Internet Connection Falls Asleep

[Guest]

Running WinXP-Pro on Intel D975XBX2 MB w/ Core 2 Duo E6600 processor &
onboard LAN adapter, Cable MODEM, and D-Link Router. Two machines (other
running Win2K Pro) on router.

Problem is the WinXP machine seems to lose the Internet connection after
several hours of inactivity. Outlook Express responds with "Finding Host"
when invoked to download email and Web Browsers (IE7 and Firefox) respond
with "Looking up... (URL)".

Internet access (wire, fittings, etc.) has been rebuilt by Cox
Communications from the router to the street -- have excellent signal
strength. New Cable MODEM. Other machine (Win2K Pro) never loses access to
the Internet, but the WinXP machine does following 8-12 hours of inactivity
(non-use).

This is the most bizarre thing I've encountered. It has to be a
machine-specific thing, because the other machine never "loses" the Internet.

Any ideas?...

Thanks in advance.

Gary

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Running WinXP-Pro on Intel D975XBX2 MB w/ Core 2 Duo E6600 processor &
onboard LAN adapter, Cable MODEM, and D-Link Router. Two machines
(other running Win2K Pro) on router.

Problem is the WinXP machine seems to lose the Internet connection
after several hours of inactivity. Outlook Express responds with
"Finding Host" when invoked to download email and Web Browsers (IE7
and Firefox) respond with "Looking up... (URL)".

Internet access (wire, fittings, etc.) has been rebuilt by Cox
Communications from the router to the street -- have excellent signal
strength. New Cable MODEM. Other machine (Win2K Pro) never loses
access to the Internet, but the WinXP machine does following 8-12
hours of inactivity (non-use).

This is the most bizarre thing I've encountered. It has to be a
machine-specific thing, because the other machine never "loses" the
Internet.

Any ideas?...

Thanks in advance.

Gary

Check the properties of the NIC in device manager, and see whether there's a
Power Management tab - if so, make sure "allow the computer to turn off this
device to save power" is unticked.

Other suggestions:

Does the workstation get an IP address from your DLink via DHCP?
At the time you have the problem,what's the status of the Local Area
Connection - does it say Connected? (it's nice to have this show up in your
notification area/system tray).
Do you have an IP address at the time, when running ipconfig /all?
Can you ping the LAN IP of the DLink?
Can you ping your DNS server IP?

If your Dlink is handing out its own LAN IP for DNS to all clients, consider
changing its DHCP scope to hand out your ISP's DHCP server addresses
instead.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the quick reply.

The "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" checkbox I
had unchecked since the problem began several months ago. The workstation
does gets its address from the router via DHCP. The Local Area Connection
always indicates it is connected. I check this via the Network Diagnostics
for Windows XP dialogue box -- it states that Windows did not detect any
problems with the Internet Connection and indicates successful connections
with www. microsft.com via HTTP, FTP (passive), and HTTPS. I've used the
"Repair" button many times on the "Support" tab of the Status dialogue box
for the connection. All it seems to do is refresh the connection.

I can also successfully Ping the LAN IP of the router and the three DNS
Server IP addresses. There is, however, one difference between this XP
machine and the other Win-2000 machine that I notice when I run the command
"ipconfig /all" from the command line. Of course, the reported machine IP
address is different. But, the notable difference is that this XP machine
reports as "Unknown" the Node Type (line 3), whereas the Win-2000 machine
indicates the Node Type as "Broadcast". Can I (or should I) change the XP
machine to "Broadcast"? Is "Unknown" a problem?

Other than these facts, nothing else is noticeable. I can sometimes wkae up
the LAN connection through brute force of several log-on attempts into the
POP email server at Cox Communications. I then try several log-on attempts
into the top-level Microsoft Web Site. This works about 50% of the time.
When it doesn't work, I either reboot the machine or just log myself off and
then back on. This always restores a live Internet connection.

Thank you.

Gary

 

[Guest]

Problem Fixed

There actually were two problems. The first issue involved uncrimped
connectors at the incoming broadband feeder outside the house. After setting
up an appointment, the ISP technician came out and replaced everything from
the street to the house, then checked everything in the house up to and
including the cable modem. When he left, I had a solid, high S/N ratio, good
voltage connection.

When the "sleep" issue came up the next morning, I did the only thing left
to do -- I shut down ZoneAlarm Pro. Voila! I could immediately download
email and log into Websites. The firewall had been set up completely in
automatic -- that is, I let the program configure itself when it was
installed. This was the second time I ahd encountered problems with that
product. Needless to say, I now let WinXP's firewall do its thing. This may
not be the best thing to do, but since a NAT router is part of the system, I
don't worry about it.

Not only did changing firewalls solve the problem, but now the machine seems
twice as fast. It appears that ZoneAlarm is going the way that Symantec's
stuff went four years ago: to bog down the system.

Gary