Trouble with renewing IP address. My problem, or ISP's?

I keep having trouble with losing my internet connection and when I click to repair the connection it says that it cannot renew my IP address. My ISP says there is nothing that they can do on their end and basically have the attitude that there is something wrong with my router/computer. *gggrrrr* I am going to switch ISP's soon because the one that I am with right now is a joke. It is supposed to be high speed DSL but I performed multiple download/upload tests at PC PitStop and the average download speed I've got is around 550kbps and about 70kbps on the upload. To say the least, that p!sses me off. I was with cable service for the longest, but I moved recently and the cable company doesn't service this area so I went with a local DSL company.

Anyhow, I went into Computer Management/Event Viewer/System and looked it up and got this info:

"Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address *removed*. The following error occurred:

The semaphore timeout period has expired. Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server."


I removed my network address because I'm not sure if that's something one should put out on the internet or not.

Can anyone tell me what they think the problem is? Is it on my end? Or my ISP's end? I never had problems like this with my cable service. I believe maybe the signal strength isn't good, maybe I am too far away from their tower? This particular DSL company works by using an antenna system on the side of your house. (I'd never seen DSL used this way before.)

Any input would be appreciated before I make the call to this company to come out and get their equipment. I want to be sure I am correct in thinking it's their problem, not mine, before I get all crazy with them, lol.

 

They sure seem to have a bad attitude: I use cable, but I use cox's cheaper version--twenty bucks a month--and they are always very friendly, and have even come out for nothing, and gone over everything...and when I call them with any kind of problem, they sit there and go thru it with me...others have different experiences with them, but over the last few years, mine have been very positive...

all I know is the obvious stuff, you know, unplugging the router and the modem, then plugging them back in and letting them reset, that's *usually* my problem, no matter what the error is...again, this company should be much more helpful if they want to stay in business...

 

Yeah, I go through all the usual resetting business. I even went as far as to disconnect my vonage router and hook the internet up directly but it's still happening so obviously my vonage router has nothing to do with it. Sometimes the only thing that works is to turn EVERYTHING off. Unplug it all and let it sit a while and then connect it back up and turn the computer back on. It's ridiculous to have to do that multiple times a day on the bad days. Usually it just disconnects and can't renew the IP address when the computer has sat untouched for a while. It will be working fine and then you get up to go do something (run into town or whatever) come back an hour or so later and the internet connection has decided to disappear. Nobody has touched the computer, nothings changed, etc It's annoying.

 

Sounds like a problem on your end. In this case, the IP it's talking about is your computers private IP. Doesn't really matter who knows what it is, at least in most cases, most people on home networks are going to have the same(or an IP from the same range of) IP address. Private IPs are used over and over and over on different networks. Eg... My private IP may be 192.168.1.2, or something long those lines. Your IP could be the same, cause it's private and only used for the local network(just in your home). The IP that the ISP gives is your public IP, which is assigned to the WAN interface on your modem. Your modem(& router if you have one) use technologies like NAT to get the right computer on the local network the right information from the internet and basically mask all of the computers on your home network behind the modem. To the internet, you are your modem, no matter what computer you're on. The point of me telling you all this is if your computer is having problems getting an IP address it is between your computer and whatever device the computer is supposed to be getting DHCP information from, which in your case should be whatever device you are connecting to(either your router or modem), and it doesn't really have to do with the ISP. The only reason the ISP would be involved is if their equipment(like if you were renting a modem) was faulty, but that doesn't sound like the case.

Anyway, all of that information that I probably didn't need to tell you being said, it sounds like a problem with the computer. You said that you have a router, but have also tried plugging directly into the modem, correct? Since it is happening when plugged into the router and when plugged into the modem, it somewhat eliminates the router or modem as being the problem.

As far as narrowing it down to a specific piece of hardware or other specific problem, I'm afraid I may be a little slow, for lack of a better word. School will wear on your brain.

What operating system are you using? We'll need to know this to know how to give you instructions on what to check and how to check it and also instructions on how to change things/settings, since it's different for different operating systems.

I'm assuming that you're wired, not wireless(connection between computer & router or computer & modem).

Also, how old is the computer, and did this start happening around any significant event like a storm or something?

 

The trouble started as soon as I began service with this company and it's gone from being an annoyance a couple times a week to multiple times a day. I have a XP Media Center Edition 2005. I have a NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller. I have my Vonage router disconnected because I thought it may be an issue, but apparently not. The DSL has an antenna on the side of my house and a white line going into something outside the guy called a "piggy back". ?? Inside you plug up a motorola adapter that has a little black square on the end of the cord. It has two ports, one labeled "to radio" one labeled "to computer". The white line from outside plugs into the "radio" port, and another short black line plugs into the "computer" port and then directly into the ethernet port on the back of the computer. A strange set up, to me. There is no traditional modem. Hopefully I described the setup well enough for you to picture it.

 

I found this for the "semaphore timeout" error.

It might be worth looking in the registry and changing the timeout to see if extending it does any good. If not, you can always revert to the previous setting.