HTTP traffic drops intermittently.

[Jelly]

For the past few days our router seems to have been stopping HTTP (port 80) traffic when it fells like it, but allowing other traffic - such as torrents - through. I can surf for about 10 minutes before pages stop responding. I notice, however, that my torrents continue unaffected. I use protocol encryption in my torrent client and randomise the port each time it starts, so I cannot give the exact ports it uses.

The computer I use is connected via a wireless network with WEP - purely for compatibility with my siblings' Nintendo DS - and runs Ubuntu, browsing with Firefox 2 and torrenting with Deluge. The computer directly connected to the router also suffers from this problem and runs Windows XP, browsing with IE. No torrent clients are on this computer, but MSN appears to be unaffected as well.

During this port 80 "Downtime" I am unable to reconnect to the wireless network, though it's SSID is detected, as it asks me for the wireless passkey which is subsequently rejected. A push of the reset button at the back, however, allows another few minutes of surfing before the same happens.

The router is a Linksys WRT54GS version 6 with v1.50.6 firmware.

[ceedee]

If the same problem is affecting both wired and wireless LAN connections, I'd guess that it would suggest that it's either a problem with your router or the DNS look-up.

Which DNS servers are you using?
Is your wired computer still able to connect when your wireless one hangs?
If not, what does a tracert show?

[Jon T]

If the router is asking for the wireless passkey this indicates a more servere problem than DNS servers. Remember that basic wireless connectivity is at Layer 1/2 of the OSI model, DNS and every other part of TCP/IP doesn't come in untill layer 3, and in order for higher level protocols to work, you have to have the one on the layer immediatly below working properly.

If MSN is unaffected then that would also discredit DNS as being the problem.

It's only a guess, but i'd say that the router is struggling with the amount of data that being put through it, maybe not a model problem, but could indicate yours is getting ready to meet it's maker.

[Jelly]

The wired and wireless computers will always have the same problem at the same time and I am using the VM DNS servers.

[Jelly]

Seems to have been solved by a firmware upgrade, since I've yet to see it drop again.