router causing internet problems?

[shifty]

After runing fine for 3 months my cable internet has gone flaky.After bypassing the router the connection has come back ok.Over the last week I've had to keep rebooting the cable modem to get the connection back almost every day.This morning I couldn't get it running at all before I removed the router from the loop.The router and modem are both Linksys.Could this be a router problem?The cable company says they haven't had any problems in the area and they don't support anything past the router.Any ideas?thanks

[bailey]

I had similar problem and it was narrowed down to a defective cable modem, they brought out a new and and have no problem sence.

[morriswindgate]

Are you using Zone ALarm? Have you tried going back into the router's setup screen and resaving the settings?

[Confused]

I presume that you've also done a power off and on and a restet of the Linksys router.

I don't know what happens but my router (SMC) used to hang like that when the local cable co. was doing work in preparation to move from Excite@home over to AT&T. Cleared up about 2 weeks after change over. But during the time I had to power off both the router and modem for about a minute.
Chas

[shifty]

I do have Zone Alarm,but router setup screen?Don't have one of those.I don't remember installing any software with the router but I did run a disc to configure it.I also powered down the router several times.It's up and running now but I'll go back to the router install instructions.If it happens again I can take the router out of the loop again and see if it runs ok.I'll check the Zone alarm settings.As far as a router setup screen is concerned I don't remember doing any cofiguring except that the disc did it automatically.What should I be looking for?Thanks for your help.

[glc]

Do a hard reset of the router - on a Linksys you unplug the power, wait 1 minute, hold the reset button in, and plug the power back in, keep the reset button in for about 15 seconds. This will return the router to factory defaults which WILL work with most cable installations without any additional configuration. Don't run the router install CD. The only thing you may need to do is go into the router setup (browse to 192.168.1.1, leave username blank, use admin for password), go to Advanced, then MAC clone, enter the MAC address of the NIC in the machine that the cable modem was originally installed on.

To get the MAC address of the NIC, on Win9x/ME you run winipcfg, choose the NIC, then More Info, and it should be labeled Physical Address - it's 6 groups of 2 alphanumerics, like 00-01-43-6B-22-F2 or something like that. On 2K/XP you open a command prompt and type ipconfig/all and look for it.

Zone Alarm *CAN* cause problems with routers.

[shifty]

Should have got a firewall router for a few extra bucks and canned the Zone Alarm.I'm printing your reply in case I have any more problems.Thanks

[glc]

The inherent nature of NAT (network address translation) that a router provides is reasonably adequate for a firewall. Sure - SPI (stateful packet inspection) is better but using reasonble care with just NAT should keep you out of major trouble.

[shifty]

Maybe I'll can the Zone Alarm anyway.Thanks glc

[Confused]

It's kind of hard to remove completely. Do a search about removal. I believe it was Morris that gave some detailed instructions for removal.

I know that when I networked my PC's behind a router the WIN98 PC became so hosed that I wound up formatting and reloading. I just use my router now for firewall.
Chas