Hi - hope you can help me on this please.

I occasionally lose internet access and notice that the 'internet led' on the front of the wireless router shows red - all the other leds are green. If I turn the router off - then back on again - it reverts to green and internet access is ok again, but only temporarily.

Today I 'rebooted' the router but the internet led this time refused to 'go green' However, after around five minutes 'it' decided to turn green and once again I'm 'online'

Can anyone point me in the direction of what is at fault (eg is it a router problem - or a telephone line problem etc etc).

Thanks in anticipation

How long has this been happening?

Perhaps the first thing to do is to check with your ISP (always a pain ringing them I know) to see if there are any problems affecting their service in your area.

It started yesterday - I thought about calling them but, not knowing where the fault was, I didn't want to make a fool of myself.

I've just looked at their status page and it's showing the green light and no reported problems.

Also my ISP - who shall remain nameless (but whose name sounds like someone with no sexual experience!!) - aren't always the most helpful.

Oh - just remembered, a few weeks ago the internet light wasn't lit at all for a couple of days. I tried swapping filters, unplugging all equipment connected to the phone line etc. I also tried to revert to using the old modem, but it came up with the message 'no dial tone'.

After a couple of days 'normal service was resumed' and I was once again online, I then received an email from my ISP saying that my broadband speed had been successfully upgraded. When I asked them if this was the reason why I couldn't get online all they said was to ignore the email!

I suggested the ISP route because I had a similar experience a few weeks ago, got up, turned on the computer and right-hand side lights as you look at it, were red.

After fiddling around I bit the bullet and rang Tiscali my ISP.

Turned out there had been a problem at the local exchange during the night and they told me to wait until later in the day when it should be fixed. And it was.

If you do ring, ask them to test your line there and then.

I also have a netgear.

Thank you very much for your help - with the impending festivities I'll leave it until the weekend and, if the problem persists, I'll give my ISP a call.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

And to you Kaybee

The weekend came - and the connection dropped again!

I called Virgin and eventually spoke to an advisor - apparently it was connected to 'the update' from a couple of weeks ago and 'something' that should have updated didn't! The advisor did something at 'his end' and took me through amending/updating some of my router settings and said that all should now be well.

Thanks Hazelnut for your help in this matter - I was almost at the stage of going out and buying a new router!

Oops - connections just dropped again while typing this! Grrr

Now this is when you are going to need nerves of steel, and start ringing your ISP again.

Well, my ISP said to give it a couple of days and see how it goes before ringing them.

I haven't been disconnected for around 2 days so - maybe it's been resolved, here's hoping so!

Thanks again hazelnut for all your help.

Ok - I'm STILL getting an intermittent loss of connection

After half a dozen (lengthy) calls to my ISP and having checked the router settings and 'them' (Virgin) doing tests their end and finding nothing amiss, 'they' now tell me it is quite 'normal' for a router to occasionally drop the connection and, only if it happens every day, can something be wrong!

Can anyone confirm that this is so? Prior to their upgrade I never had a problem with dropped connection - although I was capped at 2.2mbps. I did ask that they cap the speed again but they don't seem to think that line speed is a contributory factor.

I had thought about buying a new router, although this one (supplied by Virgin Media) is only around six months old, just to see if that made any difference.

Any 'tecchies' out there able to give me any advice?

I'm not sure that I would buy a new router kaybee, I personally think it is still a problem with Virgin.
I have suffered the same thing recently, but I lost my connection for a whole week, the first day that I lost it I tried three different routers, the problem was there no matter which router I tried, numerous phone calls to Virgin did eventually lead to them admitting that it was a problem at their end.
I don't know why it took them a week to get it sorted, but luckily things have been fine since.
I even got a courtesy call from them a couple of days after it was sorted to make sure everything was still ok, which surprised me.

Ask them if it is an authentication problem, maybe even suggest to them that they reset your login details, because this is what they kept telling me the problem was.

Good luck and I hope you get it sorted soon.

Thanks for that - I'll give it a try.

OK - I rang Virgin and they finally mentioned the 'A' word [authentication] and said that, since the upgrade around 5% of people have had this kind of problem. The one thing they asked me to do to be ceratin was, the next time it disconnects to log in to the router - click on 'connection status' and note what it says under the 'negotiation' and 'authentication' headings. That way they can definitely say whether it's router or line problems.

Just one more gripe - why has it taken 6 calls lasting a total of 2 1/2 hours before someone came up with this?

Thanks again Capman.

They went to this Help Desk school:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAWR6hzZek

No worries kaybee.
Thing is, I knew in my case it wasn't a router problem and wasn't going to be fobbed off.
I also like to baffle them by suggesting things that it could be and by providing them with info before they ask, the sound of silence at their end is heaven, you can almost hear the ticking.
Then they suggest putting you on to someone more suitable at dealing with such problems (obviously because the script they are following does not apply).

Anyway, is it all working ok for you now kaybee?

Yes - at the moment all is well, although I'm not going to brag about it and tempt fate!!

Thanks for your help on this

After numerous phone calls to VM, I've finally had enough - cancelled my contract and gone with BT! Wrote to VM Customer Service asking them to waive disconnection fee (10 days short of my 12 month upgrade) - got a reply stating that according to their records I have only had minor problems which they deem acceptable - not prepared to waive the fee - WHAT A JOKE!!

Looks like they deem dropped connections every 3 or 4 days - and sometimes 2 or 3 times a day 'normal'!!

Hope things go much more smoothly with your new provider.

As far as getting a wavier on the fee try making an official complaint for the lack of service... it may go nowhere, but depending on the termination charge it might be worth a shot.

So far so good with the new provider (BT) - no disconnections so far!! Told VirginMedia that surely this proves it was their router that was at fault, but still they won't budge from charging me the fee. Mustn't grumble too much as:

a) I'm in credit so it won't actually 'cost' me any more cash
At least they refunded me the c£113 that BT charged for their visit - VM did admit they hadn't followed correct procedure.