Fault finding. How do I ..............

find out why my service drops intermittently ?

Yes, I'm one of those spooky linux users. No, I'm pretty sure it's not a system problem.

If I find that I can't connect, I ping the router/modem and it always replays straight away.

My router/modem (Solwise SAR110) is about 4 to 5 years old, though it has been pretty much rock solid.

I'm currently using Kanotix Linux which is a polished (apparently) version of knoppix (debian based) linux.

My ISP is Freedom2surf and the connection is "Max" (though I only get about 6 megs at best, due to distance from exchange).

It (the service that is), never seems to drop when I'm using it, I just return to my system and start a browser and it won't connect. So I ping the router/modem (as mentioned above) and it returns fine, when I try to ping my ISP's DNS, it gives me an "unreachable" error.

I often have to reboot the router/modem 2 or 3 times before it will connect - which it eventually does (well it has so far).

The rest of the technical stuff is a bit of a mystery to me, so I'd appreciate some guidance on what and how I need to check to try to see where the problem might be.

regards

John

is the modem in "nailed up" mode, or no timeouts or whatever. Sounds like it has dropped the PPP session. ISPs can also drop idle sessions, as there are limits on how many per BT Central and "stale sessions" can be a problem.

Leave a mail client checking every 10 minutes and see if its the same.

I changed the mail client so that it checks every 10 minutes.

As for timeouts, I can only find one part that tells me about that, even though I don't understand what it all means i.e. theres 6 different "timeout" settings, set to different things (apparently showing timeouts in seconds), plus 2 other settings in the same dialogue.

Is there anywhere that you might know of that might tell me what the different settings are/mean or is it a case of noting them down, changing them and seeing what happens ?

regards

John

is it the router at http://www.adslguide.org.uk/hardware/reviews/2003/q1/sar_110.asp ?

That doesn't show the WAN page, where there may be a timeout. My Belkin is based on a similar chipset, it has a "dial on demand " box which I have ticked and "idle time" setting currently at zero.

Yes it is that one!

I had a good look round and couldn't find any similar boxes under WAN - in home though the idle seems to be set to zero. The dial on demand thing, the nearest I could find is a drop down that says either dial, stop or dial on data, which is set to dial.

All rather confusing.

I'm not convinced that theres anything wrong with the router. I suspect that if anything it's a line problem.

I wonder if theres anything I can check?

regards

John