I would say it dropped the connection gradually over a period of about
4 days. It happened twice, when it came back after a dead period of a
few hours. The third and last time, it would not come back. When I
connected a computer directly to the external modem, and re-cycled the
modem, it connect fine, and is connected right now. I did the same on
both computers with same good results.
Ok, but did you power cycle the modem BEFORE switching
anything else, to rule it out too?
Maybe the router is bad, or maybe somebody somewhere hit a
cable line and it had an intermittent connection for a few
days (till enough people complained and a tech went and
fixed it). We can't know this, it's only one thought among
many- pick whatever seems to fit the situation.
Because of the router's age, I think I will replace it before going
into its innards.
Ok, but it's not a hard thing, a small phillips screwdriver
and a few screws. Well, I may be wrong there, I'm thinking
of the older 704 with the metal case but IIRC, they remade
some 704 with a plastic case too and I've never opened one
of those.
Also, especially if the ambient, room temp is higher than
previously, leaving the cover off the router would allow it
to run cooler, in case it was overheating. There is no high
voltage inside, the risk is minimal (unless something metal
were to fall inside and damage it, but at this point you're
already considering replacing it so it's not THAT big of a
risk.
What do you think of the current 'modem routers'?
My modem is equally old.
I don't know what you need, nor what they cost... I'd be
inclinded to get a regular modem like a Motorola Surfboard
5100/5120 and whatever router has the features you need. If
you have no particular special needs, check out a few at
newegg and watch the weekend newspapers for sales.
The other issue is that it may be more convenient or
logically better (depending on the location of the line to
the modem) to have the modem in one location and have it
wired to the other location for the router-as-switch/wifi to
then distribute to the rest of the systems or switches, etc,
on the premises.
The above doesn't make a combo modem/router a bad idea, it's
just not what I'd do... you could always try one if it seems
suitable for your needs.
I am surprised that there doesn't appear to be software to diagnose a
router's connectablilty and the performance thereof. But c'est la
vie, I guess.
I don't see why it would be needed. If you have the router
set to the defaults (and/or, reset) and the PC is shown to
connect to it, the router HTTP interface shows whether it's
connected across the WAN port. With this much working, you
can access a typical modem's config page, ping anything
further out on the WAN. If using the router you can reach
the modem, you have (usually) ruled out the router as the
source of the problem. If the modem has lights or a
statistics or status page, that too provides info as well as
the modem and router logs.
Also keep in mind that in general, when someone contacts
their ISP, the ISP will first assume the customer's
equipment is the problem, have them power cycle everything,
even in a case where it was their line going down. While it
could certainly be the customer equipment that is the
problem, they might be a little too quick to assume it is
since most people aren't going to be fooling around with
their modem and router once it works, OR if they had been
fooling around with it, it would then seem obvious that when
the connection went down, that was the cause.
