Problem with router/firewall?

[j0hnny_c]

Okay, here's the situation. At around 2:30 this morning, my internet connection started to become a little unstable. Download speeds that were usually in excess of 100 kb/s were down to below 20. I figured that just happens sometimes. Soon after, the internet connection was lost completely. Again, that happens sometimes, i think it has something to do with having so many computers connecting and disconnecting at odd times. Let me explain our setup real quick. We have DSL internet running through an Actiontec GT704WG router, connected to one PC running Windows XP by ethernet, 2 laptops running Windows Vista by wireless, and one PC running vista connected by Wireless. So after messing with the router for a couple hours, I got the internet connection back. By "messing with the router" i mean I just tried resetting it every so often, both by remote means and physical means. Eventually I got it back, and everything appeared to be working fine. But there were a few things off.

I should probably mention that when I lost my internet connection, it was right after starting a multiplayer match over Playstation Network on my ps3.

The first thing I noticed after getting online was that I could no longer sign on to MSN Messenger. I got an error saying that it was probably blocked by a firewall, or incorrect proxy settings. I checked all those, disabled all firewalls on my pc, and checked that the built-in firewall of my router was turned off. I tried again and still no luck. So I searched around on the net and I saw a few solutions, and I tried them and they didn't work. I came across someone who was having similar problems, only additionally, he couldn't sign on to Hotmail through his web browser. I decided to try that, and sure enough, I couldn't either. I tried his solution, but that failed too. I tried signing on to MSN from a different pc on the network, still with no luck. I even tried disconnecting everything except the pc that is connected through ethernet and trying to log on to hotmail, and still no luck. I tried restoring the router to its default settings through the interface, but that didn't work either. I just got the idea of trying to sign on through the ps3's built in web browser, and that didn't work either. Additionally, I found that I could browse the web on the ps3, but I couldn't sign on to PSN. So now I figure the problem has GOT to be with the router. Next I'm going to try restoring it to the default settings again, but I wanted to post while I still had the chance.

To recap, I'm using an Actiontec GT704WG DSL Modem, the firewall is turned OFF, everything else is the way it was when we first got the router.

Any help?

EDIT: I don't know what the heck happened, but i turned on my PS3, signed into PSN and now everything is working great. All that I did was turn off media sharing on my PS3 and reset it. So if anyone knows what the heck happened, it would be great in case this ever happens again.

[johnwill]

Ghosts?