Verizon DSL Connection Problems

Question

Hello, I hope this is the right place to post this My problems all began after purchasing a brand new computer. My Verizon DSL service worked perfectly on my old machine (with Windows XP) but I'm sure part of this issue is that I now have Windows Vista.
When I first set up my new computer I quickly found that Windows Vista had a new "feature" of automatically identifying devices for you and installing the necessary things to make it work. To start with I cancelled the Windows prompts and figured I'd was suppoed to use the Verizon DSL disk, but it did not work. A little window would come up with a fancy Verizon graphic then it will close and say some file could not be found. I tried multiple times but the same thing occured so I followed the Windows Vista prompts which eventually connected me to the Internet! I searched online and found that the disk is not compatible with Windows Vista, or at least the disk I was using wasn't because it was created before Windows Vista was even released.
Anyway, the Internet worked fine that whole day and even the next but then my Internet connection started becoming unreliable. It will work perfectly for hours but then I will notice that a certain page isn't loading.
Sometimes if I press Refresh on that page a "Connect To..." dialog box will come up and if I hit 'Cancel' it will say that the page cannot be found. But then if I refresh again it will load correctly.
Other times it will not work at all. The icon in the System tray will tell me that I'm connected to the Internet but it will not work.
 And still other times a different prompt will come up asking for a username and password.
First off, I had multiple passwords for "verizon.net" another for "myverizon.net" another for "verizon email", etc. So I didn't know which one to use! I also didn't know if my username should include @verizon.net or @verizon.com or nothing at all after it! I tried every possible combination to no avail. After I enter a set a window will pop up saying "Connecting through WAN Miniport PPpOE" but then it will say the connection failed. Sometimes however it will say, "you are already connected to the Internet". But when I hit "start browsing the Web" nothing will load. Finishing today I have made all the passwords the same to ensure that is not the problem
I also tried "admin" and "password" which I found people mentioning online, but this always gives me "connection failed" messages, too.
Until I restart my PC nothing will work. If I shutoff the modem and turn it back on it will not work anymore regardless of if it was still working before. I have tried virtually everything before coming here -desperate! I have researched online and used every possible thing that comes up:
-Turning off modem for 30 seconds and then turning it back on
-Closing my firewall + Windows Firewall
-Shutting off virus program
-Shutting off virus program and firewall
-trying to setup a new connection
-running windows diagnostics:
it will either say there is no problem with my internet connection
or it will say something like "HTTP is not configured to access the server at HTTP://"
-disabling then re-enambling the integrated Network Card
- typing netsh winsock reset as an administrator into the command line and restarting
- typing netsh int ip reset as an administrator into the command line and restarting (this was the last thing I did and SO far so good...)
I have read online that the problem could be the modem so if I cannot get the issue fixed I will try to get a new modem from Verizon. Otherwise I am anxious to hear what input the users here can offer.
Some information on my computer that you might need:
Windows Vista Home Premium (Intel Core 2 Duo E8400)
Westell 6100 Modem (connected via Ethernet cable)
Realtek RTL8102/8103 Family PCI-E FE NIC
ZoneAlarm Free Firewall
AVG Anti-Virus Free
No wireless network devices (a printer is installed but it was installed after the problems appeared)
Thank you for reading and thank you in advance to anyone who can offer some insight into this problem.
Message Edited by lorddonk on 06-19-2009 10:57 AM
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Answer 1

  Your dBs appear to be good but your data transfers are woefully too low.
  dBs above 20 are great.  Data transfer should be well above 1000 but is only 864.  Enough to have communication, but not what you are paying to have.
  Your pings are in the hundreds - should be less than 100 ms. 
  However, when you did the traceroute, all pings were below 100 ms.   (BTW, routers involved in that connection included Newark, NYC, and Washington).
  Does that signal strength remain high or does it keep changing?  The fact that ping and traceroute had signficantly different numbers suggests your signals are coming on and going away.  If ping has long times, then tracerouter should show those same long times starting with the bad communication problem.
  Numbers suggest a problem between your modem and the DSLAM.  Normally bad communication is traceable to low signal strength.  You have good signal strength (when measured) but bad data rates.  Is that signal strength constantly changing?  Look for a pattern.  Signal strengths changing? How are those echo times changing? When signal timing is slowest, what server (connection)
is too slow?  Look for the pattern since it appears your problem is intermittent - or something else.