random restarts, router respondance, and constant downloading

My computer and the devices that surround it are fragged in most areas of late.

To begin with, every once in a while, my computer restarts. This seems to happen at random and it really quite annoying.

Secondly, my router seems to be no longer usable - I am aware that a router is hardware, but I am convinced it is a software issue. It will be completely functional one minute, but then it will randomly stop responding until I reset it. I believe the problem lies in my Microsoft Broadband Networking Utility or somewhere else in windows as the router glows orange when there is a problem with it, but it was glowing green. Also, only when I unplug the router to reset it does windows tell me that a network cable has been unplugged. This tells me that the router is still sending the information but windows is failing to receive it. At the moment, the only way I am able to use the internet for more than 5 minutes is if I connect directly to the modem.

But the problem that concerns me the most (and this may tie in to the second problem) is that my Bandwidth Monitor Pro is now telling me that I am constantly downloading at a rate anywhere from 25-40KB/s. This has never happened before.

Anyways, thank you in advance for any help you may be able to provide.

- k -​

 

Here is the information you require:

• Norton, but I also scanned with Mcafee.
• It is an MN-100 router.
• The router firewall was enabled.
• The Windows XP Home Edition built-in firewall was not running.
• No other firewalls were running.

Thanks a lot.

- k -​

 

Thanks again.

I did all those things and scanned with McAfee, Norton, Adaware, and SpyBot. Norton and McAfee found nothing and SpyBot and Adaware found about 20 dangerous txt files.

During this process, the computer has been on for extented periods of time without restarting, so I suppose, for the moment, that that problem is fixed.

Also, my router also seems to be working correctly - it hasnt cut out in a good while.

Finally, now that i'm using the router again, my Bandwidth Monitor Plus is at 0KB/s again, which is a relief. I guess the two problems were interconnected afterall.

I dont know what defragmenting and errorchecking did, but it certainly did the trick since I had a clean registry, updated virus definitions, and up to date firmware prior to doing all of this.

Anyways, thanks a bunch for stabilizing my box.

- k -​