Internet Keeps Timing Out.....

I'm having problems with my internet constantly timing out. Every 20mins - 2 hours my internet will just drop. I proceed to do a power cycle and it works again for the time being. However, its become daily thing on a repeated basis and very annoying.

I don't think its a problem with my computer per se because its also happening on my Xbox 360. My internet is setup with the cable modem > router > switch > my computer + 360 + ps3. Off the router is the switch as stated, and then connections for my brother's laptop and my father's laptop. I haven't checked with them to see if they have the same problem yet but i will if it will help get an answer to my problem.

Additionally, we "recently" switched to Vonage. So now its using up additional internet and i don't know necessarily if that effects the connection. It would be understandable having ALL these things running at once would make it a poor connection but thats hardly ever the case. Plus i never had any real problems before and that was for a long period of time.

I'm not sure if maybe we need to upgrade our equipment so it can have a better connection or what. Or maybe its just the switch in my room thats messed up and only ruining my connection. I did just ask my brother and he said it did happen to him last night.

Here's what i have:
Router = Linksys 802.11b - BEFW11S4
Modem = Linksys - BEFCMU10
Switch = Linksys - EZXS55W

Vonage - Motorola - VTZ*542-VD (* that Z might be a 2 i can't read my hand writing)

Any help would be appreciated.

 

You could check on the router to see if there is a setting like idle timeout or something similar, it could be that your router is disconnecting from your ISP, although that wouldn't explain why it starts again after a restart of your computer, unless during the restart the network gets a kick and it wakes the internet connection, but its worth checking.

Also if you are using DHCP you could check how long the lease is for, another possibility is that the lease is quite short and every so often the cache is being filled up and not clear quickly enough.

When you get disconnected, if you try right clicking on your network connection in the system tray and choose repair, that might solve the problem quicker than an actual restart.

 

I tried checking the settings myself, and finally gave up and just called my internet provider. They said they reset everything and i asked if that would really help stop it from timing out. The lady said they wouldn't know but if it happened again i would have to get help from the "level 2" technicians.

I ended up being on my 360 for a while after that and didn't get disconnected so i'm thinking they fixed it.