Voodoo and frequent loss of cable Internet connections under XP

Factual Questions
1

I’m have no end of problems with very frequently dropping Internet connections, both via a direct Ethernet cable connection to the cable modem via a wireless router -and- dropping wireless connections via wireless router.

Here’s my network configuraion (very simple): Comcast cable modem -> Linksys WRT54GX2 (what they call SRX200) wireless router, with one direct Ethernet cable connection to main XP computer and 3 wireless XP computer connections.

What happens is that either after a reboot or a arbitrary lapse in activity, both the direct and the wireless connections are dropped repeatedly (I never see it drop while continuous activity was going on from the point of view of the direct connection, but I’m not sure about the wireless users). Going in to the Network Connections and clicking “repair” works to restore the connection only about 15-20% of the time. The rest of the time requires voodoo. Voodoo, in so far as there is NO consistent solution, so I’m forced to keep randomly power-cylcing the cable modem and router and rebooting all in completely arbitrary ways until it starts working again. This process commonly takes 15-30 minutes!

Now, I’ve read several previous posts in this thread on that topic (as well as other sites), and I’ve followed much of the advice I’ve seen, but none of that has seemed to help. But here are a few of the things I’ve tried so far without adequate success:

– Checked the power-saving/power-down settings of both the machines and the NICs.

– Disabled 802.1x protocol

– Changed physical router (was Netgear wireless router one week ago)

– Changed motherboard (was Abit IS-7 one week ago)

– Changed NIC (new mobo has new, faster, better NIC)

– Changed Ethernet cables; all brand new and working fine.

– Tried changing wireless channels. No effect.
Additional Info:

I’m using the Windows classic start menu, so there’s no “Start -> Connect to…” menu entry.

Connection status in tray sometimes says connected, sometimes not, when this happens.

I’m using ZoneAlarm Pro firewall, and I get no firewall messages relating to any of this. Never had Norton or any other network security software installed on any of the machines.

Wireless router uses WPA security.

Wireless Zero Configuration Service running automatically.

Am now using MAC address cloning feature of new router (wasn’t a week ago).

–

Current Configuration:

Motherboard: Supermicro P4SCT+II – Socket 478
Bus(es) : ISA AGP PCI PCI-X IMB USB FireWire/1394a/1394b i2c/SMBus
MP Support : 1 Processor(s) – MP APIC : Yes
Processor: Intel Pentium 4© 3.2GHz (Northwood), hyper-threaded, 800 MHz bus
Chipset: Intel 875P (Canterwood) chipset
Storage Controllers: Adaptec Marvell MV88SX5041 4-port SATA PCI-X Controller
SCSI Storage Controller: LSI Logic 203320-R Ultra320 PCI-X SCSI HDA
Firewire Controller: TI TSB82AA2 PCI-X IEEE-1394b Link Layer Controller
Ethernet Controller: Intel PRO/1000 PCI-X /Intel 82547EI Gigabit Ethernet
Total Memory: 1GB Micron/Crucial DDR-SDRAM
Video Adapter : RADEON 9200 Series
Audio: Auzentech X-Meridian 7.1

Operating System(s)
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP/2002 Professional 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 2)

2

What you want to do is invoke Legba, opener of the ways and Papa Gudde, guardian of the crossroads to access the net and then keep the connection. OTTOMH, I can’t remember what each loa likes but you’re always safe with rum.

3

Hell, if the rum doesn’t solve the loa’s problems, it might well solve mine!

4

Welcome to my world. I have an identical problem. I haven’t done all the troubleshooting you’ve done, though. My current method consists of severe cursing, getting up offa my comfy sofa, power cycling modem, wireless router, and laptop and then holding my breath while I wait for it all to reboot…which works only most of the time. There’s no consistency that I can find…well, except the cursing part…that’s consistent!