Technical > Computer Hardware Help > Does this sound like a hardware or software problem?

Does this sound like a hardware or software problem?

I would first see if you can ping the sites in question.

Personally I would expect a router or internet access issue.

As soon as the issue starts reboot your router and see if the issue goes away if it does there is your issue.

reply to lmacmil
I have the similar problems with Comcast, and it doesn't matter what site it is or what computer I am on (we have seven functional computers, an xbox, and two smartphones in the house, so I have a couple avenues to the internet).
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reply to Aranarth

reply to lmacmil
Sounds like an ISP issue. Especially as you can still browse in other tabs. I had a similar issue a few weeks ago when Charter was having a DNS issue.

If it was an internal hardware connectivity issue (ie: PC to router), you would likely get a Windows "network disconnected" message as opposed to a browser message. If it was an external hardware connectivity issue (ie: router out to ISP), you would lose all internet access.
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deleted after reposting with correct info.

reply to Dogg

reply to lmacmil
Get the network and processor monitor widgets from here:

»pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofth···dget.htm
»pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofth···dget.htm

What you want to know is if you are having issues, if your network usage or cpu usage goes through the roof.

If they do, it MIGHT be a virus. This could also be a driver issue or some other issue with your machine.

If everyone on the network is having the same issue then do some speed tests as well and see if you are getting much slower throughput that usual.

Finally if your modem has a stats page page then see if your noise margin has gone up or signal strength has gone down. If so this points to a physical issue with the connection itself.
A new modem may fix the issue or they need to replace the wires to your house.

reply to lmacmil
I would recommend opening up a Command Prompt (assuming you're on Windows here) and doing this (assuming your router is 192.168.1.1):

ping -t 192.168.1.1

And let this run indefinitely. When visiting a web site that results in the problem you see ("connection was reset"), quickly look over at the window running ping and see if you see any errors/anomalies there (such as "Request timed out").

Alternately you can download Ping Plotter which will effectively do the same thing (think of it like a repetitive traceroute) and I can tell you what configuration settings you need to change to increase polling interval + provide more details in case of errors.

You could also do the exact same (in another window, meaning two ping windows going simultaneously) with your cable modem, if it has a LAN-accessible interface. For example most Motorola cable modems will answer/respond on 192.168.100.1 (regardless of what your netblock/network size is), so ping -t 192.168.100.1. Likewise you can visit »192.168.100.1/ to look at logs/signals stats/etc.. There's always the possibility your WAN port on your router, or your Ethernet port on your cable modem, is flaking out.

It would help me if you could tell me the exact models of everything you're using:

* Brand/model of NIC (you say "AMD 780G chipset" but this doesn't necessarily mean you're using an AMD NIC)
* Driver version of NIC
* Brand and model number of router, and if you can find it, firmware version too
* Brand and model number of cable modem

Finally, to answer your question literally: could this be hardware? Yes. Could it be software? Yes. I know first-handedly Realtek has an awful history with driver-level bugs, and there are other NIC models out there which have similar driver-level quirks that manifest themselves badly with the rest of the IP stack. You'd have virtually no way of determining this without a network engineer being present in person to diagnose things, however. Troubleshooting network drivers is not an easy task.

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Making life hard for others since 1977.
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