Internet Connection drop outs

Intel P4 2.4 Ghz, 2 gig ram, Nividia 6200, Antec 480PSU
WKP Home SP/2
IE 6.0
AVG 8.5.283 & SP2 Firewall
Google Chrome
Comcast Broadband

Here recently over the past month I have been experiencing losing my internet connection intermittenly for no apparent reason to my knowledge. It happens at differnet times and is independent on which website I may be on or whether I am using IE 6.0 or Google Chrome as the browser.
The enet light on my modem will simply quit blinking and go to a solid state. If i shut the pc down the modem light immediately starts blinking again and when i boot back up everything is fine until after a variable time it disconnects again.
I have called Comcast my isp client provider and of course they say everything is fine when they ping the connection so they are totally useless.
All of my windows updates are uptodate.
I have turned system restore off and run full scans with AVG 8.5, Uninstalled AVG, installed Avast 4.8 & ran a thourough scan, uninstalled Avast & installed Avira & ran full scan, also full scans with Malwarebytes, SuperAntispyware, Adaware Se, and have found nothing that has resolved the situation.
This happens even with no virus app installed and before I had Google Chrome installed. Also happens even with the SP2 firewall turned off.

Last week I had Juliet one of the HJT advisors on another forum help me resolve an issue with about:blank popping up when clicking on various tabs within sites and she helped me out with that issue by submitting a HJT log file, running combofix, etc. and resolved that issue. The internet connection dropping out was already occurring before she helped me with the about:blank issue.

I have changed out the comcast modem and this was not the problem. Had a Comcast tech come out and he claims all is O.K. on there end.

This is a Gateway pc with the Intel ® Pro/100 VE Network Connection built in to the Intel MB. I have d\l the latest generic drivers from Intel but they wont install from my desktop until I uninstall the present Intel ProSet II. The Add\Remove programs wont let me uninstall the ProSet II for some reason. Do I have to uninstall the network drivers first?

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_res…mp;submit=Go%21

Any help would be appreciated.
Could someone possibly help me out with this problem ?

Regards

Hi Silverfox1, welcome to WTT. From your description, the first thing I would do if this were my computer would be to put a new (or borrowed) PCI Ethernet card in and run with it for awhile, see if that resolves the problem.

Hi Silverfox1, welcome to WTT.

From your description, the first thing I would do if this were my computer would be to put a new (or borrowed) PCI Ethernet card in and run with it for awhile, see if that resolves the problem.

This is a Gateway pc with the Intel ® Pro/100 VE Network Connection built in to the Intel MB. There is no ethernet card plugged into a pci slot. I mentioned this in the last paragraph of my initial post.

Thanks for the reply though !

Yes, I understand there is no PCI Ethernet card plugged in, just the on-board NIC. That is why I suggested you plug one in, to see if the on-board NIC is defective. It's a fairly easy task to do and a good way to see if you have a hardware or software problem. From your description, my first guess would be hardware (on-board nic).

Just to follow-up: whenever the internet connection dropped out i could open up the Intel ProSet ll utility in Control panel and run the diagnostics and it would re-connect to the internet after the link test. Problem was it would still drop-out a few minutes later. I then disabled IPSECS in services just in case my client server had changed something but the problem continued to happen anyway. I then hooked up another spare HD i had and the same drop-outs occurred thus nullifying a virus or malware in the original HD. So i re-hooked up the original HD. Checked in event viewer and viewed [system] and noticed anytime just before the drop-outs occurred i received a disk error event id 11: The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D Also on only one occasion i received simultaneously with the event id: 11 an event id: 5 : A parity error was detected on \Device\ide\ide port 0 I then powered down and disconnected my BenQ dvd burner, booted back-up and I have not experienced another connection drop-out so far. After 6 years of troubleshooting various problems on this pc this is definitely a first for me if this does indeed resolve the issue. I either have possibly some corrupt drivers, firmware,etc. in the BenQ burner but I would never had thought this problem could cause connection problems via the internet. Have you ever heard of this occurring ? Regards,

Hi Silverfox1

Yes it sounds unusual, but its not uncommon that windows sometimes
assign the wrong IRQ to a piece of hardware. Placing it in conflict with
another device, in this case, your BenQ DvD burner and your NIC.


A remove from device manager, and reboot, re-install, usually clears it up.
So you could try install your DvD burner again, and see if it gets assigned
the same IRQ number as your NIC, if not, it should work out ok.

To view the IRQ (Interrupt Request) numbers, do the following:

Go to start or "My Computer", then Control-panel
(Performance and Maintenance) System
Hardware Tab, then Device manager

Next you click on view in toolbar menu, select "Resources by type"

Find the Interrupt Request entry, expand by plus-sign if neccesary.
Now you are able to view all IRQ numbers, and what is assigned to them.

But good you got it solved


Cheers

Edit: Heres some info on IRQ if interested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRQ

Abydos, I have not re-installed the BenQ burner yet but i viewed the IRQ assignments in device manager as you suggested and the Network Adapter is #20 with no conflicts. The Primary IDE Channel is #14 and the Secondary IDE Channel is #15. At present i do still have a Mashita DVD rom player but it does not show any IRQ assignment, only that it is in location 1 when i view its properties in device manager. I think the BenQ was in location 0. Dont the DVD\CD players & DVD burners simply use either the Primary or secondary IDE channels? My standard floppy disk controller is assigned to IRQ #6 . I will hook the BenQ burner back up re-boot and recheck the IRQ assignments and reply back. Thanks for your help & tips, it is very much appreciated. Regards

Hi again

Sounds weird:

At present i do still have a Mashita DVD rom player but it does not show any IRQ assignment, only that it is in location 1 when i view its properties in device manager. I think the BenQ was in location 0.

Have a look in the article, I linked to, there you can see the assignment numbers and
what they normally are reserved for. Now, I am not an expert in this field, and I guess
different motherboards have different ways of influencing this.

And yes, normally CD/DvD drives are assigned to the IDE channels.

A few things you could look into, and which might clear it up:

Updates to BIOS
Re-installing the IDE controllers (Simply remove and reboot, let windows re-install)
Reseat your NIC also, if you still got problems with the burner.

Let us hear how you fare with the re-install of the BenQ burner


Cheers