All of the above, but bear in mind MO is as backward (ISP Wise, I will not get into culture bashing yet) as they get in the US. Just when I think I gert my ISP all worked out, something like what you describe happens.

However, PPPoe should not cut it. DHCP (as mentioed before) should be set for Router and LAN.When you have connection problems. ISP's in this state will point to any other cause for the problem than themselves. This is fairly good news (I said fairly) as this is common since they feel if they assume responsibility they may lose a customer, so there should be another ISP to use in the area. Just use the net to look for ISP's in your area. Just bear in mind that DSL will also require use of the phone company.

Another way to look into the problem, is via the router manufacturer. You did not mention what brand it is, but manufacturers should have some support for connection problems.

If you want DSL with a different company, why not check out your local telephone company? Down here in Fla I have bellsouth dsl with a static ip.

Well i'm here in Michigan, and I run off cable...You can get cable internet without ordering the tv service...and where I live its only like $34.95 a month...I have no problems at all...

BTW I can set up a newbie game if you like...Always happy to help out...

Entropy

I have SBC and service is p*ss poor and help from them is p*ss poor. It seems like other DSL companies resell SBC DSL service down here in St. Losers Misery.

$29.95 a month for a year of BASIC DSL service. They seem to hate me for using a router.

Right now I have a Linksys Wireless router so I can use my laptop on a wireless network anywhere in the house. I have another XP Pro system, two Win 98SE systems, a NT 4.0 Server on network cards. I collect old computers and use them for various things. I got an old 486 I could run Linux on and use that as a router if I wanted to.

Anyway I had two different Dlink DSL routers. Had DLink tell me that there was nothing they could do about connection problems that it was the ISP dropping the conection and not the router. Linksys seems to think so as well. DHCP is on the router, but I have assigned two static IPs on my LAN within the router's subnet but not within the DHCP range. *.*.0.100 to *.*.0.200 is the DHCP range and the servers have *.*.0.2 and *.*.0.3 addresses.

Connection does not drop when a computer is plugged into the modem, only when the router is plugged into the modem. Line does drop when only the modem is online and nothing else is plugged in, signal light turns off. I assume they have to access the Internet IP and not my local IPs to do their Spyware trick? The router has the Internet IP unless I assign a virtual port to a static IP. So how do I do packet scanning at my router? EULA says I have to run their custom software, which is total BS if you ask me.

Is the router configured not to return a ping on the WAN side? If so, try enabling that (let it return pings) and see if the connection to the DSL still drops.

Also, do you lose connection if you have a firewall (software) enabled on the PC plugged into the DSL modem?

Router allows pings.

Using Outpost on the 98SE PC hooked into the modem seems to drop the connection when Outpost firewall is running. I cannot find what port it blocked but it denies access to any app except those I approved. It is a no-frills open sourced firewall.

Sounds like you have a place to start troubleshooting w/ the DSL company and they can't blame the router.

And try enabling ping. I'm just curious.

Any idea why they insist you run their software? What does it do? Any explanation from them as to why you can't run a server or a network ? Maybe they're concerned you'll use more than your share of ones & zeros...and use 'em all up. lol

There is no mention of what it actually does in the SBC DSL help page, and it is not needed to connect to the DSL service. They mention that part of it is a firewall and virus scanner, but I have yet to see it stop an actual virus as NAV seems to pick up viruses in email that it misses. NAV and Outpost seem to do a much better job than the built in software does.

The install CD docs mention it better, it claims to install IE 6.0 if you do not have it, also:
SBC Yahoo! Browser
Yahoo! Parental Controls
Yahoo! Messenger
SBC Yahoo! Essentials

It also installs Enternet 300 for Non-XP systems, a PPPoE driver. I have to be careful to uninstall this when I switch the modem from the PC to the router as thier PPPoE driver clobbers the router and it needs a hardware factory reset to recover.

There seems to be more software it installs that it does not tell us about, that software I suspect is Spyware. It crashes my system most of the time until I remove it.

Not sure why I need to have it installed all the time, it is not needed with XP as it has a built in PPPoE driver and my router has PPPoE built in. I only needed the software to register an account for PPPoE access. After that, it is no longer needed.

Their browser is IE 6.0 based, I'd rather use Mozilla as it crashes less and has fewer pop-ups, also fewer security issues.

I talked to a friend that has DSL in the Atlanta area. He told me, that his connection has the same characteristics, as yours. It just drops out, and resets the connection, to the modem. He suspects they are doing that to drop the people that leave their computers on, all the time, for whatever reason. [;)] That's just a suspicion though.

Naturally, anything he is doing online, has to be restarted. Sadly,
anyone in the middle of a TW session, would get droppped.

Doesn't seem right, to me.


TJoe

It doesn't seem right to me either. It was designed to be always on 24/7. That was what it was advertised as when I bought the service. That is what I was promised, 24/7 access, unlimited access, etc.

I have been dropped while in TW before, forces me to log back on and if I was not at my base it leaves me exposed until I can log back on. Good thing I currently play at System 78 where I am the top player and the top corp. Only a few others are playing the game actively.

quote:Originally posted by Orion_Blastar

It doesn't seem right to me either. It was designed to be always on 24/7. That was what it was advertised as when I bought the service. That is what I was promised, 24/7 access, unlimited access, etc.

I have been dropped while in TW before, forces me to log back on and if I was not at my base it leaves me exposed until I can log back on. Good thing I currently play at System 78 where I am the top player and the top corp. Only a few others are playing the game actively.


I had a similar problem with verizon DSL. My connection would drop pretty much at random, especially during daylight hours. With the router it would choke alot more often. The problem turned out to be the fact that I was 100yrds outside of the maximum loop for 1.5M/384K transfer speed. Apparently I was getting too much interference during the day, and enough to knock me offline sometimes at night. It happened much more oftet with the router inline, then with the modem directly connected. They knocked my connection speed down, and everything worked fine. I complained, then I complained some more, then I talked to a supervisor, and complained to him. "If you want to get anything done in this bloody country, you've got complain until your blue in the face." Got them to give me a refund for the difference between service packages, and give me a static IP. Ya might want to ask SBC about your distance from the switching center.

-Prinz of Darkness

I've set up SBC DSL plenty of times here in the San Diego area. I absolutely hate all that Yahoo DSL software crap and will avoid it whenever I can. In a single-computer environment, if you have Windows 2000 or lower, you pretty much have no choice but to install their software. Windows XP can natively do a PPPoE connection.

However I haven't had problems with basic Linksys home Cable/DSL routers (BEFSR41 and BEFW11S4) on SBC DSL with a PPPoE connection set up and such. Just basic right-out-of-the-box setup seems to work fine. I'm thinking there's something specific to your setup.

Did you try the ping thing yet?

Oh, and more people should play TW on [url="http://www.twgs.system78.com"]System78[/url] if you're the top player and top corp. Not that I have any interest in seeing people play there. [:D]

Play some of those new games I just opened...

Yes I tried the ping thing, no difference.

I am only tops in Game S. Got the Hellstorm Assault. I do not have time for other games yet, just one so far.