Intermittent internet communication.

[Synthetic]

I have been trying to get the best out of my internet connection. PC is a P4 with XP and ADSL connection through a router. I have run TCP Doctor and set all the optimum settings. This did improve the performance, but while doing this, I moved the router to where it could be seen and another problem became apparent. Sometimes when I click on a link, nothing happens for 5-30 seconds. During this time the network and adsl lights on the router remain on solid (connection good but no activity). If I hit 'stop' and 'refresh', the page will often load imediately.

I have tried IE7, Firefox and Opera, three different routers and allowing my ISP to allocate a DND os specifying one myself. All to no avail.

I am begining to suspect there is something wrong with the PC itself.

Before I go down the "format c:" route, does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in anticipation.

[Bushfiva]

If this happens predominantly when you are using the connection after a long pause, check if the router has been configured to send a keepalive packet. If not, tick that box and see what happens. Unless, you pay for connect time, in which case, don't tick it 8-)

If you're not keen delving into modems, there's also PC software which does the same thing.

[parabellum]

Recently had a similar problem, it was deemed a 'noise' issue by the telecom engineers. They came with what looked like a hand held AM radio and walked all around the house searching for noise peaks, nothing very special so they toured the court I live in and discovered that a neighbour, with a huge satellite aerial, had a set top box that was causing everyone in the locality to have major connection and speed problems.
Owner agreed to disconnect and stop using set top box, everything now just fine!!!