Stumped by this one for hours... Windows 98.

C

Clear

Gawd
Joined
Mar 15, 2002
Messages
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Someone please help me, I'm ready to pull my hair out. I just got a new modem / router from comcast, a Linksys WCG200-CC. Anyhow, I have a windows 98 machine connected to the router, and for some reason Internet Explorer will work flawlessly for about 20 minutes, and then I will be unable to access any website, I get the search error page (everyone knows this page). I have tried like everything to fix this problem that I would know of, however I haven't used Windows 98 in ages. It's an old comp, and I don't wanna worry about reloading crap and backing up all my documents, which is why I haven't resorted to starting from scratch. Does anyone have a clue about how I might be able to fix this? I can't figure out what is causing the problem, IE? the router?

Dear God, someone help please. :confused:
 
Going to need more information.

I'm assuming a cat-5 connection to your router.

Can you access the router config on that modem? You running internal IPs? You have more than 1 pc hooked up to the router. Can those pc's connect fine to the net when the 98 box can't?
 
I've ran updated spyware and ad-aware, however the problem has not gone away. It is very strange, since whenever I restart the computer the internet works fine for about 15-20 minutes and then does not work at all. I was originally connected via a USB port, however I changed that to a new NIC since I figured the USB port could easily have conflicting drivers, but the problem is still present.

Any other suggestions?
 
I would update your network drivers. It sounds like classic 98 memory leaky drivers. If thats what you are going through, then its pretty typical for 98. Why not upgrade anyway, or hell, go to linux. Either way, you'll be better off in the long run.
 
Try configuring with a static LAN IP, Win9X often didn't work well with some home routers DHCP service.

Here's a guide I wrote.
http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=177

Also, try to narrow down what isn't working when it appears to fall off the network. Before you try the static LAN IP approach, next time it falls off..run WINIPCFG and see what IP info it has. Try to ping the routers LAN IP and see if you get a reply, try to log into the web admin page.

I know it's an old, slow machine, but run your windows updates, one of them updates the vtcp386 file, or you can download the specific fix from Speedguides download section. Might want to try the TCP optimizer also.
 
Are you connecting to a lot of stuff in the background? BitTorrent, Kazaa, some kind of file sharing? Try disabling those for the time being and see what happens.

Heres a very weak explanation of what I remember. Windows 98 can only have so many concurrent connections at once before it won't let anything new happen. If you have bit-torrent open, for example, it uses lots of connections at once to try to speed up file transfer. If it uses all those connections, nothing new will work (Like IE or AIM or whatever).

Thats just a possibility. Also, see if you can access your router when this happens? 192.168.1.1 is usually where you want to go.
 
I can't access the router when this happens, but I can still ping other websites. This is so bazaar. I have nothing running that would require a connection either.
 
Clear said:
I can't access the router when this happens, but I can still ping other websites. This is so bazaar. I have nothing running that would require a connection either.
Click to expand...
So the connection and DNS are good then. Could you at least try Firefox, whether you switch to it or not, and try to isolate the problem. Alternatively you could run FTP or BiTTorrent after IE loses internet capability. This is typical IE behavior, especially if you haven't updated that machine to IE6.
 
The other thing I noticed was that I couldn't download anything, even when I could access websites during the first 20 or so minutes. I tried to download spybot and ad-aware from download.com and the download windows refused to come up, but I had both of these progs on a cd somewhere so I was still able to run them successfully. Anyhow, I will try using an alternative web browser to see if it helps the problem.
 
Let us know once you try Firefox. See my sig for optimized builds.
 
try running cwshredder and hijackthis as well. these will often times pick up malware that spybot/adaware doesnt find.

B
 
also what do you do to enable the connection again? restart? does it come back by itself?

B
 
maxedoutcc said:
also what do you do to enable the connection again? restart? does it come back by itself?

B
Click to expand...

All I have to do is restart the computer and the connection works perfectly for another 20 minutes.
 
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