I'm a bit stuck. Normally I do what I can to look these things up myself, and I am, but my 3 kids are making it hard for me to read anything today.

Windows XP
Linksys router
DSL, slow dsl but dsl...
Anything else you might need to know, please ask.

For a long time I've had the router in place and connected... but not setup. Basically, even though everything was connected, I was still connecting manually, directly through the modem each time I wanted to get online.
Well... today I decided to actually set the router up properly. I found the install CD and ran the wizard. Ran it a few times before I actually followed the directions properly and made sure to have things unplugged and plug them back in the order they told me.
Ok, finally kind of got a connection. Thunderbird told me it had 7 messages to download. But that was all it did.
I rebooted and stuff... called my dad. Went through the setup/config page for the router and changed a few settings. Got connected. I can get my emails and browse websites. Sounds good. But...
At the moment I have it set to "keep alive" and the redial or whatever is set for 20. I would think "keep alive" would keep it alive, but it keeps disconnecting. I use miranda for AIM, YIM, and ICQ. I keep getting disconnected on there. It will reconnect and all, but that's a pain to have to keep on logging on. I've looked at the settings some more... tried using the connect on demand instead of keep alive... I've unplugged and waited, reboot, etc... still doesn't seem to want to stay on.
I can't quite figure it out.

Any thoughts on this?

A side question: I'm looking at my profile here and I can't seem to figure out where I might be able to change my email address. I'm not sure I have a current one listed.

nevermind about changing the email. I figured out where that was.

I'm still having trouble. After posting yesterday I messed around with things some more. Tried a lot of things. Still couldn't get it to work properly.
I ended up going to MS updates and found an update for my ethernet adapter. I updated. After that, I couldn't get a solid connection at all. Like, it said it was connected but little or not activity.
What's worse, I couldn't even communicate with the router... not even through the setup page.
So, I tried connecting direct from pc to modem without the router at all. Still nothing. I gave up on that for the night and bought an ethernet card today. The port I was using was direct on the motherboard.
Anyway... I got the new one setup, and it just has me back to where I was yesterday. I can connect, and everything functions well except it keeps disconnecting now and then. So things like miranda, I have to keep logging back in. It's a REAL pain.

What I left out yesterday as I didn't notice it, is most of the times things log out, at some point around that time I'll get a notification that a local connection is unplugged. And, within a second or two(literally) another message comes up saying I'm connected.

I'm still browsing online for possible solutions... I wont be able to get out to the store again until tomorrow, but I plan on getting another cable and testing that out to see if something is wrong with that.
Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.

Howdy,

If it has wireless b or g make sure there are no wireless objects close to it that operate in the 2.4GHz range (cordless phone). If you are wired turn off wireless capabilities on router then make sure your cable is in good shape, make sure there are no kinks in it, make sure the RJ-45 plugs are not loose on the cable ends and that it has not been run over by a chair or sucked into a vacuum cleaner. You might want to try a new cable anyway.

the router is wired only. I was ready to test the wires with a new one tomorrow... but I'm not so sure I need to now.

After a while I noticed a pattern. Even though that message wouldn't necessarily popup when it showed miranda disconnecting, most of the times it did popup was when I was trying to re-establish the connection on miranda. So, while doing more searching for the error message I was getting I found a page where someone else had the same thing happen only it was for MSN.
The advice they got suggested that since the switch, MSN was still trying to connect to the old internet connection. They said to delete the old connections. I still had my old dialup and my dsl connections listed in the network connections. So, I deleted those.
But, that didn't help me. I was pretty sure it was the problem though because if I didn't mess with miranda at all for a long time I wouldn't see that message.
So, I uninstalled miranda. I re-downloaded it but at the moment I'm testing out Trillian. It has some nice features, but I'm SO used to miranda's interface. That's another story though...

So, at the moment... I think things are working like they should. We'll see though.

Thanks for responding.

grrr....

