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Undertoad · 03-05-2003, 12:51 PM

Could be some problem between interrupts on your system that a new NIC card might address by doing plug-n-play better.

It may be something really wacky - like, it's not the software that the forum is running, but their implementation of TCP/IP may exercise some partly-broken bit of the protocol on your hardware. So you hit it once a week and figure it's just life, but the wife is dealing with a connection that every once in a while hits a rare part of the protocol that just doesn't work on your setup. Maybe something that's reserved and which is ignored on most setups but causes the card to go into a wait state on yours. Maybe a combination of commands that every other modem handles OK but yours doesn't. Who knows!

The tech support thickies will still insist that you reinstall or reload, because 99.99% of the time, such problems are driver problems. So your idea to change out the NIC sounds like exactly the right way to go. And change out the cable just to rule it out. And if that doesn't do it, call tech support and convince them that they need to change out your modem, if you have a lease deal or such.

The nice thing is that you don't need to try an expensive NIC, just a $20 deal. But I'd try one with a different chipset than the one you have. When I last looked into these things, Intel had a different chip set than everybody else, but I don't know if that's still true.

03-05-2003, 12:51 PM	#10
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	Could be some problem between interrupts on your system that a new NIC card might address by doing plug-n-play better. It may be something really wacky - like, it's not the software that the forum is running, but their implementation of TCP/IP may exercise some partly-broken bit of the protocol on your hardware. So you hit it once a week and figure it's just life, but the wife is dealing with a connection that every once in a while hits a rare part of the protocol that just doesn't work on your setup. Maybe something that's reserved and which is ignored on most setups but causes the card to go into a wait state on yours. Maybe a combination of commands that every other modem handles OK but yours doesn't. Who knows! The tech support thickies will still insist that you reinstall or reload, because 99.99% of the time, such problems are driver problems. So your idea to change out the NIC sounds like exactly the right way to go. And change out the cable just to rule it out. And if that doesn't do it, call tech support and convince them that they need to change out your modem, if you have a lease deal or such. The nice thing is that you don't need to try an expensive NIC, just a $20 deal. But I'd try one with a different chipset than the one you have. When I last looked into these things, Intel had a different chip set than everybody else, but I don't know if that's still true.