My internet constantly drops athough it is reciecving connection and is turned on ( i contstantly have to restart)?

Asked by vic

Well, my internet connections works fine as a start the Os (Ubuntu 8.10) and works great. But while surfing, the internet just drops, but it is still connected on my network. I am assured that there in nothing wrong with the ISP and router. I am new with the Os and this seems to be the only problem i am running into and it is a big problem . I just hope i dont have to go back to Windows. (Specs: Laptop-- HP pavilion dv6000)

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nhasian (nhasian) said :
#1

hello vic,

i have a dv6000 as well with the intel 4965 agn network adaptor. you should enable the intrepid backports if you havent done so already:

sudo apt-install linux-backports-modules-intrepid

to determine if the problem lies inside or outside of your network, when your internet stops working, open a terminal and ping your router, then if that is successful, ping something outside your network like yahoo.com

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nhasian (nhasian) said :
#2

sorry i type the command wrong, im watching the superbowl hehe

the correct command is:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-intrepid

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LEGOManiac (bzflaglegomaniac) said :
#3

I have a dv9310 - not quite the same animal, but I don't have any problems. I'm answering this because the description of the problem is familiar.

Two things to clarify first: is it just browsing that is slow or does the whole reaction time of your PC seem slow? Is it just slowing down or is it a total failure to connect?

I'm going to bet that if you try to ping an outside site (ping 205.206.171.1) it will appear to work OK, even though you otherwise seem to have a problem.

Try the following tests:

Before you have problem, go to http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and leave the page loaded. Use another browser tab for browsing. Whey your internet appears to be having problems, run a speed test.

If you have another computer, or can borrow one, put it online at the time that you are experiencing problems and see if it too is slow.

Here at home, I've been having problems with my internet dropping for years. The ISP swears it isn't their problem, yet there appears to be three different causes within my network. The first is the ISP's modem. The ISP says they can connect to it but I often find I have to reboot it when I'm experiencing problems. I ended up replacing it with one another one as an experiment since I got tired of the ISP claiming their modem was not to blame and yet the network comes back to life after a modem reboot. That particular problem has pretty much ended with the replacement modem, which, btw, is the same model as the one my ISP supplied. They still swear their modem is not to blame.

Once I got the modem problem cleared up, I could deal with my second big headache: my router. Routers work by changing the addresses of all your internal PCs (I have 7) into one external address that the rest of the world sees. If you think about it, that means that the router also has to keep an internal table of which PC made which connection to where. Say I connect to Launchpad.net and my son connects to Google.ca, the router has to know that when the responses come back from the internet (remember: they will all be addressed to our ONE external address), the Google responses go to my son and the Launchpad responses go to me.
Many web sites have lots of ads. When you connect to that site you may transparently be making connections to 20 different other sites for the ad content. The router has to keep track of it. Well guess what? My router had a problem where, after using it for a while, it would start to drop connections. Pings would work, peer-to-peer would still work, but web pages wouldn't. It turns out the firmware on the router had a problem keeping track of different types of connections. A firmware upgrade reduced the frequency of the problem but it's still there. I've got a Netgear router. Check our make and model number and make sure the firmware is up-to-date.

The last thing I've experienced, albeit infrequently, is a problem with my Hub. As mentioned, I have 7 computers + 2 printers + NDAS storage = way more ports than my router can handle, so I need a hub or switch. Being in IT (network admin) I have access to quite a bit of equipment that is slated for disposal. For that reason I have a pair of 24-port hubs. The one that I use was trashed because, periodically, it locks up and won't pass traffic. Unplugging it and plugging it in again solves this problem.

I thought I'd point these things out. I happen to be "lucky" enough to be having problems with my modem, router and hub all on the same network. Some times free equipment isn't always all it's cracked up to be.

The moral of the story is, that in my experience, when I have a network issue, I tend to take a good hard look at the equipment (and cables, btw) before I investigate the operating system. Historically, the hardware tends to have more bugs in it that the OS does.

Revision history for this message
LEGOManiac (bzflaglegomaniac) said :
#4

I have a dv9310 - not quite the same animal, but I don't have any problems. I'm answering this because the description of the problem is familiar.

Two things to clarify first: is it just browsing that is slow or does the whole reaction time of your PC seem slow? Is it just slowing down or is it a total failure to connect?

I'm going to bet that if you try to ping an outside site (ping 205.206.171.1) it will appear to work OK, even though you otherwise seem to have a problem.

Try the following tests:

Before you have problem, go to http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest and leave the page loaded. Use another browser tab for browsing. Whey your internet appears to be having problems, run a speed test.

If you have another computer, or can borrow one, put it online at the time that you are experiencing problems and see if it too is slow.

Here at home, I've been having problems with my internet dropping for years. The ISP swears it isn't their problem, yet there appears to be three different causes within my network. The first is the ISP's modem. The ISP says they can connect to it but I often find I have to reboot it when I'm experiencing problems. I ended up replacing it with one another one as an experiment since I got tired of the ISP claiming their modem was not to blame and yet the network comes back to life after a modem reboot. That particular problem has pretty much ended with the replacement modem, which, btw, is the same model as the one my ISP supplied. They still swear their modem is not to blame.

Once I got the modem problem cleared up, I could deal with my second big headache: my router. Routers work by changing the addresses of all your internal PCs (I have 7) into one external address that the rest of the world sees. If you think about it, that means that the router also has to keep an internal table of which PC made which connection to where. Say I connect to Launchpad.net and my son connects to Google.ca, the router has to know that when the responses come back from the internet (remember: they will all be addressed to our ONE external address), the Google responses go to my son and the Launchpad responses go to me.
Many web sites have lots of ads. When you connect to that site you may transparently be making connections to 20 different other sites for the ad content. The router has to keep track of it. Well guess what? My router had a problem where, after using it for a while, it would start to drop connections. Pings would work, peer-to-peer would still work, but web pages wouldn't. It turns out the firmware on the router had a problem keeping track of different types of connections. A firmware upgrade reduced the frequency of the problem but it's still there. I've got a Netgear router. Check our make and model number and make sure the firmware is up-to-date.

The last thing I've experienced, albeit infrequently, is a problem with my Hub. As mentioned, I have 7 computers + 2 printers + NDAS storage = way more ports than my router can handle, so I need a hub or switch. Being in IT (network admin) I have access to quite a bit of equipment that is slated for disposal. For that reason I have a pair of 24-port hubs. The one that I use was trashed because, periodically, it locks up and won't pass traffic. Unplugging it and plugging it in again solves this problem.

I thought I'd point these things out. I happen to be "lucky" enough to be having problems with my modem, router and hub all on the same network. Some times free equipment isn't always all it's cracked up to be.

The moral of the story is, that in my experience, when I have a network issue, I tend to take a good hard look at the equipment (and cables, btw) before I investigate the operating system. Historically, the hardware tends to have more bugs in it that the OS does.

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