A Very Odd Question

I'm not sure if this question belongs here, but here goes:

What makes connecting to the internet a problem when my computer has been idling for a few minutes (I have to restart my computer to get the internet again). OR - When I'm watching a DVD on my PC, I finish, and then when I try to log onto the internet, it won't let me unless I restart my computer.

It's a very odd thing, and I've tried to research this problem, but couldn't find anything on Google.

I use D-Link Wireless. Windows XP

512 RAM 2.0Ghz
Reply to
imagoogler
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Thank you.

Not in Beverly Hills. I am wireless. No laptop. Cable modem.

I just disabled the power save in my wireless card.

When I look under power schemes, what should that be set to?

I will let you know for sure.

Reply to
imagoogler

So much for Geobytes. See:

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in your IP address (which is currently 67.23.128.249). It says Beverly Hills with a 99% certainty. However, the "ontrca" in the reverse DNS lookup implies Ontario, California, where Adelphia has a regional operations center. Am I getting closer?

Set it to the "Home/Office Desk" or "Always On" seting. Then set the hard disk, monitor, and standby modes to "Never". That will effectively disable any power saving features. Also, make sure the hybernate tab is not checked. There may also be a power saving feature running in the desktop's BIOS setup. Dive into the BIOS settings and see if there's any such settings. If so, temporarily disable them.

Again, if it's not the power save feature on the wireless card, then I would be interested to know which power saving feature in the power management or BIOS solves the problem.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Closer, yes. : )

Check.

Check.

Well, with all of those things disabled, I'm still having the same problems. Let me be more specific with my problem.

I click onto Firefox - My homepage is Yahoo.com - It doesn't come up. (The usual "cannot find website - check name again). But when I click on certain other websites in my favs, the home page for those certain websites come up, but I can't get into the heart of the website. (Again, "make sure you check the name and try again.")

I sometimes use Agent for newsreading - And it comes up "Cannot find host".

So I know it's not connecting - For whatever reason. Baffled, just baffled.

It's frustrating because I'm having 3 major problems going on with my computer, and this is just one of them I've been living with. The other is my audio (out of nowhere) will stop working. No volume control. Nothing in the task bar. I have to restart to get it back. And don't get me started on this divx problem. Choppy friggin' playback on all my divx videos. (I've tried everything in the book - codec blah blah blah

- for months now)

Anyway, thanks for helping me, Jeff. I have no idea what to do about this internet shutting down after idling.

Reply to
imagoogler

Don't worry. Off topic questions are tolerated (barely).

Well, I'll have to make some assumptions. I'll assume you're connected to your DLink wireless via wireless and not wired. From your posting IP address, I deduce that you're in Beverly Hills and that you're at: 67-23-128-249.ontrca.adelphia.net Adelphia is a cable modem ISP, so you do NOT have the usual DSL problem of having the router logout when idle.

Is your PC perhaps a laptop? If so, many laptops have power saving features that turn off power to unused devices when idle. Check the properties for the wireless card and see if there is a "power save" feature that might be turning things off. The same power save problem might also exist in a desktop.

Also, you might wanna check your power management settings. Control Panel -> Power Try turning off all the power saving features. Also turn off hibernate. If you have a 3rd party power manager (i.e. Toshiba), then make sure it doesn't go into hibernate on idle.

If the problem magically goes away, it's one of the power saving settings. I can't tell which one it might be. Turn them back on one at a time and see if you can identify the culprit. If you find it, I would be interested in knowning which one is causing the problem as it's a common question that never seems to draw a specific solution.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

You might be having a hardware problem, either hard disk errors, memory errors, or other such things. Run the (disk drive) manufacturer's full diagnostic, then WinDoze full scandisk with all the options turned on, then memtest86, then any other diags from your computer manufacturer.

Also, check to make sure your antivirus, anti{spy,ad,mal}ware programs are up to date, that you have the latest drivers for everything, and all that rot.

Sounds like your computer needs a major overhaul...

Reply to
William P.N. Smith

OK, then it's not power management. That would have been too easy.

First, we need to determine if this is a browser issue, IP network issue, or wireless issue. Open an MSDOS window before the computer goes comatose with: Start -> Run -> cmd and run: PING 192.168.1.1 (where this is the IP address of your router) Leave the window open and let the browser go comatose as previously described. Then, try it again. If it works, you have a working connection to your router via wireless and the problem is elsewhere.

If ping fails, run: IPCONFIG and check the IP address. If it's 0.0.0.0, then the Windoze client has timed out (somewhere) and shopping around for new IP address. If you wait long enough, it might eventually go to 169.254.xxx.xxx. If it's 192.168.1.xxx, then it's fine. If you get any other message such as "no route to host", that's something else.

