troubleshooting

[desh]

My new WinXP Pro computer seems to lose its internet connection entirely if the connection is completely idle for too long. There was a helpful option in the hardware manager to tell the network adapter to go to sleep if it's idle for too long; I disabled that, but it didn't help. The only workaround I have is rebooting; logging out of Windows and back in doesn't help. (At least, I don't think it does, if I remember from last time; I can't test it this time, since logging back in seems to be hanging the computer. Whoever said XP Pro got the bugginess out was lying.)

Now it could be a problem with my crappy crappy router. (Don't buy D-Link!) In fact, that seems likely, because I can successfully ping my other local computer. But does anyone know of anything else it might be? Known issues with ZoneAlarm, XP Pro SP1, or ethernet adapters onboard NVIDIA mobos?

Edit: Apparently it's DNS that stops working! I can get to Google by its IP address, but not by "google.com". I'm totally confused now. Ideas?

Edit 2, ~6:15pm EDT: What timing. Now my cable modem is entirely non-functional, and Comcast has a message on their tech support line that there are widespread problems. Yippee. This dialup is painful.

Comments

[bumonyou.livejournal.com]

what is this ghost thing that everyone talks about? Is it awesome?

[chincotaco.livejournal.com]

Norton Ghost (http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/) is a utility for making images of disks, almost like an ISO. That way, if your HD gets fscked, you can just take your Ghost image that you made when your HD was working, and revert back to that working state.

I worked at a computer store where we sold 100s of computers to freshmen, and they all needed to be configured exactly the same way. So we configured one laptop, made a Ghost image, and then just applied that image to every other laptop. Bingo.

[bumonyou.livejournal.com]

wow...I wants!