Internet Connection Keeps Dying

[Sue]

This is getting very annoying. I use my laptop wirelessly. We have a Linksys
router and Verizon DSL. My laptop (HP Pavilion) has built in WiFi. Lately
the connection keeps dying. My router says I'm connected, the DSL modem says
it's connected, even my computer says I'm connected but I am unable to load
webpages or download email. Resetting the router does nothing, resetting the
DSL modem does nothing, resetting the damn WiFi card does nothing. It still
shows I'm connected but I'm not. The only thing that works is rebooting the
computer and this happens twice a day, always in the evening. Anyone have
any ideas?

 

[Harry Avant]

I have a similar problem. I find that I lose real connections often in
the evening if I have not performed any net access for several
minutes. I am able to power off the DSL modem for a few minutes and
then access is restored when I power it back up.

You can check to see if it's a DNS problem by pinging a known live
address the next time you're down. If the ping is okay then it's
Verizon's DNS servers. Try pinging 216.109.112.135 (Yahoo.com).

 

[Sue]

You're right. It happened again a few minutes ago and I was able to ping
Yahoo, Google, Amazon. etc just fine. I tried powering off the modem and it
didn't work. I had to reboot. This is getting really frustrating and really
old fast. Verizon needs to fix their servers!!

Sue

 

[Jeffrey Randow]

You don't have to use them.. You can use OpenDNS
https://www.opendns.com/start

I use them with my ISP DNS servers so if one fails, I still have name
resolution.