Connection dies for a few seconds when visiting certain sites

[alanjb]

edit: if this is more appropriate for the networking support forum, could someone please move it there? :)

Started having this problem a few nights ago, seemingly right after I was changing some of my router settings (unless I accidentally changed something, the only thing I touched was opening one port - standard stuff). I also just double checked the router settings, and everything seems to be fine, so it may just be a weird coincidence, but maybe not...

Now, whenever I visit certain sites, I get "a network cable is unplugged" (although it isn't) and a few seconds later, my connection is re-established. It'll do this over and over as I try and browse around the site.

It happens with www.lotro.com, www.deviantart.com, Hotmail, the MSN homepage, among some others. I'm sure it's not just these sites, but these are the ones I've been trying to visit and noticing it. I haven't had it happen a single time while browsing this site, for instance. I thought maybe it had something to do with trying to download too much data (lotro, deviantart, and the MSN homepage are all pretty graphic intensive), but that doesn't really explain hotmail. Also, I tried the world of warcraft site (similar design to lotro) and it ran fine.

Some more details: I'm on Roger's cable, running through a d-link WBR-2310, supporting two pc's on my network. The problem happens on both systems, with both IE and Firefox, and the connection will cut out for both systems, even if I'm only browsing on one. I'm running Win XP, system pack 3.

[johnwill]

First off, does it happen if you connect one of the machines directly to the modem with a wired connection? That would be the first thing I'd check.

Assuming the direct modem connection works fine, I'd update the firmware on the router to the latest available AND reset it to factory defaults and reconfigure.