Dropping Internet Service Wireless and Ethernet

I have been troubleshooting a problem with my internet connection dropping for over 4 months. I am on my laptop most of the time so notice it primarily with the wireless but have seen it happen several times on the Ethernet connected desktop. CenturyLink has replaced the modem 3 times but it does not fix the problem. The modem has been in the same location for 8 years which is below the room I use my laptop. All Ethernet cables from connections around the house are run to this location. I am running Windows7 on my Sony laptop and XP Pro on all other computers. All software is up-to-date. Sometimes the taskbar will say the wireless is connected but in Network Neighborhood, it says non-operational. Sometimes selecting ‘troubleshooting’ fixes the problem and sometimes rebooting the modem. Thinking it may be a hardware problem with my laptop, I brought out an older Gateway laptop I haven’t used in sometime which runs XP Pro. It encountered the same problems, although not always at the same time. I have disabled remote desktop, have up-to-date McAfee firewall and anti-virus, have run Malwarebytes and AdAware. Sometimes I will be able to get on-line but unable to open the AOL 9.7 program. I have removed and reloaded this program. Occasionally I have IE connection but it takes a long time to load a page or I click on a link and it says there is no IE connection but back arrow returns me to the previous page and if I select something else, it loads. Last week there was an incident where I was again having problems and my AOL dropped with a message “An AOL session initiated by another user on this computer is still running.” No other user was logged in on this computer. I went to the desktop but could not open an IE page and AOL would not open. It felt like my cursor was not moving with my mouse. It resolved once I rebooted the modem. Out of curiosity, I opened the modem configuration software and went to Advanced Setup…IP Addressing….DHC Reservation. This displayed the IP’s for all my devices that are connected. There were two IP’s I could not identify and were not in the IP range of my computers. They were 212.0.168.192 which I traced to Portugal and 71.0.168.192 which may be CenturyLink in Florida. We did travel to Florida 2 months ago but after the problems developed. At this point I disabled UPnP. Now these IP addresses are gone and I thought I might have fixed the problem until today. I am still dropping internet on the laptop and I dropped AOL with the same message “An AOL session initiated by another user on this computer is still running.” It feels to me like someone is accessing my computer and I don’t know if there are any ports I have open that should be closed. It is whatever the manufacturers set them to. We are in a rural area outside the city although we have neighbors close enough to see their modems (weak signals) when I click on ‘View Wireless Networks.” I have a basic understanding of computers but not indepth security settings/networking so if this sounds familiar to anyone, please explain in simple language. Thx.

 

This is a shot in the dark MerciMe, but do you have a firewall enabled ??

 

No idea why your connection drops but as regards security the obvious questions are what wireless security has been set up on the router/modem and are you sure the passphrase is a secure one? Also, have you thought of changing the passphrase?

That's the standard means of securing a wireless router but if you really want to make it bulletproof then set up MAC filtering. Bit of a drag but 100% secure.

 

OP said he/she is using McAfee firewall.

 

McAfee at the computer level and the modem I see is set to low with table change for dynamic and static IP's .

 

Who is that response for?

 

I changed my password to a 20 letter/number phrase. The wireless network authentication is set up on the Sony as WPA-WPA2 Personal, and the Gateway as WPA2-PSK. I forgot to mention that when I first noticed service dropping, I opened my network properties and the authentication had been changed to "shared" something I would never have done and my husband would have no idea how to change nor would he want to. CenturyLink didn't think that was a problem??

 

Reply to Nick. I am clicking on "quick reply to message" under the reply asking the question. That is not correct?

 

That all sounds textbook though not sure about the Shared authentication, maybe someone else can clarify, but you could reset it to WPA-WPA2 Personal of course. It's very unlikely , given that level of security, that there are any unauthorised connections. Could there have been any mobile phones or other wireless devices in the house and switched on, or virtual machines running?

 

Yes, mobile phone

 

Thanks Earthling, I was really asking if the router was firewalled, sorry my if question wasn't too clear.

 

Besides iPhone, there is a Dish Network wireless device that looks like a thumb drive and is in the back of the receiver. It is used to download movies. It was about the time this was installed that I started having problems but I removed the device from the receiver and still had problems. It is back in now.

 

There are two seperate problems here - disconnections, and unknown IPs appearing in the router's DHCP table. Looking at the second first I'm intrigued by the two IPs you say were showing, 212.0.168.192 and 71.0.168.192. If these were reversed both would read 192.168.0.x, both being numbers which are used all the time in local (home) networks. This seems totally beyond coincidence to me, about as likely as me winning the lottery. Can you think of any way this might have happened? Also, as I said, your wireless security is good so unless someone has got the 20 digit security key somehow they won't be able to connect.

I can't from what you have said so far figure out whether the disconnections are between router and exchange or between router and your laptop. When you next get a disconnection can you take a look at the router status lights and see if either ADSL or Internet lights have gone off/amber/red? Another check is to see if connection has also been lost on an Ethernet connected PC.

Sorry about the delay, it's the time difference of 5-6 hours.

 

That is odd...the dyslexic numbers. I would not have the ability to edit this list and this is the first I have been on this screen. Also I do not assign IP's to any of my devices. I have looked at the modem when I have lost the internet and all lights are on. CenturyLink at one time said the connection showed multiple errors but after I removed a phone line filter I was given for the modem, those errors cleared up. Since then they say it doesn't show my service is dropping. This problem is so inconsistent that it is hard to troubleshoot. For instance, I can lose service on my Sony laptop but able to get it on the Gateway and visa versus. When I lost internet to my Dell desktop, I was able to get on with the sony. I would think anyone with advanced technical training could hack into a computer. Incidentally, we have such a neighbor but he is at least 100 feet away and the CL tech when he was out couldn't believe I could even see his modem. He had been caught using a neighbor's internet connection. I believe this neighbor at the time did not have a password set up on their router and they are much closer to his house. Finally, could this be a case of getting a rootkit?

 

Intermittent problems are, as you say, nearly impossible to troubleshoot, but I'm interested to hear that you have removed an ADSL filter and things improved :confused The rule is to have a filter on every outlet, even on those not in use. Might be worth getting some new good quality ones and following the rulebook. Otherwise that remains a possible source of problems.

I can't believe those IPs - I actually thought this might be some sort of wind up, but it seems not. Would be good if someone with deeper knowledge than mine could come up with an explanation.

I'm not that knowledgeable about rootkit behaviour but my guts tell me it's pretty improbable.

Keep us informed if you get a breakthrough