I am going to think on this. I feel like I have the answer on the tip of my tongue, but can't spit it out. I know it will come to me.

Well, I certainly appreciate it.

Try going into Trillian in the advanced options and make sure that the boxes for using a proxy are unchecked.

I made sure they were unchecked, didn't fix it.

Last night I decided to give miranda a try, from my flash drive. I love that miranda can work that way, from a flash drive.
Anyway, in the past I've used it from my flash drive on dialup, dsl, and cable, with or without a router... and, I never had problems before. But again, even that didn't work for me...

Are you using static IP address's in your LAN, or dynamic?

everything it set to obtain an IP automatically.

Can you explain in more detail what you mean by the router was connected but not being used, as you said earlier?

I wonder if there is some deep level malicious program installed that is recognizing whether the presence of he router is there or not and then breaking your internet connection in an attempt to get you to remove the router so it can have it's own free access to the net again....

Also, have you ever used the router before? Was it brand new when purchased? Do you have the latest firmware installed? Have you opened the appropriate ports to allow for Trillian / Miranda actually make their connections?

Finally, have you tried to hard reset the router?

Back when I bought the router, less than a year ago but long enough ago I don't remember exactly when... and yes, brand new, from Best Buy...
I connected all the wires and didn't run any setup for it... just simply connected everything.
As you might imagine, the router wouldn't magically connect to the internet by itself, and I found myself still having to use the DSL connection in the networks section to connect to the internet. I had to manually ask it to connect every day.
Let me know if I need to explain that better.

While I couldn't say it's impossible, I kind of doubt it's any for of malware. It ONLY breaks the connection when trillian or miranda try to establish a connection. I don't believe it would be a firewall setting, as these programs had no problem before the router was used properly.

And I've tried resetting the router. I've used the reset button in the back a couple times... I powered everything down and powered them back up in order, etc...

I'm online right now, no problems... but as soon as I connect miranda or trillian, I get that message saying a network connection is unplugged, followed by a message saying I'm once again connected.

Yes, can you explain it better? I am not trying to be difficult, but I want to know how you used the router to connect, specifically if you placed the router between the DSL modem and your computer, and then attempted to use the DSL settings in your computer, it technically should have failed, unless I am missing something....

As far as a firewall setting, the router *itself* is a firewall - and thus it would be very easy for it to be the cause of your problems. You'll need to allow the required ports to pass through the router in order for the connection to work.

However, that doesn't explain the other dilemma about how your connection drops completely when using Trillian / Miranda - or, I should say more appropriately, it *shouldn't* account for your entire connection dropping.

well that was fun... I bought one of those things where you plug two computers into it, and you can use one keyboard, one mouse, and one monitor between them. I like it.

Anyway... I setup my old computer. It's windows 2000, the one I'm on now is XP. I plugged the old one into the router. So, they're both on and both connected to the router and online.
I downloaded a huge update for avg for the old one as it's been offline for some time. Connection working great.
Then....
want to guess...?
I try miranda and sure enough, it disconnects.
At the moment, this is telling me it's not the computer. Unless it was some sort of setting that I just happened to have on both systems.
So, if it's not the computer(s), then our only choices are the modem or the router, or probably just the router.

So... if that's the case... any ideas?
I'll have to go check out some settings and see if I can find anything... though, I really don't know what to look for at this point.

Anyone?
I don't want to sound impatient, but I want to make sure I'm not forgotten either.

Let me know if there's anything more you might need to know from me.

Reset the router, and don't make any changes unless you have to. Tell us what happens after.

Reset it... had to change router settings from obtain IP automatically to PPPOE so I could put in my uname and password to actually connect.
Same problem...

But...
Ready to be more confused? Or maybe less confused. I'm not sure which I am.

Last night on Trillian I disconnected AIM and ICQ and ended up being able to chat with someone on YIM. Well, this morning I explored that more.
With Trillian, I'm able to leave AIM and YIM on, but if I use ICQ, that's when it disconnects. This didn't make a ton of sense since before it seemed that they would all go offline on me.
Anyway... so I was thinking it was JUST ICQ... so, I opened up Miranda so I could test that theory...
Well... it was almost sound. Sure enough, using ICQ gives me that disconnect... And with both programs I tried different clients together and each one separately so I could figure it out right.
Anyway... So, I try YIM and AIM open with ICQ closed, in miranda. YIM showed my contacts just fine, but none of my AIM contacts appeared as online. I waited a few minutes, then disconnected it to go back and test Trillian again. With Trillian, my online AIM contacts showed up just fine.
I'm not sure why AIM would work just fine on one and not the other....
But, I guess I've kind of narrowed it down to ICQ being the biggest problem?
Part of me feels good about narrowing that down... but at the same time, it almost confuses me more. I don't get it at all.

Fortunately my dad is the only one I ever talk to on ICQ, and he has AIM as well so that isn't a problem.
So, using trillian I can still talk to my friends now... But, it would still be nice to solve this confusion.

Thanks for the help... let me know if you have any ideas.

I have been doing some research on this, and you are not alone. So far no answers that are still out there (the ones I have found have been removed) but I do have something you should try, if you haven't already.

http://linksys.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/linksys.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2210&p_created=1110937569&p_sid=btIGUT4i&p_accessibility=0&p_lva=1650&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MSZwX3Byb2RzPTAmcF9jYXRzPSZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PSZw