Every few hours my internet connection locks up.

At first I blamed the ISP, but now it seems the problem is on my PC.

I can either reboot the machine and all is well,

or a simpler solution is to disable the LAN connection to the router

and then enable it again.

This is a recent problem, one month at the most.

Has MS changed something.........

Most irritating to say the least.

Any ideas anyone??

I am using Firefox 2.0.0.13 but the lockup affects Eudora that I use for e-mail as well.

Started a few weeks ago for me.  Some where aboat the top of the hour every two hours it seems to lose the connection.  If you wait a while they re issue whats called the lease it starts again.  The fast way is to get dhcp to run or pump your ip.  I have a switch on my network I just turn it off and on again and it does a reconnect.  Only seems to effect port 80 or the browser. downloads seems to keep working, but it does drive one kind of nuts.  I am running linux but its happened in other os's so I don't think its your PC.  I am on ToT Ip Star 256k.  Could be a set up with the isp servers.

The fast way is to get dhcp to run or pump your ip.

How do I do that?

Yes I can confirm this with true business dedicated IP/ Even though my ip is supposedly long lease!

If your running xp open the connection box from the tray, and you have a botton to click that will run dhcp and redo the connection.  Sometimes its a icon of a pc or a card lower right. click on it then the tab can't miss it.  I could give a better discription but I haven't booted my xp few weeks.

You are not downloading a bunch of torrents are you? There is a real problem with many routers when too much activity (multi connections) takes place - there is another current thread here

"If your running xp open the connection box from the tray, and you have a botton to click that will run dhcp and redo the connection. Sometimes its a icon of a pc or a card lower right. click on it then the tab can't miss it. I could give a better discription but I haven't booted my xp few weeks. "

not sure if this is going to solve the issue at hand, as you seem to be talking about renewing the DHCP lease, which is done most easily by running the cmd command, and then ipconfig/release and ipconfig/renew, or just ipconfig/renew.

This will query the DHCP server and will get an ip address, assuming from the local router. If this solves the issue, it's indeed time to troubleshoot either the router or the pc.

I think your right.  I forgot about reading somewhere that it does not do a full release and renew.  At any rate it never did before a few weeks ago and my download habits are unchanged, but I have yet to see it again after last night or today.  Maybe ToT reads TV.  

Having too many torrents running does mess with your connection, I found that out.

I have ADSL and if I right click on the connection icon, mines a couple of little computers down near the clock, I get a menu with a repair option. This sometimes sorts things out for me.