Frequent loss of contact with ISP

[Ned Harrison]

On Sunday 20 March 2005 09:55 pm, you wrote:
> Ned Harrison <ned.woody at cox.net> wrote:
> > I reciently upgraded my home computer to FreeBSD 5.3 p5.  Sense then I've
> > had minor problems connecting to my ISP.  During boot up it will
> > sometimes freeze at the line, "Configuring syscons: keymap blanktime." or
> > I'll lose contact with my ISP while sending an email or surfing the web. 
> > From an earlier posting to this forum I found that "Ctrl+C" will let the
> > system finishing the boot up.  Then I can easily connect to my ISP by
> > running "/etc/netstart" as root.
> >
> > Everything works fine at least for a while.  However, sooner or later
> > I'll lose the conection again.  I have not been able to discern a pattern
> > to the disconnects either.  Yet as soon as I run netstart again
> > everything works again.  It can be hours before I the lose the connection
> > or sometimes I'll lose the connection again within twenty minutes.   I've
> > searched for a permanent fix by looking throught this forum.  But I
> > havn't found anything yet.  Though that might be because I don't quite
> > know how to search! :-)
> >
> > I am a newbie using FreeBSD so any suggestions would be appreciated.
>
> Spend a little time in the /var/log directory and see if anything is being
> logged around the time you lose connection.
>
> Also, more clearly defining "lose connection" would help.  What does
> ifconfig say when the connection is up and when it's down?  The
> difference between those two outputs may lead you toward a solution.

Thank you for the suggestions.  I've scanned the log files and didn't see any 
unusual error messages.  But that could be because I don't know what to look 
for.  I've run FreeBSD for just about one year and had no Unix experience 
prior to that at all.  I jumped from Windows, where somebody did everything 
for me to, FreeBSD where I have to figure things out on my own with only 
hints and suggestions. (Honestly, I find it funner this way!)  I'll check to 
logs next time it goes down.

I copied the results from ifconfig when everything is working to a file.  As 
soon as I "lose the connection" I'll run ifconfig again.  

To get more defined regarding the loss of connection, it's almost as if I 
typed "ipfw flush" as root and cut myself down to the default "deny 
everything" rule.  Sent emails will set unprocessed in the queue, when 
attempting to download e-mail, K-mail will return an unknown host error 
message,  web browsers will either open to a blank white page or give me an 
invalid ULR error message.  It even went down while viewing a video on Xine.  
The video just stopped, then I got an "invalid host" error message.  As soon 
as I type /etc/netstart.  Boom! everythings up an running as if nothing was 
ever wrong.  

Thanks again for your suggestions.
Ned.