Thinkpads Forum

Sometimes I can no longer surf the web or check my emails using Outlook. It would normally mean the network is down, however, to my surprise, some peer2peer software can still be working as if nothing had happened.

Why would this happen? It's like the network is interrupted, but only partially. Has anyone experienced anything like this?

I have an Atheros A/B/G card and before I had an Intel one. I've experienced the same problem with both cards. Could it be caused by the router?

Routers should be rebooted every once in a while.
Have you updated your (non-XP) firewall recently?
Do you have neighbors using up your bandwidth?

I recently had the problem where I could surf and have my computers networked to each other, but not get email. It turned out that my ISP (Rogers Cable in Toronto) had purchased a defective block of IP addresses and had not bothered to determine if the defect (IP addresses in question blacklisted) would affect anyone. It affected my email ISP and we both complained, and Rogers fixed it after some delay and foot-dragging. ... JDH

Thanks for the tips! Interesting to know it could be sometimes the ISP's fault. Does every ISP has its own blacklist of IP addresses?

Every time it happens to me, since I can't find the culprit, I have to reinitiate everything (router, wireless card, sometimes Access Connection software too). I tried restarting only the wireless card and during its attempt connecting to internet via Access Connection, I saw the step "Waiting for IP configuration" was taking forever, so I had to reset the router too.

I'm running Windows Vista and the firewall updating job is taken care of by Windows, I think. I have set up a key for my network. However, I'm not sure if any of my neighbors is using up my bandwidth.. Is there anyway to monitor it?

Your router settings should show you who is connected. If you see any IP 192.168.x.x that is not one of your own, someone is abusing it.
Block it by using WPA and MAC address limitation. And maybe change your Workgroup name.