Problems with keeping Internet connection

[pylorns]

I just formatted and did a clean install of win2k, After I noticed this problem in windows me. I have a cable modem and am always connected to the internet but on my main computer if I leave it idle for 5 min or sometimes less time, the interenet connection dies. The only way i have found to fix the problem is to disable the lan connection and then re-enable it. After that the connection coems right back. I have all my power setings disabled and i think they are all disabled in the bios as well. I have tried a different card from another computer and that card works the same, but in the other computer i never have any connectivity problems. Granted they are the same SMC cards. Could it be that my computer does not like the SMC cards? Is there anything in my bios I could be missing?

System:
AMD Athlon 650
192MB Ram
Ausus K7M Mobo
30gig HD
SMC 10/100 Network card
Sblive platinum
viper 550 w/riva tnt drivers

thanks

 

[chemwiz]

Try a different brand of NIC, I had the same problem with SMC. My cable company (MediaOne) said in a lot of disconnect cases involving SMC and RealTek cards to try the other brand. So I put in a RealTek 8139 and everything worked fine.

 

[setaanbomb]

I run MIRC at all times. My external DSL modem goes down if idle for more than 30 minutes. MY ISP doesn't have a fix for this, so I run MIRC 24/7. This maintains my connection.