Internet connection dropping after 1-2 minutes

[Andrew Stevens]

I have an installation of Windows XP Professional, with a dial-up Internet
connection that keeps disconnecting after 1-2 minutes of inactivity. The
idle disconnect setting was initially set to 20 minutes, I have tried
changing the setting to "never", but it makes no difference. The XP firewall
is turned on and ICS is turned off. Is there another setting I need to
modify to stop the PC from disconnecting?

Thanks
Andrew Stevens.

 

[Patty MacDuffie]

What kind of modem do you have? Is there a power settings tab on the modem's properties? Sounds like the machine is shutting down the modem to save power. I don't have a modem on my computer to check this though. If it is a USB modem, you will find a power management setting on the property sheet of the USB Hub in device manager. (You may have several hubs.) Uncheck the checkbox to allow the machine to turn the device off to save power.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Thanks for the response Patty. The modem is internal, it is in a Toshiba
laptop and says Toshiba AMR software modem. The property to shut the modem
down to save power is not ticked and the option is greyed out so that it
cannot be selected, so this would not appear to be the cause. Any other
ideas?

Regards,
Andrew Stevens.


What kind of modem do you have? Is there a power settings tab on the
modem's properties? Sounds like the machine is shutting down the modem to
save power. I don't have a modem on my computer to check this though. If
it is a USB modem, you will find a power management setting on the property
sheet of the USB Hub in device manager. (You may have several hubs.)
Uncheck the checkbox to allow the machine to turn the device off to save
power.

Maybe it's simply a faulty modem or modem driver. I would recommend you
check on the Toshiba web support pages, and even ask on their support forum.

 

[BruceM]

I would suspect the ISP first up. Can you try from a friends place? On
another line? See if your friends works from your place.
Nothing worse than changing all your settings & it's their fault.
BruceM

 

[Patty MacDuffie]

If it is a Toshiba laptop, then Toshiba has their own power management utility. Are you looking at device manager for the modem? And have you checked the Toshiba power utility? It could be the ISP as others have suggested, but laptops do try to shut things down to save power as soon as possible, so I personally would want to investigate this avenue further. Do also try Toshiba's website. See if they have any KB article on this, known issue or even updated modem driver.

 

[Donald Link]

Call your ISP and see if they have the answers. They may be disconnecting
from there end and you can not do anything about it. Also, there are
software around that will continually ping your ISP to make it appear that
you are active.

 

[Andrew Stevens]

Thanks everyone for your help. Resolved the problem by trying a different
ISP account, so it must have been the ISP disconnecting the laptop from
their end.

Regards,
Andrew Stevens.

 

[BruceM]

Congratulations!!
Now do all your old friends on that ISP a favour by making sure the ISP
knows ALL about it.
Unfortunately there are too many ISP's that want to always blame computers &
modems.
I've been through it myself. The amount of things that they got me to do to
my computer, over & over again. Changed ISP's & never got dropped again.
BruceM

 

[Patty MacDuffie]

Frank? Is that you? <g>