast according to the modem shows it as 192.168.1.1. But I will continue the test here.

So far...there has not been a problem so I can only assume at the moment that the cable had to do something about this.

I thought D-Link makes good cables...

 

[bill001g]

Copper metal has gotten extremely expensive in the last few years. Rather than just increase the price of cable some manufactures have tried to find ways to reduce the amount of metal. They used stuff like aluminum wire with copper cladding.

The most common one is those flat cables you see everywhere. They have extremely thin wires in them.

All these types of cables are no longer actual ethernet cables because the standard say what the minimum wire size is. The problem is they mostly work at short distance...at least for while. If they didn't work at all the word would get around and nobody would buy them. You just see very strange stuff like they work on some devices but not others.

All that said even the best cable manufacture makes defective cables. All it takes is to bend the wire to tightly and get small internal cracks wires. And over time the end of cable just internally can work themselves just slightly loose.

 

[WrongRookie]

Copper metal has gotten extremely expensive in the last few years. Rather than just increase the price of cable some manufactures have tried to find ways to reduce the amount of metal. They used stuff like aluminum wire with copper cladding.

The most common one is those flat cables you see everywhere. They have extremely thin wires in them.

All these types of cables are no longer actual ethernet cables because the standard say what the minimum wire size is. The problem is they mostly work at short distance...at least for while. If they didn't work at all the word would get around and nobody would buy them. You just see very strange stuff like they work on some devices but not others.

All that said even the best cable manufacture makes defective cables. All it takes is to bend the wire to tightly and get small internal cracks wires. And over time the end of cable just internally can work themselves just slightly loose.

Ok so the thing I don't get is if the distance between the router and the modem is literally just next to each other, then why is getting a flat cat 6 cable still a bad idea?

 

[bill001g]

Because the cable is not manufactured to any standard it can be made anyway the vendor making it feels like. This means it may or it may not work.

The standard says the wire MUST be pure copper and MUST have wire size 22-24. Flat cable has wire size 30 or even 33.

This is like saying a chocolate bar must actually have chocolate in it to be called chocolate. Unlike food and safety related electronics there is no government agency that enforces stuff like ethernet cables.

 

[WrongRookie]

Ok I got the error again and I did as suggested. Run the ping of the router that doesn't seem to have a loss.

Then I did a ping google at CMD and this is what it shows still...

Pinging google.com [10.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 10.0.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

For some reason this also applies to the router with the same ping

PING 10.0.0.1 (10.0.0.1): 56 data bytes

--- 10.0.0.1 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

Now what?

 

[lantis3]

How old is that ZTE gateway? Did you ask ISP to give you a new one?

I have no issue using short flat ethernet cables at all.

Anyway, why IP address of google.com was 10.0.0.1?

My ping result

C:\Windows\System32>ping google.com

Pinging google.com [142.250.189.14] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 142.250.189.14: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.250.189.14: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.250.189.14: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.250.189.14: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57

Ping statistics for 142.250.189.14:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 11ms, Maximum = 13ms, Average = 12ms

C:\Windows\System32>ping google.com

Pinging google.com [142.251.40.46] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 142.251.40.46: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.251.40.46: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.251.40.46: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.251.40.46: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=57

Ping statistics for 142.251.40.46:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 12ms, Average = 11ms

 

[bill001g]

10.0.0.1 is a private IP. Something is messed up if google.com resolves to that.

10.0.0.1 will only respond if it is some device on your network. It really should never leave your router but some consumer routers are not configured to know what a private/public IP is.

I would always ping by IP address when you test. 8.8.8.8 is a google dns. 1.1.1.1 is a cloudflare dns. These tend to be the best performing IP you can find. The IP address technically resides in many place, generally in every big city in the world.

 

[lantis3]

Do a tracert to 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8

like

C:\Windows\System32>tracert 1.1.1.1

C:\Windows\System32>tracert 8.8.8.8

 

[WrongRookie]

How old is that ZTE gateway? Did you ask ISP to give you a new one?

I have no issue using short flat ethernet cables at all.

Anyway, why IP address of google.com was 10.0.0.1?

My ping result

C:\Windows\System32>ping google.com

Pinging google.com [142.250.189.14] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 142.250.189.14: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.250.189.14: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.250.189.14: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.250.189.14: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57

Ping statistics for 142.250.189.14:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 11ms, Maximum = 13ms, Average = 12ms

C:\Windows\System32>ping google.com

Pinging google.com [142.251.40.46] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 142.251.40.46: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.251.40.46: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.251.40.46: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=57
Reply from 142.251.40.46: bytes=32 time=12ms TTL=57

Ping statistics for 142.251.40.46:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 12ms, Average = 11ms

To reproduce it I first turned off the modem to reproduce the issue. Even after the net is connected, CMD still showed the 10.0.0.1 but the router pinged a different IP address for google.com.

I'll try the tracert command.

 

[WrongRookie]

An update. Apparently its not just the pc that has the issue as my mother couldn't get internet from her phone briefly.

So yeah..something to do with the ISP. .y first step is to get a better cable and see if that fixes it for the WAN. If that still causes issues i will call the isp. Not sure if they will change the modem.