Internet connectivity issues - please help!!!

I have an intermittent problem (maybe once every five minutes or so) that has plagued my DSL line since I installed it. Tech support (Bell Atlantic / Verizon) has not been able to help me. They’ve checked all the lines / circuits up to the house, but that is about all they can do. My problem, is that when I click on a link - I get nothing. Nadda. Zip. Well, maybe nothing is not quite the right word. I get Explorer’s ‘click’ sound, the mouse pointer changes to an hourglass down by the status bar, but that is about it. No new page. If I right-click on a link and select ‘open in new window’ a blank browser opens up (white screen) and it sits and sits and sits. Then, after about ten, twenty or sometimes an exasperating thirty seconds, the requested page will load up lickety-split.

At first I thought it was the site I was visiting. To check that, I tried going to schools and newspapers all across the country (and world, too - gotta get my Madam & Eve fix.) Same problem wherever I went. I used schools and newspapers so I could be reasonably sure of the server’s physical location, so now I am pretty sure that it isn’t something in the lines outside of my house. Another clue that it is not a hang outside of my computer is that when the pages finally do load, they do so all at the same time. That is, if I have windows open, stalled, and waiting to load sites in New York, California and England, when they do begin to load they all do so simultaneously and very quickly.

I’ve also taken steps (albeit small ones) to make sure it is not the browser. I reinstalled and got the same problem. I also have Netscape and IE on my machine and the problem occurs with both programs. It also occurs with both browsers open at the same time, and with multiple pages open for each. Nothing nothing nothing, then all of a sudden all pages load up quickly.

I can not say how this is affecting downloads. They appear to be continuous, but I can not say if the pauses are hidden from me. Also, RealAudio does not seem to pause when I can’t open a new window, but I can’t tell if it is using the buffer to keep the stream constant.

In my system tray I have, among other things, BlackIce Defender, Asus Probe and McCafee Netshield all running, and when I can choose a setting I opt for paranoia. I have, though, shut them down one by one and still noticed the problem.

So, in desperation and despair, I turn to the kind folks here for help. What next? What else should I check? What other information could I provide? Is there a registry setting for randomly stalling before complying with an internet request? I am getting very close to reformatting my entire system with a hammer. Please help!!!
Thanks!!!
The hardware:
[list]
[li]Asus P3B-F Board[/li][li]PIII 550[/li][li]Linxsys basic NIC. I have been told that this is a possible source of my problems. I’ll replace it if needed, but don’t want to go out and buy hardware without just cause. I’ve spoken with Linxsys and they reported no problems with this card. I downloaded up to date drivers from them and saw no change. Before I left school I was using the card with an Ethernet connection (on a different machine) and had no problems.[/li][li]Modem is a Westell external DLS modem. No model number on the outside of the box.[/li][li]ISP is Bell Atlantic / Verizon[/li][li]DSL connection is (supposed to be) 640 / 90[/li][li]Running Win98 with service pack 2[/li]Both IE and Netscape, don’t recall which versions off hand (I’m at work) but downloaded the latest versions within the past six months.

This sounds like a DNS (Domain Name System) issue. Everytime you click on a link the name (i.e. http://www.straightdope.com) is resolved into an IP address number by a DNS server. Indeed, this was one of the genius things that kick started the internet. 63.97.40.3 is a lot harder to keep track of than STRAIGHTDOPE.COM (BTW–If you type 63.97.40.3 into your address window you will get to the SDMB web site as well).

If Bell Atlantic’s DNS server is having problems you get passed on to another server which tries the lookup and so on. The result is you wait 20-30 seconds as you get shuffled around till a server can resolve the address for you and POOF…the web page appears.

Call your ISP and ask them wht your DNS settings should be. It’s easy to change and they’ll be able to walk you through it with no trouble.

Let us know if this works.

http://www.dslreports.com/tools

Post the results of the tweak tester (verbose) and then the speed tests (all of them, also vebose) and we’ll see if we can figure this out.

Or just get Netscape, its free, & see if it happens with Netscape too. As a matter of fact, that would be the first thing to try.

Here’s the mostly likely cause of your problem: Go to Control Panel/Network, scroll to and select the entry that says TCP/IP->(whatever your NIC is). Click on Properties. On the IP address tab, check if “Obtain IP address automatically” is selected. IF it is, that’s probably your problem.

Every 10 minutes or so, Windows is trying to get an IP address for your machine using DHCP. Bell Atlantic uses another protocol called PPPOE to do this. (The WinPoET app that use to sign on takes care of this.) Since Bell Atlantic’s system doesn’t respond to DHCP requests, everything freezes until the request times out. To fix this, you need to switch the setting on the tab to “Specify and IP address” an give it a dummy IP. (Don’t worry, WinPoET will still be able to connect you to the internet.) Enter “10.10.10.10” as the IP address and “255.255.255.0” as the Subnet Mask. Click OK enought to exit the Network Control Panel and reboot. Next time you sign on, all should be OK.