Next, some of the symptoms sound like a slow or comatose DNS server. I think it's time for you to kindly disclose the exact model DLink router as some hardware/firmware versions do have DNS problems. However, instead of pounding on the router, try setting the DNS server in your XP Network setup to the actual IP address of the Adelphia DNS servers instead of to the IP address of the router. That will bypass any DNS issues in the router. If that fixes the problem, then it's time to upgrade the firmware in the DLink router.

Also, check the contents of the hosts file at: c:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts c:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\lmhosts If it's full of common web site names followed by IP addresses, congratulations. You have a worm or virus.

It's difficult to fix multiple problems at the same time.

A 2GHz something processor running XP something, with 512MB of ram should run DIVX just fine. My 550MHz Celeron will do it full screen although I had to reduce the number of colors to 256 to get decent vidoe speed.

Something is hogging CPU cycles. My guess is that a virus, worm, spyware, keylogger, spambot, downloaders, etc, is probably going inactive when you're using the machine, but comes alive when it's idle. That might explain the slothishness on recovery. Look for unexplained activity on your network by watching the flashing lights. I suggest you run multiple scans of your computer looking for such a program. If you don't have functional anti-virus or anti-spyware programs, I suggest the free version of AVG Anti-Virus, Microsoft Anti-Spyware Beta 1 1.0.701. Also Lavasoft Ad-Aware, and Spybot Search and Destroy. These are all free and work just fine. If you've already installed a virus and spyware scanner, do NOT install more than one at a time. That really sucks CPU cycles. Try one of the online virus and spyware scanners such as:

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My guess(tm) is that the CPU hogging, idle failure, and the loss of DNS lookups is related somehow.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Funny thing is that this is a brand new motherboard/hard drive/video card. Go figure.

Reply to
imagoogler

Would screen resolution cause the problem? I have mine set at 1152X864.

I tried cutting down on all my start up processes, and unnecessary process. And notice the CPU hits about 50 percent usage on normal play, but when it starts to get choppy, it hits around 80 percent usage.

I have all of these, and run them constantly. I'm going to try the Zone alarm setting, and we'll see if that works.

Reply to
imagoogler

I cannot find this setting? Where should I look?

Thanks.

Reply to
imagoogler

Thanks, Rob. It was indeed already switched off. So that wouldn't be the problem.

Reply to
imagoogler

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote: Snip...........................................

Are you running a firewall such as Zone Alarm? This has an option to lock internet access after a set number of minutes of inactivity or when the screensaver activates.

Rob

Reply to
Rob

No. It's a combination of video card peformance, driver bottlenecks, and the number of pixels times the number of colors (bits) you're putting on the screen. If you're running 32 bit color, try reducing it to 256 (8 bit) color and see if things speed up.

Even with 80%, you should still get a decent picture. I just tried playing a DIVX video on my home junker (Celeron 1.1Ghz, 256MB, Nvidia something PCI video, 7200 rpm hard disk, Windoze 2000, Divx 6.0) and had no problems. PerfMon showed CPU use was up to about 70%. However, when I went from 8 bit color to 32 bit color, CPU went to 100% and the movie was skipping frames.

Give me some more detail on the hardware. There are some real dogs out there.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

I have two settings under Color - High (32bit) or Med (16bit). There is no 8bit setting.

I have a GeForce FX 5500 video card. Maxtor 7200 160gb hard drive AMD Sempron 2800+

Now would a weak RAM stick cause these types of problems? The motherboard I bought suggests I upgrade my memory with a faster processing speed. I haven't yet.

Reply to
imagoogler

**NOTE**

On my previous system - I had no problems playing Divx files.

AMD Athlon 2000+

512MB 1.7ghz processor
Reply to
imagoogler

Check under the Control Panel, Device Manager, Network Adaptor and make sure its power setting are set as to not allow the system to turn it off to save power, i.e. it should be on all the time. They seem to be powered down quite happily but Windows in its various flavours seems unable to power them back up resulting in a power down reset to wake them up again.

Peter

Reply to
Pierre

I started fresh. Re-installed Windows XP.

Reply to
imagoogler

When you replaced all those things, did you rebuild or reinstall the OS, or just use a (Ghost, or whatever) image from your 'old' system?

Just because you bought it brand-new doesn't mean it' doesn't have a(n intermittent) hardware problem.

Reply to
William P.N. Smith

In Zone Alarm at the bottom of the "Program Control" main page there is a box called "Automatic Lock", make sure it is switched to off.

Rob

Reply to
Rob

You could very well have some memory timing issues. You don't have any overclocking types of things going on, do you? If your motherboard is specified to work with your memory you should be all right, but if it isn't, don't expect it to work at all...

"Weak" RAM could cause all sorts of bizarre things to happen, try running the fine app from

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and see what you get. I'd still also run the drive manufacturer's diags as well as WinDoze scandisk with all the options turned on.

Reply to
William P.N. Smith

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