ADSL Router Advice

[Super Stu]

That the wireless one now or the ordinary netgear one? Did you mention you had disconnects now and again with the BT frog? Think I seem to recall that, because I've had them a couple of times now. Be interested to see if a router does the same.

[marcus]

Little bit of a story here. But first of all, I have the wired one - Im not going wireless just yet, so plumped for the bogstandard one in the meantime.

Re the disconnects. Initially I bought a barebones PC to basically sit on the internet constantly. Built the thing, installed XP and all was well. Configured net access no problems and browsed fine. The problem I have (and this is exactly the same issue I had with one of my other PCs) is that as soon as I start IRC, a Torrent file, MSN or anything like that, it disconnected the ADSL line, forcing it into a state of "Initializing" which I had no option but to do a full restart. I spoke to BT who checked some things, and they said (now this is where Im vague, you would probably know more about this) it was due to there being to much power drawn from the USB2 socket, I dont know about this without research but it would kinda make sense to me. So, I bought the router to eliminate any problems concerning power on a local machine, and so far touch wood its been fine.

Im trying to recommend my little PC to a friend, but obviously cant until I work out why it drops connection no sooner as an app is launched that uses the net. My main XP installed PC FYI works perfectly well however, Ive been on constant connection for weeks on end in the past. You may get the odd random disconnect, but if its at least once every couple of days or so Id say thats worth taking up with your ISP.

[Super Stu]

Still OK with the router is it?

Now that you mention it, I fancy it is connected to ther USB2 port, which are wired to this Abit board via header cables. IIRC, the USB ports on the ATX block on the back of the board are actually USB1 though, so I'll try them on that. Can't say any other usb devices have had problems, funny how these dsl modems have trouble on so many PCs.

Haven't had a disconnect for over a week now, and the connection is in constant use so I don't think it's worth contacting the muppets at BTO (who will have dredged up that answer about USB power from their onscreen list of bull****, so I don't know how much I'd buy into it).

[marcus]

The easiest answer to that is for me to go back to 2k, which had no disconnect problems at all on my last box, but seeing as now I have the Router in place and have had no problems at all Ill stick with my XPs. Im thoroughly pleased with it at the moment. One small thing, I notice that when I launch a new browser it checks my proxy settings beforehand, seeing as Im not behind a proxy is there a way I can bypass this check to get faster loading of the homepage?

[Super Stu]

Only thing I can think of, off the top of my head, is IE -> tools -> internet options -> connections -> lan settings -> proxy check box. Unless it's something relating to the router itself.