Your problem is unsolvable. I don’t know how you can deal with the frustration. I suggest you unplug your machine, pack it up in a box, and send it to one of your relatives.

Wow, thanks so far for the replies. Now all I have to do is finish up this ‘work’ think and get home to try some things out. Some of it sounds familiar, but I hope I haven’t done any of it already. First I’ll check the ‘obtain IP address automatically’ set up. I’ll call Bell Atlantic at the same time to check the DNS settings. This one I am pretty sure I’ve done (WINIFP or something, no?). I wish handy’s advice on switching browsers would do the trick, but I tried that quite a while ago. If things don’t dramatically improve, I’m off to DSL reports. And yes, I may have to ship it off to a relative, but that would be after reformatting it with a hammer. I wouldn’t want to spread the frustration out to anyone with new children in the house.

This is soooo far off topic but I had to share.

I read:

and it came out in my brain as:

…BlackIce Defender, Anus Probe and McCafee Netshield…

I am sooo sorry but that got me giggling!

Now, back to the topic at hand.

I am curious, do you have a firewall, any kind?

I have had problems with my dial-up using Norton’s Personal Firewall and had to disable “privacy” in it.

If you don’t have a firewall I highly recommend it (again off topic). There are some free ones out there.

Another thing to add to the list. I just found a virus on my system that is busily scanning the net from my connection! It caused symtoms you mentioned. Took a LiveUpdate and some deletes from DOS boot to get rid of it. Fortunately, it was not a destructive kind.

Heh… no, Asus probe keeps an eye on temperatures, things like that. Anus probe, well, I leave that to the engineers and technical wizards of the board to construct, patent, market and retire as gazillionairs. (Remember me though, I should get a small percentage!) How developed would the net be without porn?

I don’t have a firewall per se (I am sending the spare box off to broofrhythmdvl shortly (really I am! Soon… soon… any day now!)) but Black Ice acts as my guardian. I don’t think it is causing the problems, though, since I’ve turned it off (i.e. stopped the engine) and still had the problems. I never completely uninstalled it though.

I keep McCafee up to date as much as possible, and scan the system at least once a week. Also run Scandisk and DeFrag weekly too. At this point I am almost hoping for a virus, just to have found the problem. I am cutting out of work now, hope things clear up within an hour of getting home. Wish me luck, and thanks again!

Rhythm

Ok, DNS and WINS configuration are both disabled. I just switched the IP away from auto-acquire and… and… could it really be this easy?! Things seem to be going well at the moment, no hangs at all in the past half hour or so. I’m a pessimistic optimist, but pages appear to be loading one after another, problem gone. I think. Problems seldom surface when you are looking for them. But I am very close to putting MinkMan on my heroes list. Wish me luck with this.

Here is what I got from the dslreports tweaks page. I have some idea of some things, but much of this is foreign to me. It concluded that I have a ‘possible problem’ which means… means… well, doesn’t mean much to me. Unfortunately my time is torn between the World Series and DOE’s Nuclear Infrastructure EIS (hey, someone’s gotta provide the plutonium for NASA) so I won’t be able to go through the dslreport help pages tonight. Does anything here jump out as really really wrong?

[ul]
[li]Results[/li][li]Your public IP address is (um, I am pretty sure I shouldn’t just announce this on a public board, should I?)[/li]Hops left before discard (TTL) is 114
TCPopts hex string is 0204052a01010402
Max Segment Size is 1322
[li]Your MTU is set ok[/li]SACK Permitted (RFC2018)
Ping stability 46 45 48 66 46 54 51 44 54 51
[li]Quick packet-loss tested ok[/li]DefaultRcvWindow (RWIN) is 8192
Your RWIN limits you @50.5ms to 1297kbps
Your RWIN limits you @200ms to 327kbps
[li]Your RWIN 8192 is too low[/li][li]Conclusion… possible problem[/li][li]End[/li][/ul]

again, thanks for your help.

Rhythm

Ok, Well, if your problem is solved, setting your Rwin higher might increase your throughput.
Search your registry for : defaultrcvwindow and change the value to a higher number. Right now, the value is at 8192.
Note that the value MUST be a multiple of MSS (1322)
Try up in the 30000 range and see if your download speed increases.

Warning:
Since you are manually editing the registry, I must warn you that some changes could possibly make your system unbootable. (not this one, but some) Make a backup of your registry before making any changes if you are not 100% confident in your abilities.

But I have a modem connection. Transfer seems to be going OK but then freezes for a while. Pages do not download from anywhere. After a while the whole thing starts up again and transfers normally. Until now I was assuming it was a problem with my ISP.

I tried setting the IP# and subnet mask as you said but then the connection does not work. I guess you cannot do that with a modem connection. Can you give me any advice?