Router loses connection to internet randomly

Question

I have a Belkin wireless G plus Mimo router and it randomly loses the connection to the internet. It seems to happen for a second or two, not enough to impact day to day browsing. But enough to disconnect games, or stall videos I am watching. It happens whether I am plugged into the router or connecting via wifi.

I am unsure if it is my router or Comcast that is causing this issue. If I connect a computer directly to the modem the problem never occurs, so that tells me it is probably the router. But I also had a Netgear wireless router WGR614, and it had the same problem.

I don't know where to start looking for the source of the problem. What logs should I be combing through? All my machines are win 7 of varying versions.

Answer 1

The first question which piece of equipment is actually failing.

Generally I would use 'tracert' for this, but in this case, the outage probably isn't long enough for this to be useful. Instead, we'll use tracert to determine the IP addresses of the possible points of failure, then use 'ping' to determine if these devices are up and running.

run 'tracert', and keep track of the outbound hops. Make note of the IP addresses of the first few lines:

$ traceroute google.com
traceroute to google.com (209.85.225.99), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1  router.localhost (192.168.1.1)  1.639 ms  2.627 ms  2.957 ms
2  10.0.0.2 (10.0.0.2)  13.848 ms  14.173 ms  15.637 ms
3  foodsl01.foo.02.gateway.foo.com (xx.xx.xx.xx)  23.273 ms  25.413 ms  27.746 ms

(Note that tracert is spelled 'traceroute' on my linux box... same principle applies)

Open 3 'cmd' windows, then start running a constant ping from each window to one of the IP addresses... in this case, I would start 1 ping to 192.168.1.1 (my linksys router), one to 10.0.0.2 (DSL Modem) and one to xx.xx.xx.xx (my ISP's gateway, which I've obscured).

Depending, on which of the IP addresses times out, gives you a place to start with trouble shooting... if your ISP is dropping the connection, you need to call tech support.

If it's the router

• check all cables reboot the router... some routers become unstable over time
• make sure that you have the most recent version of the router's firmware
• replace the router (I used to do tech support on VoIP boxes, and I'm not a big fan of Belkin)