Lost internet connection

[kwmax]

Howdy, PC running 98SE IE 6.0, I have a SOYO 6BA +IV with a P3 866 133 (OC 904) Cruicial C2 133, 640 meg ram, 20 gig hard, 32mb ATI Rage FURY Pro and NIC Linksys 10/100 card. I have everything install to see the internet through a Westell 327W versalink modem. I can connect through Internet explorer or AOL broadband, but after about 5 to 10 minutes, I lose the connection. I can use the winipcfg command, see the linksys card and the ip address for westell and my ip of 192.168.1.47. I can also ping the 192.168.1.1 address. But when I try to go to the ip address in the IE window, It times out, rather it gives me can not find server, DNS error or IE. I can reboot machine and start the whole process over. It works for a while then the connection stops where ever I am at and comes back with an error. I have switched NIC, cable and checked IE and network connections. I have 3 other pcs on the same westel modem, all work with no dropped connections. One is running 98SE, 2000, XP with no problems. I have checked between them to see any differences. Any ideas, thanks.

[dsl boy]

so you have a router then? if you do check to see that your isp's dns server addresses are set into the appropriate fields in the router configuration. if you are getting a dns error in internet explorer, you should be able to ping sites by ip and not domain. pinging yahoo.com should come up as destination host unreachable, pinging 216.109.118.74 (yahoo's ip) should reply 4 times. older os's like 98 it mightbe useful to have the dns servers set for the nic as well through control panel->network->tcp/ip linksys 10/100->properties->dns configuration. your others should be detecting the dns servers automatically. a corruption in the tcp/ip for this pc is probably why it is not recognizing them (if it truly is a dns issue). hope it helps

[kwmax]

Howdy,thanks for the reply. Yes the westell is a router. I can ping it, get 4 response with none lost, yet the IE is giving me errors. You mentioned going to the DNS Config, do I enter the 192.168.1.1 or the 255 number? DO I need a host and domain name or leave thant blank? ALso, if tcp/ip is corrupted, would it help to reload 98SE or convert to 2000? I have already done a back-up of that system and was lookign for a reason to change to 2000. Thanks very much for your help. I had a home network on a Linksys box, but since it was a router also, I could not get to the internet. I have been working that issue also. It seems that I need to disable the DHCP on the linksys box, BEFSR41, but it did not solve the issue. Have any ideas on that? Thansk KEn

[dsl boy]

if you disabled the dhcp in the linksys then you would need to have a local ip address set in those same tcp/ip properties, i.e 192.168.1.100.
screenshot http://screenshots.modemhelp.net/scr...Address2.shtml

you can find out your local ip by going to start-run and typing in winipcfg. it will show your local ip for your linksys nic.

you'll also need to set a gateway: 192.168.1.1
http://screenshots.modemhelp.net/scr...Address2.shtml

you'll need your isp's dns server addresses to be set in the dns server search order of the dns configuration tab. the host would be your username w/ your isp, domain would be your isp's domain, i.e cox.net, comcast.net, alltel.net, etc.
http://screenshots.modemhelp.net/scr...uration2.shtml

255.255.255.0 is the subnet mask, when you type in your ip address it should fill in automatically, but there it is.

once you've done that you're setup to access the internet through your router. you should be able to ping outside addresses through a command prompt. yahoo.com is a good yardstick because it accepts pings and is always up.

windown 98 itself is not really setup for broadband connections. working in dsl tech support, i see these tcp/ip glitches every day. its nothing for which you need to install windows 2000 as a solution. if you're upgrading anyway, that's great, win 2k is easier and more stable when it comes to broadband. you can get screenshots for win 2k at the same site. http://www.modemhelp.net

[glc]

I have gotten better results with Win9x by setting a static local IP outside the router's DHCP scope, with the router's IP as default gateway, and enabling DNS, using the actual ISP DNS addresses, not the router's IP. The only thing you should need is a hostname, which can be *anything* - domain suffix not necessary. Straight DHCP *should* work, but it's not always reliable, especially over wireless. Subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0, verify this by running an ipconfig/all from a command prompt on one of the XP or 2K boxes that works.

[kwmax]

Howdy, I set the DNS tothe 192.168.1.1 and set eh hose and domina names. Still had some lost connections. So I compared the two 98SE pc's to see what was the difference. I found that I had set up Zone Alarm on the pc that I was having trouble. I unstalled the whole thing. Last night I was online for 1 1/2 no problems, then with AOL up, IE open and MSN it hung up. I rebooted and was up another 2 hours. I believe with your help above and uninstalling Zone ALarm I cleared up most of the problems. I am still running Norton firewall and Virus sw. Thanks, Ken