DSL connection keeps stalling

[Keith777]

Not sure if this bellongs in this forum or on the "Ethernet" forum.

Last year I got a DSL connection but have had an innconsistent connection ever since. Once I connect to the internet I can browse at impressive speed, there is nothing wrong with the speed of the connection as long as it's working, I can stream videos off YouTube just fine for example. But my connection frequently stalls, the connection itself dosen't drop, I don't get a disconection window but it doesn't seem to conect with ever it's going for almost a minute. The load circle in Firefox will just swirl forever until it conects with where its going. This often happens after i've been reading one site for a while and haven't 'surfed' anywhere, like when the connections been idle for 7 minutes. Allthough sometimes it's just a random stall, i'll be surfing along and it will stall. 56k was less frustrating.

I have 3 possible clues to what the problem might be:

Connection Icon: You know the little conection icon at the bottom of the screen, the one with the two
little computer screens that are over lapping each other? Well i know when I was on dial-up they where both green when connected properley. With my knew conection the top sreen on that icon has always been yellow with the bottom one green. I asked my ISP's lousy tech suport and the guy just said if I can connect and surf it should be fine but I wonder if thats wrong now. So is that Icon an indication of a cause?

Connection Wire: The modem instructions from my ISP said the conection wire(normal phone wire) for my DSL should only be 6 feet from the phone outlet to the modem (or splitter wich i'm using). I didn't have an outlet close enough to where i keep my PC so i'm using this really long cord, 20-30 ft probably. The oulet is on the other side of my house. Could this be enough to cause the yellow screen icon and/or the stalling conection? I thought of conecting the modem six feet away from the outlet and then have the LANwire from the modem to the PC be the 20ft one but that wire is a special LAN wire and i only have the 6ft one that came with the modem so have to keep it close to my PC. If you can even get a 20ft LAN wire, would this be something that be worth investing in? I only want to spend the money if someone thinks it will solve the problem.

I called and asked my tech-suport if this would cause the problem and someone just said the conection would be a bit slower but they seemed pretty indiferent. Would like some second opinions

Ethernet Card: I bought a $15 Ethernet Network Adapter. It sais "10/100M Fast Ethernet Network Adapter". By Encore. I was told it didn't matter how much I spent on this card, but could the CHEAP card be the problem?

Keith

Thank you for your time.


win 98SE

 

[confedtech]

The first thing that comes to mind is distance. How far are you from the central office? The long cord could be doing that dependeing on other conditions. You may have a defective filter. If you have extras you may want to try them. Check these out and let me know.

 

[cdogg]

Move the PC temporarily to a spot close to a different phone outlet. Use a short phone cord from the filter. While it's there, also try swapping the filter in case you have a bad one.

By doing that, you are replacing the phone cord (in case the longer one is bad), trying a different phone outlet, and shortening the length all at the same time (in case that matters).

If there is no difference, then you either have a bad ethernet (LAN) cable, bad ethernet card (NIC), bad DSL modem, problem in Windows, or it is the connection itself from your home to the CO (which is out of your control).

There are still many possibilities, so let's just start with the test first.


~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[hercj]

It sounds like your modem maybe setup for automatic logoff after a time out period and when you click on a link after being at a website for awhile your modem has to sign on again. Just a thought.

 

[plshlpme]

after your cennection stalls.. do you get a new ip when it starts working again?

you should have the shortest cable possible from the wall to the modem.. it would be much better to put your modem close to the jack and then run the cat5 to your switch or pc over the longer distance. the cat5 will take the distance no problem.

ide call your isp.. have them check your line in whatever dsl tool they have.
and then move your modem to the demarcation point for your telco. hopefully you have a grey box on the side of your house or in the basement with a jack in it

if you plug into that jack it will disconnect the inside wiring in your house from the cct.
have them rerun the test...
if it is significantly better you know yyour problem is in your house wiring. if the connection still looks lousy then you know the problem is outside.. ie: bad pair, length, etc...

most modems have a web interface on them that you can see line stats too... check for errors.