Re: Off topic: Xp and internet

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

Chris Madsen wrote:

> I have a cable modem and reliable ISP. Everything worked great until I got a
> new machine with XP Pro. Now I randomly lose connection when using IE.
> Suddenly it can no longer find the site I want. OE continues to work fine,
> so I suspect it's not the ISP but some setting I've missed in XP.

And "OE" stands for ____ ?

> Any thoughts?

Sometimes it *is* the ISP, and I think there are ways to establish that. You
never
said whether you have a dial-up service (old-style modem), or one of the
always-on
broadband services (DSL or cable). I have had other types of problems with my
home system DSL service, but never the sudden, random loss of connection. I
have
seen that on other people's systems -- W98 or W2K based, not XP. It can happen
in areas where there is a lot of ongoing construction . . . and not necessarily
just in
your immediate neighborhoods. Where there is regular digging, infrastructure
getting
put in or repaired, etc., buried cables get cut accidentally. The ISP's network
in the
area will have routing redundancies, so such interruptions can be brief.

I've also seen problems with the cable or DSL modem one is using or the add-on
router
(many with some sort of built-in firewall) used to share a broadband connection
between
more than one computer. When the device's firmware was updated, or in some
cases after
changing to another brand and model of the unit, the dropped connection problem
went
away.

There are also settings in your computer's TCP/IP setup that could be wrong,
though with
most of those, you would not be able to connect with anything, even briefly, if
there was
a settings error.

It's difficult to say more without better information. If you had an
alternative browser
installed, that could provide more of a check on whether IE or XP issues were
involved.

Jordan