Vista 64 loses internet through D-Link DGL-4100

Hi to all, Great Forum.

I have been troubleshooting this problem for about a week with no success. I have a Westell DSL modem with a static IP from ATT running in bridged mode to a D-Link DGL-4100 Router running in PPoE mode into a Netgear JGS-524 24 port switch.
Connected to the 24 port switch are 3 XBOX 360's and 5 PC's.
Four PC's are running Vista 64 Ultimate and one is running Vista Home 32 bit. All PC's and XBOX 360 units have Static IP's.

Many times a day my network loses the internet connection at all 360 units and all PC's. When I diagnose the Vista Network connection it says cannot find the DNS server and mentions this is a problem Vista cannot repair. All settings are entered manually on all equipment including the DNS settings.
If I go into the D-Link router settings and look at the status it shows a working internet connection.

To get the internet working again, I disconnect the internet connection through the router settings, wait a few seconds, then reconnect to the internet. Once it shows connected I go back and Diagnose the network connection in Vista again. This time it will not say cannot find DNS server, It will now say no problem found and give me the option to reset the network connection. Once I reset the network connection, I will get my internet back.

If I use the Westell modem in PPoE mode on just one PC, I never lose the internet connection.

I had a Netgear wirless router that was doing the same thing. Only it disconnected much more frequently and was much harder to get the internet connection back.
I replaced it with the D-Link DGL-4100.

I would assume from my troubleshooting that my ATT Westell modem and internet connection are fine.
I would say the D-Link could be the problem except the Netgear router does the same thing.
I have read lots of posts on very similar problems with Vista disconnecting the internet. But I have not seen many answers to these problems.

If anyone can help it would be much appreciated. If you need any more info just ask. Thanks

Hi Venomous,

Have you updated the firmware of both devices?

I have the latest firmware installed on the Westell Modem.
I have V 1.7 On the DGL-4100 ,
( V 1.7 is the newest on the D-Link site) Although I cannot find V 1.8 that I see people talking about.

Also the router and switch are both Gigabit, Not that it would make a difference....
I also have an 8 port gigabit Netgear switch. I tried it and it also lost internet connection.

So to recap, two different routers with two different switches and the same problem happens.

As of this writing I have the modem in bridge mode going to the DGL-4100 router in PPoE mode with just 1 Computer Hooked up and for 2 hours now it has had a stable internet connection. 1 to 1 1/2hours is the most I usually get before I lose internet. I am going to add 3 more computers to the router and see if the internet connection will stay stable.

Does it matter if the router goes from port #1 into the switch and all equipment is on the switch? Or should some of the equipment be wired into ports 1 through 4 on the router?

Thanks for the response and any help!

It just went down after less than 15 minutes with all four vista 64 PC's connected to ports 1 -4 on the router. I will go back to one PC and see how long it stays up.

I have slowly added a Vista 64 PC every few hours to the router.
I have 3 that have been up with internet all night. My connection has not lasted this long in many weeks.

Just out of curiousity, since you are using static IP's on each connected machine, what IP's are you using for DNS?

I have found that using the internal IP range to the router or modem is less than ironclad.

To verify if it is an issue with either that IP range, OR with your ISP's DNS servers, try using these two IP's as a TEMPORARY investigative technique:

4.2.2.6
4.2.2.2

If these work without giving you any problems, then the issue is with your ISP's DNS or because of the internal IP range of DNS.

Hope that helps.

Thanks , I will try that and report back.

Why are you connecting using PPoE? Why are you bridge routers? You connect router to router with a bridge. PPoE could cause the connections to get lost.

I connect from my cable modem to the DGL-4100. My workstation connects to the 4100 with a CAT 6 cable. It is on the second floor of the house. I ran a CAT 6 plenum grade cable to the basement to a Belkin 1 Gbps switch. My Fedora 7 web server and XP x64 Pro SP2 tape server. They connect with CAT 6.

Ok, The problem appears to be solved.
The ATT Westell modem also had Automatic DHCP and was fighting it out with the DGL-4100 router.

ATT did not want to give me any help with the modem other than it worked with one PC hooked up.. They just wanted me to pay an extra monthly fee for each additional PC I had hooked up by them.
I did some Internet research on the Westell DSL modem and found out that it also does its own Routing ,if configured to do so. No External Router needed. I put the Westell modem into PPoE mode with a constant connection. Then I plugged the modem directly into my NetGear JGS-524 Switch.
Everything has great internet connections that do not drop.
The Westell model number is E90-610030-06.

I hope that this will help anyone having router problems with a Westell modem.
Remember Just by a switch instead of a router. Change a couple settings in the modem and it is ready to go.

I don't use DHCP on my router. My modem has a static IP address. It is port forwarded on my DGL-4100 to my web server to use. Every workstation has static IP addresses with DNS set. Less problems. Once this is done. Setup your MAC Filtering and wireless security.