Weird router related issue
 

Hey guys,

I've got a D-Link DGL-4100 wired router, had it for about 2 years, maybe longer, and it's worked great until 1pm this afternoon.

I'm experiencing something I've never experienced before with networks and routers, and I'm just wondering if anyone's experienced the same and can maybe either offer an explanation or some advice please.

Basically, I've got the router connected via WAN port to the modem, I've got an ethernet cable connected to my Dad's PC, my PC, my PS3 and a spare shorter cable that isn't connected to anything so I can switch my PS3 between upstairs and downstairs for streaming media from my PC to my TV downstairs using TVersity.

Anyway, this afternoon at around 1pm, my Internet connection dropped dead. I went down to the modem, reset it, and reset the router at the same time. Modem came back on, I plugged the router in and the Internet connection came back on. Thought nothing more of it, my Dad's PC downstairs was working properly, net connection and all. I headed back upstairs, sat down at my PC, and the net connection was dead again. My dad then yelled up that his was down again.

Tried this little song and dance 3-4 times with the same results. Internet connection down after 2-3 minutes. At this point I tried accessing my router's software at the 192.168.0.1 IP address to find that my router wouldn't communicate with my computer.

"Uh oh".

So I sit there thinking for a second, thoughts like "Goddamnit, why now? Why does it have to die when I'm flat broke? Why does it have to die now instead of two weeks ago when I had some spare cash?". Then, I unplug my modem from my router and connect my Dad's PC directly to the modem. I reset the modem, reboot his PC, and the internet connection is back again. However, unlike before, the internet connection remains up.

Permanently.

So now I'm thinking "Okay, my router's on the fritz...", so I connect my Dad's PC directly to the router with no WAN cable connected to it.

It works fine...

I can log into it, change settings, reboot the device, everything. No problems at all.

Now I'm thinking "What the f...?" and going over the entire schematic in my head.

Here's the interesting part. When I connect the modem to the WAN port with the router software webpage open, it works fine for a second, then begins telling me something along the lines of "This process could not complete because the network connection is down". This happens for, yep, you guessed it, 2-3 minutes until I get a flat out "This page is not available".

So, I have a router that works fine on it's own, an Internet connection that works fine on it's own but when you throw the two together the way God, the Devil and Virgin Media intended, all of a sudden (after two+ years of working absolutely fine), I can't get a connection.

I haven't phoned tech support yet, mainly because 1) I'll only get through to India and I'm awful at understanding foreign accents as it is without a phone line getting in the way and 2) They'll only accuse the router, say they don't support a router, blame me for defying them and curse me and my immortal soul for all eternity.

So, I ask you guys instead. Am I in need of a new router, or is this some sort of devil's work? Is my modem killing my router, or is my router killing my modem? Is my router killing itself, or is my modem killing itself? Is this potentially a temporary situation or is my router/modem/whatever it is knackered and gonna require replacement?

Sorry for the long winded explanation of my problem, but I find if I don't explain everything I often get people asking more (though sometimes, I explain fully and people just don't read it all anyway ;) )

Cheers for any advice you guys can offer,

Chris/KsE

Re: Weird router related issue
 

Have you checked that the latest firmware for your router is installed?

Re: Weird router related issue
 

Hey Rob,

Yeah I'm running on 1.8, which was the latest available, however just a minute ago I discovered on D-Link's forums that they pulled the 1.8 due to issues, so I'm about to go downgrade it to 1.7 and see if anything happens.

I'm not optimistic though as I've been running on 1.8 for at least 6 months.

---------- Post added at 17:02 ---------- Previous post was at 15:33 ----------

Okay, I downgraded it but it's still doing the same thing. I'm now running on an old Linksys router, however it too was giving me the same problems until about 5 minutes ago, and now suddenly it's working. The strange thing is, I still can't access the router software properly, it's slow and times out repeatedly.

I'm really baffled by this, and wondering if perhaps I should try my luck and connect my D-Link router again, as it was a fairly expensive buy when I got it (£85 2+ years ago).

One thing I have discovered though is that the A1, A2 and A3 revisions of the DGL-4100 are horrendously unreliable and brick themselves quite often. Mine, of course, is an A1 (luck wouldn't be that kind to me heh) and thus I'm probably fairly screwed.

Re: Weird router related issue
 

I'm having exactly the same problem as from Friday evening. I got home to find no internet connection. Before I started fiddling about I phoned Tech support to ask if there was any problem in my area.

The guy said he was testing my modem and then came back to say that there was a fault with the modem and arranged for an engineer to come out tomorrow.

So on Saturday I set about finding out what was going on. First of all I found out that mt D-Link router had seemingly died - no lights apart from power light. The rest of the leds flashed occasionally.

I then tried the modem straight into a PC and all worked fine so I concluded it was my router.

Fished out the Netgear router that Virgin had sent me but had not used as yet. Hooked it all up and internet worked fine for 1 - 5 minutes and then stopped. A reboot brought it back up but it kept happening. I could access the network though.

I also tried my own Netgear router which had been working just as a switch with dhcp turned off. So turned it back on and same as the Virgin router. Surely 2 routers are not faulty I thought?

So took the Virgin router down to my son's to try it on his Virgin modem. Works perfectly there with no dropouts at all. Gave it a good test for around half an hour.

I then brought it back to mine and plugged it all back. Same problem. I then left it for half an hour or so and did not reboot. I then switched on one of the other pcs and everything seemed fine for an hour or so.

However since saturday evening the internet has worked sometimes and not others. I have not rebooted anything. The connection drops out (no pattern) but comes back on its own with no rebooting of either modem or router.

I am still going to get the engineer out tomorrow as I feel this is more a connection issue or a modem issue. Whatever Tech Support did yesterday apparently showed up a modem fault.

Any ideas?