Network "vanishing" without reason

[Mgbox]

On both wired and wireless connections, everything just drops... No discernible cause known. PC could be asleep, I could be in the kitchen and decide to check my phone, it's loading slow.. oh and because there's no WiFI network. Check girlfriends phone same thing, no wifi. Could be playing a few matches of Rocket League, talking with a friend in Discord and then bam dropped from game, dropped from VoIP and phone is stuttering to get back to cell network so I can tell my friend my internet went out.

Reset the modem/router combo, including factory reset pushing the pin. Tried to make it crash playing some games, but it's fine. Start browsing the web and closing things down for the night, bam network vanishes, this is over a wired Ethernet connection by the way. Cellphones also lose their wifi connections and the TV playing netflix loses the connection. Everything is gone for a few minutes until the modem recovers and restarts.

 

I've tried all sorts of things and I'm running out of ideas. What could cause my router to spontaneously disconnect, both wired and wireless, and how can I trouble shoot and fix this?

 

I'm in contact with the ISP and they are sending a technician but I want to cover my bases so they don't just swap the hardware and assume it's fixed again.

[Beeeyeee]

its most likely your router/modem is bad. either that or the actual ISP. a hardware swap should fix it.

[Mgbox]

16 hours ago, Beeeyeee said:

its most likely your router/modem is bad. either that or the actual ISP. a hardware swap should fix it.

apart from faulty modem, are there any other potential causes? cant swap the modem until friday. any other issues at all that could cause interference with the communication between the router and my PC/devices.

 

im running a ping test between my PC and home IP (the router) and getting fluctuating results where i would assume a low <5ms response should occur. verified similar results on a laptop wired into the modem.

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, Mgbox said:

apart from faulty modem, are there any other potential causes? cant swap the modem until friday. any other issues at all that could cause interference with the communication between the router and my PC/devices.

 

im running a ping test between my PC and home IP (the router) and getting fluctuating results where i would assume a low <5ms response should occur. verified similar results on a laptop wired into the modem.

Anything near the router running on the same wireless frequencies can cause an issue. Maybe a close neighbor has a new wireless network? Besides that Im not sure what to tell you. Routers and modems do go bad. 

[Mgbox]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Anything near the router running on the same wireless frequencies can cause an issue. Maybe a close neighbor has a new wireless network? Besides that Im not sure what to tell you. Routers and modems do go bad. 

Its more than just wireless though, the problem occurs over wired connections as well. Nearby is a TV, Wii U system, Bluray player and Stereo/Radio, but they are off 95% of them with exception of the TV. I do know routers go bad, but this one is a week old, and is the third router to cause issues. I'm just not optimistic that replacing it will solve anything this time and looking for alternatives.

[Donut417]

40 minutes ago, Mgbox said:

Its more than just wireless though, the problem occurs over wired connections as well. Nearby is a TV, Wii U system, Bluray player and Stereo/Radio, but they are off 95% of them with exception of the TV. I do know routers go bad, but this one is a week old, and is the third router to cause issues. I'm just not optimistic that replacing it will solve anything this time and looking for alternatives.

If its a rented box from your ISP dont be so surprised. We have gone through 7 cable boxes in like 1 year. They over heat and just die. They dont buy quality products to give their customers. 

[redanalog]

13 hours ago, Mgbox said:

Its more than just wireless though, the problem occurs over wired connections as well. Nearby is a TV, Wii U system, Bluray player and Stereo/Radio, but they are off 95% of them with exception of the TV. I do know routers go bad, but this one is a week old, and is the third router to cause issues. I'm just not optimistic that replacing it will solve anything this time and looking for alternatives.

 

ISP routers are built to have the biggest numbers at the lowest cost. Usually, they are just a pile of steaming shit. That might not be the source of your issue mind you.

 

Does the router lose sync? (Internet light go off)

Is it only on wireless connections or are you having the same problem with wired connections?

[Mgbox]

4 hours ago, redanalog said:

ISP routers are built to have the biggest numbers at the lowest cost. Usually, they are just a pile of steaming shit. That might not be the source of your issue mind you.

 

Does the router lose sync? (Internet light go off)

Is it only on wireless connections or are you having the same problem with wired connections?

I haven't been able to check the lights during an outage, its not in the same room.

It occurs on both wired and wireless, all my connections are wired if possible. Only things like cellphones on left on WiFI.

[redanalog]

46 minutes ago, Mgbox said:

I haven't been able to check the lights during an outage, its not in the same room.

It occurs on both wired and wireless, all my connections are wired if possible. Only things like cellphones on left on WiFI.

 

So that narrows it down a bit. It's either the router dropping the signal or the signal dropping before it gets to the router.

 

Have you checked with your ISP regarding this?
I work for one here in the UK and know that we keep records of every time we lose connection to the router.

[Mgbox]

6 hours ago, redanalog said:

So that narrows it down a bit. It's either the router dropping the signal or the signal dropping before it gets to the router.

 

Have you checked with your ISP regarding this?
I work for one here in the UK and know that we keep records of every time we lose connection to the router.

Yep the ISP has been brought into the loop, I just know the techs are usually not that good, just give you the whole "power cycle everything" speech and hope for the best, not used to dealing with people in the know, just confused housewives and the like.

The ISP is coming out tomorrow and I'll have a new router installed. But I just want to be throughout and check all possible angles incase its not a simple router issue.

 

Just now my WiFI network vanished which i was watching TV. It appears as though the LAN connections were "stable" at least in the sense that they didn't disconnect, they are still fluctuating as usual.