help: Dell PC disconnects from net after ~ 15 minutes

Waratah

this may be very straightforward, my parents have a 6 month old Dell Dimension and for some reason it keeps getting disconnected from the net after roughly 14 to 16 minutes

I already had a friend who knows a fair bit about computers spend about 30 or 40 minutes trying to find a reason for this, we looked at all the preferences etc but in the end he just suggested changing the modem

is there a simpler more obvious solution? because I know someone else who seems to have a similar problem by the sounds of things and re-dialing every 15 gets a tad annoying and expensive

Malafus

Try running a freshly updated virus scan on the machine. Also, search for malware - use Spybot and Ad-Aware.

Make sure everything has the latest definition files.

Sparky

my aunt had this with eircom net free, right at 15mins it would disconnect, and the pc was just put together, some people say its eircom or that the line is bad and it gos.

BlackWizard

Maybe try ring a different ISP number? When id dial up id problems trying to
connect and I used to get disconnected alot like your partents. Eircom solved
my problem by giving me a new number to ring. Actually they gave me two to
try out.


Good luck!

Waratah

Sparky, did your aunt manage to get it sorted out?

yes my parents are with eircom free,

as far as I know it has always been like this since day 1 of purchase, we have updated MacAfee and running another virus scan now but not hopeful it will be a solution

the Dell web site doesn't seem to be helping me either

Malafus

Fair enough. It's just a good idea to make sure it's not something malicious installed on your PC.

What number do you dial up to?

Waratah

had been dialling 1890 201564

have just changed it to 1892 150150 which I found on the eircom page so we'll see how it goes (connected 10 minutes so far.....)

my parents are in Wicklow in the 0402 area btw, I know there used to be a local number we used on the old PC but think it's all national these days

Malafus

Yeah, it used to be local numbers, but, um, some people decided to abuse this by putting the number in their "circle of friends", thus getting some discount on the calls to the net....
It's all national. In fact, I thought all Eircom free users dialled 1892150150.
Good luck with that anyway.

Waratah

have just seen something never before witnessed on this PC

status: connected

duration: 18 minutes.....etc etc

yay, it seems to be working, finally a connection longer than this 15 mins ,

and at times this high-spec Dell (dial-up) is faster than the old wireless IBB in Dublin *sighs*

cheers for all the helpful suggestions

maidhc

If it doesn't work try reinstalling the modem drivers. I had an issue like that with a Dell about 12 months ago, and reinstalling the drivers solved it.

Sparky

yeah that 1892150150 number is what she uses no and she's had no bother with it.
its the national internet number for free afaik

Jaeger

Had problems like this with my dialup modem, disconnecting a few minutes +/- the 2 hour mark. Looked into it on the net, and was not worth the hassle of correcting it. Bought a new one for a tenner, scrapped old card, no bother since.

the_syco

15 minutes? Sounds like the auto-disconnect.

Windows 98

Windows P

See the idle time before hanging up box? See if the number in the box on your parents PC is 15.