Might be simple question for someone here to answer, but fear a can of worms.

Would a virus cause a network connection to connect then disconnect every say 20/30 seconds repeatedly?

Only seem to happen around this time of the day which is strange and only for a hour or so?

AVG and the latest Ad-Aware all come up clean?

Sorry not that good with PC’s.

😉

Depends on your system,but quite possible. Try a different virus scanner.

Thanks coffeeking, will do, any recommendations?

Have you tried pinging it?

If its a hard wired connection then probably a virus if it’s through a wireless router then your router is probably at fault or you are on the limit of the signal.

pinging it

I know that involves typing some numbers into the cmd prompt or what I used to call the dos prompt……

OK so I haven’t got a clue about pinging 😉

Is it a wireless network connection? Is it XP? Is it on a Thinkpad? If so I have spent flipping ages trying to get my fiancees laptop to hold a connection but it is on and off randomly. Never found a solution, just lot’s of others with the same problem and lots of mutterings about wireless and XP. If none of the above apply then ermm, sorry for wasting your time 🙂
If they do, double check for virus’s and then try not to worry if you cannot get rid of the annoying dialogue box as long as your machine is clean. It may never go away…

EDIT- bit like what jova54 said when I was typing.

EDIT 2- sigh, and you answered whilst I was editing… oh well, at least it is sunny 🙂

jova54, yes its hard wired, no wireless connection here yet..

to ping it youd need to do start>run>cmd
then
ping ip-address
where ip-address is the ip address of the computer in question, but you’d need to do it from another computer.

What is your internet setup like? Are you wireless or wired to your router/modem? Are any lights flashing/out on modem when it goes off that arent normally? Does the little two-computers icon on the taskbar change when it goes offline. how do you know its offline (sounds silly I know)

If Hard wired to the modem/router you want to check the router isnt falling over, then assume its a software/virus problem on the PC. Unless you have a dodgy network cable and/or a giant electromagnetic pulse generator near the cable 😀

And, if that doesn’t work, try bypassing the flux capacitor. That should do the trick.

are the good old flux capacitor, I new it was down to that! 😉

So, check list:

Ping IP address
Try a different virus software package
swap over the network cable with another one to eliminate that
Check the router is not burning out
flux capacitor – check 😉

Right that’s going to keep me busy for a bit, thanks for all the tips and advice folks, will work through the list and see where it takes me.

Runs off to nick a network cable from another PC ;-)…………

Sounds like you’re on a local network in an office not just connected straight to the modem.

In that case try changing the network cable and swapping to a different port on the router if you can identify which one is yours.

Same time every day? You’re in an office? Are you sure the cleaner isn’t running the vacuum cleaner off a power supply which is affecting power to the router? Go on – laugh. I’ve been there / done that. I was also involved in another investigation which involved an intermittent network problem. Turned out that a piece of flooring was flexing and this was rubbing against a network cable. This was in a Bank branch and we couldn’t work out why it only happened when the branch was open to the public…..