Well... after posting yesterday I spent the rest of the day online with no problems at all.
Well, today I get on, start thunderbird, firefox, and trillian.
Guess what... it goes back to doing that disconnect thing on me. And I set Trillian up after I deleted all my old connections, so I know that's not the problem.

I know it is the IM client that's the problem. If I leave it disconnected I get no warnings. After connecting it, about 5 seconds later I get that message that the connection is unplugged, and a second or two later it says I'm connected again. But if I leave the chat program disconnected I get no such messages.
I tried allowing windows firewall to allow trillian to accept connections from the net, and that didn't help it.
Any ideas?
It's really frustrating not knowing how to fix the problem, but I'm glad I've got it narrowed down to one program.

I don't know if it's at all related, but I've been having a little trouble with pages loading in firefox. Once in a while, pages just sit there doing nothing. I know it's not my internet, because I can check mail, download updates, and even open things in IE while a firefox page is hanging.
The other day I uninstalled firefox, reinstalled it...
Oddly enough, things seemed to be working ok yesterday after doing this. And oddly enough, things seemed to be working best with firefox at the same time that trillian wasn't giving me trouble.
I'm really confused now.

There are a few things you can try. First when you have this problem, reboot your computer. Does the connection stay stable after the reboot? If not then download Winsock XP http://www.snapfiles.com/get/winsockxpfix.html and run it. Follow the instructions. After the reboot does the connection work? If it works fine, then run it for a few days to see what happens. Let us know.

Thanks for the thought. I followed the directions and rebooted when it was done. Same problem still. I can check email just fine, browse the web just fine... but as soon as I open a chat client I get problems. I was watching trillian saying it was partially connected, and the different services on there would go on and offline and those messages would pop up, saying a connection is unplugged, then a moment later I'm connected.
When this happens, it really disconnects me as some websites I'm on, if I'm logged in... all of the sudden I'm not logged in anymore and have to log in again.

Any other thoughts? This is pretty bizarre.

I don't know if the two are related at all or not, but I'm guessing at the moment they're not... but, firefox's problems started before setting the router up properly. I'd have pages just not loading sometimes. It was a fairly recent thing though... But I can't think of any serious changes I've made that would have messed things up.

But the Chat problems only started, when I switched to using the router properly. Before that, I didn't get disconnected.

I have plans to reformat at some point. I'm going to be swapping hard drives and such... I just haven't got to it yet because I don't look forward to all the files I'm going to be moving...
I wonder if after I do that this problem might be done with?
It would still be nice to solve it in the meantime of course though.

Thanks for the help so far guys.

Did you make any settings changes in the router?

Well... Before the other day, even though the wires were connected to the router, I wasn't actually using the router.
Now, once I connected everything properly and followed the install CD for the router, this is when the problems started with the chat stuff.
Now, since then... I've gone through and tried out a lot of things with the router and I can't find anything that changes it. I called my dad, he had me change some of the router settings to be like what he has, as he also has dsl. That didn't help. A couple times I've used the reset button on the router... I've tried installing it again, several times... I've tried lots of things... and so far, I can't find anything that will change it, and sure can't think of anything that would cause this. Just doesn't make sense to me. Then again, my knowledge about computers is still quite limited.
I mean, does it make any sense at all that trying to use a chat program would cause the connection to show up as "unplugged" and then reconnect itself a second later? And ONLY when trying to use a chat program.
again, I appreciate all thoughts on this.

Edit: oh yeah, if there are any router settings you'd suggest to look at, or if there's any settings you'd like to know how they are, just let me know.

Which Linksys router do you have? And are you also running a firewall? If so which one?

it's a wired only router, cable/dsl. BEFSR41
Just windows firewall. XP

Good. Same basic router I am using right now. Try turning off the the windows firewall. You will be safe, you are behind the router. Then try Trillian.

hmm, nope. turned it off, tried trillian. Same problem.

Have you made any changes to the internet access policy section, or the security section?

no, not that I can think of.