What causes network hiccups?

[boagz]

Every once and a while my internet connection with disconnect for about 10-20 seconds and then reconnect. Nothing too major, maybe like 2-3 times a day (still enough to be annoying). My question is what are these disruptions in connection usually attributed to? I'm sure it can be a multitude of things but what are the most common causes? I ask because if its more often just an ISP thing then there isn't much I can do. But if it's a modem and/or router thing then maybe purchasing a new modem/router combo would help?

 

[jsmithepa]

First thing to suspect is, MAXING OUT BANDWIDTH? How many people are accessing the Internet at the same time? are you running torrents in the background.

ISP PROBLEM: When this happens, see any RED LIGHT on the modem? Good Lord yes, you can log on into the Modem's management page and look at its error log. If this is an ISP issue and you got DSL, sometimes you can request the ISP to change your DSL setting from FAST to INTERLEAVE, this lowers performance somewhat by introducing self error correction.