Connection stalls 10 mins after booting

[peluchino]

Hello all.

I'm new to this forum, and and hoping someone can help with a problem a friend has with their ntl connection. She has the set top box (no separate modem) which connects to the PC via an SMC ethernet to USB converter. The operating system is Windows ME, with all updates applied.

The connection was absolutely fine until last week, but the PC had previously been hanging on every restart or shut down, requiring a hard reset to clear. I suspected Zone Alarm (free) as the cause of this, and sure enough, after its removal, that problem disappeared.

I then installed Sygate firewall and all appeared to be fine. However, what happens now is that she can browse for about 10-12 minutes from booting up, but after that, IE suddenly cannot access any sites and any running downloads stall. If I restart the PC, all is fine again, for another 10-12 mins. The same thing happens consistently - every time! I've tried the following, but the problem still persists:

Uninstalling firewall and AV progs so nothing is running apart from 'explorer' and 'systray'.
Removing and reinstalling USB converter driver.
Checking connections back to the set top box.
Turning the set top box off and on.
Calling ntl who confirm the connection looks ok from their end.

I also tried fitting an ethernet card, removing the USB adapter from the link and powering down and up the set top box and PC, but I get no connectivity at all after this.

The odd thing is that I've tried pinging www.bbc.co.uk and other sites after the connection 'dies', and do get a response here, even though the same sites can't be accessed through the browser!

Has anybody come across this before and have any suggestions?

Thanks for any help

[Chris W]

:welcome:

Check the system resources- by right clicking my computer, then going to properties and performance.

Post back what the system resources are :)

[peluchino]

Hello Chris,

Thanks for the welcome and quick reply!

The system resources are showing 81% free at the moment - with the PC having been on long enough for the connection to have 'dropped'.

[Paul K]

Getting onto an ethernet connection may help if it's an issue with the connection you are currently using.
If you have fitted an ethernet card try powering off the pc
power of the STB
switch the cable into the ethernet card
switch on the STB
wait till the light locks
switch on the pc
open browser
If that doesn't work it might be that you have to register/ provision the ethernet card against your account. Doesn't take long to do though.
__________________

One question though, when your connection dies what IP address are you showing for your connection?

[peluchino]

Hi Paul,

I'm fairly sure that was the sequence I followed when fitting the ethernet card, but I'm going round to my friend's again tomorrow, so I'll give it another go (and also check out the IP address). I know I got rid of the USB adapter entry in the Device manager so Windows wouldn't get confused while I tried out the ethernet card.

Regarding registering/provisioning the ethernet card against the user's account, how do I go about doing that? (I don't have ntl myself) Is that something that's in the ntl broadband setup cd? I thought about running through the whole setup procedure, but was wary of doing that, as it had already been done once on that PC...

[Paul K]

The setup procedure doesn't need the NTL software and your friend should have a little booklet with instructions in it. The address to point the router at is different for STBs (think it's start.ntl) and if you type it into IE it should help kick start the registration of the NIC to the account. Theoretically you shouldn't need to do all this as it should be done automatically when you switch connections but sometimes it needs a little nudge ;)