Losing Internet Connection Cable w/Router

[Guest_imported]

I have cable internet service. I have had it installed and running with no problems for about 6 months on my newest PC running Win 98. About a month ago I installed a router to share my connection with my older PC running Win 95. For about 2 weeks I had no connection problems. Now, I still have no problems with my old PC losing it's connection. My new PC however, after about 3-5 hours (as far as I can tell) of not using it, will not be connected to the internet. The old PC will still be connected and there appears to be no issue with the cable connection or the router. I have tried a different port on the router and that has not helped. I installed the latest firmware for the router as well. My ISP assigns a dynamic IP address. The router assigns one to each of the PCs as well. Rebooting my PC will restore the connection without fail. What can I do???
ejohnson1@houston.rr.com

 

[GunJack]

If you have a linux box, I would put it on the same "wire" as the new pc and watch what tcpdump tells you. That should help find out if the packets are actually hiting the wire or not. Without this tool, I would go through and remove the ip stack and re-install it as it almost sounds like some type of corruption. If you haven't changed anything, my first suspicion would be some type of corruption as this sounds like one of those flakey type of behaviors.

One question though, when it boots up, what kinds of items do you have loading automatically? I would prevent anything extra from loading at boot up and give it a clean boot. I would let it sit the 3-5 hours and then see if the connection problem exists. If not, it may be some software causing the problem. If it loses the connection thought with nothing running, I would suspect corruption in the network layer.

Hope this helps,
GJ