Problems with some sort of random disconnection

[kermit1986]

Hi.

Recently out of the blue my PC will sometimes seem to lock out all internet activity on my PC. By this I mean it will allow no downstream or upstream data in or out of my pc.
The only way to get the internet back working again is to restart my pc.

My PC is hooked upto a router, but I don't think it has anything to do with the router, as I've tried things such as disconencting my PC from the router when I'm getting no incoming or outgoing data, but when I reconnect still nothing happens.

I'm using Zone Alarm Firewall as my firewall also (if that helps), I havent changed anything in ZoneAlarm though and I've never had these problems in the past, just recently over the last week or so, it's happened 3 times today though so I figured I'd try and get to the bottom of things, but I have no idea why it happens. One minute everything is fine, next minute no upstream or downstream data will transfer meaning I can't do anything on the internet (open webpages, talk on messenger, etc).

Any ideas what could be up?

Thanks in advance

[doctorgonzo]

Start by disabling the firewall to see if it still occurs. I'm guessing that it won't.

[kermit1986]

Bit risky though is it not.
I'd rather not have to disable my Firewall, also I don't think that's having any bearing on the problem as far as I know.

[doctorgonzo]

It's not very risky at all as long as you are behind your router's firewall; I don't run any firewall since I am behind my router. Since the ZA firewall interfaces directly with the IP stack, it is much more likely to be the culprit than anything else, honestly.

[kermit1986]

I am behind my routers firewall, but I figured it would just be something simple like Windows Firewall, so I kept with ZoneAlarm instead. As that gives me a bunch of options, and lets me know whats asking for access etc.

The problem seems to be accelerating a little now though, earlier I had to restart as it happened again, then when I restarted the problem was there from start up. So had to restart again and it was fine.

I'm sure that the firewall situation was fine before though, so having to disable firewalls may not neccessarily be what I need to help me. If problems persist (which I bet they will) I'll have to try system restoring I guess.

[rckershaw]

I got zone alarm on my desktop and it won't allow the internet to work so I disabled it and went back to windows firewall it works now. I don't know if this will solve your problem but it did mine.

[kermit1986]

Well it's currently open (ZoneAlarm) but set too off. I'll see if it stays online. *fingers crossed.

[glc]

Windows SP2 Firewall is all you need if you are behind a router. Keep it simple.

[kermit1986]

It happened again whilst I had Zone Alarm set to off (but still had the program running).
So I made sure it didn't open at startup by taking off in 'msconfig' So far so good (been online about 3 hours without the internet blackout thing happening.

I'll turn Windows Firewall on now too for the extra support.

[Mesaeus]

Welcome to the club kid. Here's your "firewalls are always suspect number one" button. Wear it proud.

And I'm not kidding about software firewalls. I've used ZoneAlarm extensively, but in the end even that one ultimately can cause weird problems like the ones you had. So remember our motto and try disabling the firewall anytime you have connection issues, you'd be surprised how often that fixes it.

[kermit1986]

Hmm it happened again just now.

No internet pages where connecting, then I looked in the taskbar and I noticed Azureus had 0kb/s upstream. Still...it has been over a day since it's happened where as previously it was happening more often.

At the moment I just have Windows Firewall (sp2) and the firewall on my linksys router on. I'll report back if it happens again, and if I notice anything particular that may be causing it.

[kermit1986]

Ok this is still happening...I only have Windows Firewall and my router firewall running. I'm currently connected directly to my modem, and it's still happening.

The thing is though, it only seems to happen when I'm on Azureus, and more specifically I think it has something to do with seeding. I don't know the exact details, but I think it may be to do with the ammount of connections to me from leechers.
It's really weird though, everything will be fine, then the next minute it'll just drop altogether, and the only way for me to get any internet activity on my PC again is to restart my computer. Even if I close Azureus and every other program that was using the internet at the time, no internet traffic up or downstream will go about until a restart is down.

Does anyone have any idea what could be the problem? Why would my internet get locked off in such a way that I'd need to restart windows?

[Mesaeus]

Bittorrent or other P2P programs tend to put a heavy burden on routers, so I would not be very surprised if your router crashed under load. The only way to test this would be to work a while without the router and see if the problem still appears. It's also possible that your network card has a problem, though it's less likely. Do you have a spare network card lying around somewhere ? Same as above, the only way to find the problem is to swap/shut out as many possible suspect devices as possible to narrow it down to one specific device. Start with the router so we can safely forget about it.