Losing browsing capability over night...

[cycleman77]

edit: Cliff notes below...

I have one wired desktop and one wireless desktop connect to the internet (isp = Charter)
thru a Linksys WRT54GL v1.1. Both desktops run on XP SP2.

Removing the router and rebooting the pc and the cable modem restores browsing on the pc (the wired one, of course).

My first attempt to fix the issue (other than the above temp fix) was flashing the router with the "latest and greatest" firmware from Linksys. It worked for awhile.
The following morning, the browsers (IE7, Firefox 2.0.3, and Mozilla 1.7.13) could not view webpages. I completely removed all security (disabled the hardware firewall on the router and ZoneAlarm (I don't use the windows firewall)) without any luck. I would get the "Limited or no connectivity" error.
Searched the web for possible solutions and found none. I found many many forums with people with this same issue, but no solid solutions. Several posts referenced 3rd party firmware for the router (DD-WRT), but that was it. I was very reluctant to use 3rd party firmware, but after much reading, I hadn't had any other possible fix, so I tried it.
Again, it worked, but only for that day. The next morning, couldn't browse the web.
I had used the mini v23 revision of DD-WRT. I did not get any network errors with this firmware like I did before. There was no "limited or no connectivity" warnings. I turned features off, including security and still no browsing. I could use the windows command prompt to ping charter, the gateway, dns servers, even yahoo. But the actual browsers could not view the pages. I used the command window on the router to ping as well and it worked.
I then flashed the router with the standard v23 revision and once again, it worked for awhile, but the following morning I could not browse the web.

I did the latest flash yestrday. I was online until 12:30am, went to sleep, got up and checked the web at 7:20am. Somewhere in that time frame, browsing was lost.
Router looses authentication with my ISP after an extended idle time?
There a certain time in the morning where "handshaking" is lost and not renegotiated?

I'm stuck, any ideas.

Cliff Notes:
Web browsing goes away over night.
The wired and wirless machines can still access shared drives and the printer even when they can not browse. Both can still ping the router, access the admin page, and ping outside the network (gateway, dns, webaddresses)
Removing the router restores browsing.
Flashing the firmware on the router restores browsing temporarily.
No p2p apps, no massive downloading, no IM.
Just web browsing, streaming video/audio, and World of Warcraft.

I've had this problem for awhile, but I ignored it since I have only needed the one computer to access the web. I will be having company staying for Memorial Day weekend and it would definitely be nice to have the second (and possibly a third) pc connected to the internet.

P.S. Sorry for the sloppy/hurried post.. it's a busy day at the office :disgust:

 

[JackMDS]

Every time after you Flash, or reset, you have to clone again the MAC number of the computer that work directly with the Modem to the Router's cloned MAC entry.

How to Fix Cable/DSL Internet authentication (password). - http://www.ezlan.net/broadband.html

 

[cycleman77]

Thanks

I'll try it out as soon as I get home.

Curious though, I never had to clone my MAC address before. Is it ISP specific?
Last apartment, my roommate and I shared an internet connection and didn't have any problems. ISP was Time Warner and we were using a Netgear router. Don't even remember an option in the settings on the Netgear to clone a MAC address.

 

[JackMDS]

Time Warner uses MAC authentication in most of their service area.

 

[skreet]

If it were your MAC address being filtered I don't think you'd be able to ping. I would assume this is a software issue. I had a similar problem with my PC the other day and found that it was some sort of program running in the background completely hosing my ability to browser pages. I can't recall what program, it wasn't malware, but it was a bug. Oddly, if I repaired the connection or did anything that caused a DHCP renewal, it would work for a short period once again.

Short version: Try msconfig and reboot with no background apps, make sure it's truely a networking problem.

 

[bruceb]

Try this: Go into both the Router Config and also the Network Card Settings
on the computer ... Set the DHCP Lease to Never Expire
It sounds like that is the cause

 

[Poulsonator]

I had a similar problem as well with my wireless laptop at home. All of the sudden, I could do everything except surf the web from the laptop (my other two wired machines worked fine). After some poking around I noticed that my router wasn't pushing any DNS information out to my laptop, so I put in the DNS information manually and it works fine again.

I haven't been able to figure out exactly what the problem was/is as I only had a few minutes to look at it last night, but I'll post once I figure out the exact issue and what I had to do to resolve it. Bizarre, but I'm thankful it was an easy "fix".

 

[cycleman77]

Well, I didn't try cloning the MAC address. I read the info on it and it didn't seem to apply very well. I never registered my MAC address with Charter, so any computer should be able to work. I may try this later, but it doesn't seem to fit.

I don't have any "strange" software running in the background. I was able to identify all services/apps being brought up at startup.

I did set the DHCP Lease to never expire. We'll see how that goes.

If this doesn't work, I'll see if making the IPs static makes a difference.

Thanks for the help guys


*edited for spelling :disgust:

 

[cycleman77]

Setting the DHCP Lease time to never expire did not work. I woke up this morning and the browsers could not view webpages.

I switched to static IPs, but that did not make a difference. I switched back to DHCP and viola, browsers could browse again.

When using static IP addresses, all I need on the pc is IP and Subnet Mask, right?
The DNS servers and the Gateway are still handled by the router?

If I did something wrong with the setup of the static IPs, I'd like to give that another shot. After that, my only other option so far is to go back to try MAC cloning.

Oh, I did turn off an additional DHCP service: "Use NVRAM for client lease DB".
There is another service, DNSMasq, that I could try disabling, but for now it's on.

Any other thoughts?

-Thank you for the help so far

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: cycleman77
Setting the DHCP Lease time to never expire did not work. I woke up this morning and the browsers could not view webpages.

I switched to static IPs, but that did not make a difference. I switched back to DHCP and viola, browsers could browse again.

When using static IP addresses, all I need on the pc is IP and Subnet Mask, right?
The DNS servers and the Gateway are still handled by the router?

you still have to add the gateway address and DNS servers, give it another shot

 

[cycleman77]

Just for $hits and giggles, I pulled an "all nighter" Saturday to Sunday. I wanted to see if I could get a time of the failure.
Guess what.... it never did. So I figured, since the connection remained active, the problem didn't occur. I decide to not use the computer Sunday night/Monday morning to see if it happened again. It didn't. The browsers haven't failed to browse webpages since Saturday/Sunday.

Since everything has been working as it should the past few days, I don't want to go messing with it again, but I'm still curious as to what was going on.

Anyways, just wanted to say all seems to be well. Whether it was the near 24hour active connection or some odd setting/feature I turned off. Oh well, it's working.

Thanks again for the help